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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (852)	12/20/2002 11:20:17 PM
From: Bill Ulrich	Respond to of 15987

Hi lorne, Specifically in the case of Afghanistan, we pretty much walked out when the Soviet issue was closed. And again to Afg, specifically, they weren't a religious dictatorship when we left. They were floundering in 20 directions. Regarding general aid, it should be done on a "project" method rather than just giving a suitcase of money. Want a free road and bridge? Okay, we'll build you a road and bridge. Just to be clear, I'm not a demo-lib who thinks we should flail away handouts for every cause that has a name. I'm well more on the conservative GOP side and quite supportive of our current efforts over there. I'm just looking at this from an accounting standpoint. Pretend that 15 years ago, you had the option of knowing that you could spend tens of millions on infrastructure then, or hundreds of millions on blowing them up now. Of course, you can't buy foresight. But you can buy the probability of better relationships. Do it with specific improvements rather than blanket money suitcases that get "misappropriated" by corrupt dictators.