Local villagers receive humanitarian aid from the Bagram Provincial Reconstruction Team in the village of Nijrab in the Kapisa Province of Afghanistan, Jan. 14, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Tyffani L. Davis The Smart Money in Afghanistan -- Washington Post
KABUL -- The scene is a small textile factory in a new industrial park on the outskirts of Kabul; the characters are an Afghan businessman, his American partner and a USAID official, the latter straight out of central casting: flustered, important, accompanied by gun-wielding bodyguards. She speaks of the U.S. Agency for International Development's plans for "small and medium-sized enterprise development," lauds the USAID-funded industrial park and alludes to the "$5.4 billion" the agency has spent in Afghanistan since 2002. She hands out an expensive-looking, glossy USAID brochure that describes, among other things, the goal of our meeting: "to show international media opinion leaders that progress is being made in economic growth in Afghanistan."
Unfortunately, the factory is half-empty that day: Prices for fuel and other inputs are so high in Kabul that no textile business can compete with those in India or Pakistan. The factory depends on Afghan army uniform orders, which come in irregularly. So does the fabric to make them, since the customs bureaucracy is still plagued by corruption and inefficiency. When the USAID official starts listing the assistance given to the Afghan customs service -- this includes training for officials, construction of border posts, even gifts of uniforms -- the American partner shrugs, unimpressed. "It would be good to move forwards instead of backwards," she says. "There's never any follow-through." Afterward, the Afghan businessman confides that he has been robbed by the police. It isn't the Taliban that Afghan entrepreneurs fear; it is their own government, corrupted by international money and now infiltrated by criminal networks, too.
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My Comment: I do not know where to begin. With no accountability you will always end up with corruption and a disaster in the making. The failure of administrating and distributing assistance in Afghanistan will result in hunger and maybe starvation in some parts of the country. This is probably the best recruiting tool that the Taliban have.