(Picture from Tony Pierce)

From the Sunday Times out of London this week comes a piece by Fariba Nawa on how the West has come up quite short of its goals in Afghanistan:

The excitement and hope Afghans had when the US-led coalition entered the country have faded. The mood on the streets is tinged with resentment towards foreign companies, NGOs and western governments, for the vast amounts spent on reconstruction with so little to show. The perception is that these companies and their Afghan counterparts are reaping big profits for bad work. Many Afghan and foreign-aid workers, military and government officials agree that the Taliban have taken advantage of the public distrust and gathered support. And it doesn't help that aid money pays Afghan soldiers about £37 a month, while the Taliban are able to pay their fighters about £108.

The Senlis Council, a European think-tank working in Kabul, stated in a report last month: "Afghans are starving to death, and there is evidence that poverty is driving support for the Taliban." It highlighted the fact that 10,000 Afghans in the south have been displaced by poverty and violence and are living near rivers in unregistered, makeshift camps. The report also blamed the instability on too much military spending and not enough on development. Military operations totalled £44.4 billion since 2002, the report said, compared with £3.9 billion spent on development and reconstruction.

Afghanistan was sold as a success story. Last year, Tony Blair hailed military and reconstruction efforts: "The military operation is fantastic - the Taliban is no more. Now it's victory, and the Afghans and their children can go home," he said. But today, western and Afghan government officials admit the rise in the drug trade and the upsurge in violence - suicide bombings are up 600% on last year - are the results of attempting to rebuild Afghanistan on the cheap and failing. "The Taliban and their supporters are exploiting the discontent among the poor people who waited for their lives to improve, and nothing happened," said General Abdul Manan Farahi, the director for counterterrorism in the Afghan government.

Elsewhere, a British general calls the war in Afghanistan 'cuckoo',
Canadians protest, news that Karzai will negotiate with the Taliban, while some Muslims living in the West praise the efforts of militants in the country.

More on Afghanistan at some of these blogs: Point of View, Hyposmics,
Watandost,
and John Murney.