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A Couple of Reports from Afghanistan

By Lt Col P

Our Man in the 'Stan, Agent 91, has rogered up lately with some good reports, in response to a discussion we've been having that was prompted by something I read in The Torch. Not sure we'll post on the original question per se, but it produced some excellent material.

Bottom line: Afghanistan has a long way to go, but there is real progress being made. (Like Ted Nugent would say, Where have we seen this before?) Nine steps backward, ten steps forward. In case you missed these articles...

Afghanistan 'a success story,' World Bank says ALAN FREEMAN
October 16, 2007

OTTAWA -- Economic and social conditions in Afghanistan have improved dramatically since the fall of the Taliban, despite continuing problems with security, corruption and the drug trade, according to the World Bank's top official responsible for the country.

"This is a success story," Alastair McKechnie, country director for Afghanistan at the World Bank, said in an interview yesterday. "Afghanistan has defied predictions and has achieved a lot in a short period of time."

Mr. McKechnie, in Canada for meetings with officials in Ottawa and a speech in Toronto, pointed to a series of positive indicators, including double-digit economic growth, an expanding road network, a surge in school attendance - particularly by girls - and a drop in infant mortality from 165 per 1,000 live births to 135 in 4½ years.

He said it is easy to get a negative view of Afghanistan if one focuses on the south and east of the country, where the insurgency is strongest. In two-thirds of the country, there is no insurgency and conditions are improving more quickly.

Some of the credit goes to the World Bank, which has committed $1.5-billion (U.S.) of its own money to the country and set up the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund, which has so far gathered $2.4-billion in pledges from two dozen countries.

This year's single top donor to the fund is Canada, with $211-million. Britain is second, with $145-million.

The Canadian money goes to a variety of projects and uses and is a major source of funding for the daily operations of the Afghan government, which still does not generate enough tax revenues to fund these activities on its own.

"Otherwise, teachers and health workers don't get paid," Mr. McKechnie said.

He conceded that much remains to be done in reducing corruption in the police and improving the functioning of the justice system.

Another challenge is to reduce the influence of the poppy trade. Afghanistan is estimated to furnish 93 per cent of the world's illegal opium supply, used in the manufacture of heroin, and opium production accounts for one-third of economic activity.

Even there, Mr. McKechnie said, the picture is not as bad as it seems, with only 4 per cent of the country's total arable land being cultivated with poppies and more provinces becoming poppy free.

To battle the opium trade, the most effective methods include the interdiction of traffickers, encouraging alternative cash crops such as grapes and appealing to the religious values of Afghans, he said.

And this, better still. Notice the pervasive theme of interagency cooperation and coordination.

A Haven of Prosperity in Afghanistan U.S. Building Effort Blooms in Panjshir
Media: The Washington Post
Byline: John Ward Anderson
Date: 29 September 2007

PARAKH, Afghanistan -- Slashed across the side of a rugged mountain like the sign of Zorro, the Z Road started as a simple $59,000 U.S. projectto put a radio tower atop a small peak in the Hindu Kush, so people in the remote Panjshir Valley could for the first time pick up commercial radio from Kabul, about 60 dusty, bone-jolting miles away.

After road crews conquered the mountain's 270-foot face last November,other forces took over. By the new year, private companies had extended the road to the next hilltop, two-thirds of a mile away and 640 feet higher, for a bank of cellphone towers. Then came another half-mile extension to the next peak for a TV tower, then plans for a wind farm and, last month, a series of switchbacks down the far side of the range to give villages in the next valley their first road to the outside.

This is the way reconstruction in Afghanistan was supposed to be. A little bit of U.S. pump priming, combined with profit motive and human need, would be harnessed by a grateful, liberated population to transform their lives and country. In the process, the people would become loyal allies in the fight against terror.

It hasn't always worked that way. Instead, Afghanistan is besieged by a growing insurgency that is shifting U.S. money and manpower from reconstruction to security, undermining vital road, electricity, school and other projects that are designed to extend the authority of the national government and win hearts and minds.

But in Afghanistan's famed Panjshir Valley -- a remote, sparsely populated mountain region that is almost entirely ethnic Tajik -- an unprecedented synergy among the local government, the people and U.S.soldiers has helped spark a development boom that is modernizing and transforming the valley, which became Afghanistan's 34th province three years ago. Underpinning it all is an unusual sense of calm that has come with the people's success in keeping the Taliban at bay.

Go read the rest. It's working, folks. It's working.

November 7, 2007 05:26 PM The Long War ~ VMI