So far most civilian aid to Afghanistan has been miserly and ineffective, compared to military costs. They have been aimed at contractor profits, to build substandard schools with no teachers and clinics with no doctors. You wake up one fine day and there is a school across the meadow. But you didn't get paid to help build it, and you still can't eat.
NATO has found something else out about simple income programs, paying men to clear irrigation ditches, improve dirt roads with shovels and gravel, or clear rubble from canals which lays exactly as it fell when the Soviets bombed it. It solves the security problem. NATO's General Chris Kolenda told the Army Times:
"I've seen time and again, when communities have sufficient support and leverage they just start kicking these guys [the Taliban] out of their local areas."
This turns "No development without security" on its head. The truth is, there can be no security without development. NATO is finding out that, in a land of mountain warriors where you get your first AK when you are 12, breaking the economic hold of the Taliban's $10 a day is often all that is necessary for insurgents to turn their guns the other way.
US soldiers have started using a term they picked up from the Afghans, the "upset brothers," upset because they have watched billions being squandered on showcase development, but their hungry lives never changed. After 2 years of WPA-type jobs the informal economy can stand on its own.
Afghans are very enterprising people. They don't need factories. They hacksaw an old Soviet shipping container in half and hang a curtain across the front for a door. Then you scrounge for old bicycle parts and you've got a parts store. But you need a few bucks to pay the guys doing the sawing, and for the new curtain, and for pegs, grease, and naval jelly.
And security is the by-product. What a deal! Colonel Kolenda, one of the many NATO officers who seems to have gone native judging by his nuanced understanding and admiring tones when speaking of Afghan society, tells the Army Times "The Afghans have this great saying -- "If you sweat for it, you protect it.'"
The legislation to make this happen is a fairly straightforward congressional appropriation, which pumps up what works: the National Solidarity Plan. Activists have been about the Capitol in DC talking to congress members about it. They have met with many offices who say they are behind it, but it takes the lead of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to make the $4 billion happen. "Anybody on the committee would be good," a staffer in Senate Appropriations told us, "Kerry, as chairman, is the key. With Kerry behind it, the appropriation request to support the policy will happen."
But John is hard to get hold of. We have called many times for an appointment, even with a foreign policy staffer, visited his office in DC, dropped off materials for the proper staffer, but no one ever calls you back. Worse, he is my own senator, and many of us are constituents.
Shucks, even a Texas congressman was ready to march down the hall to meet us about our proposal, being told we came all the way to DC and all, without an appointment, until he found out we weren't constituents, which is fine. He was ready to shake hands and give us our 3 minutes of face time, and make the big shots in the other room wait. No one was going to call him out of touch. We still had a nice talk with his staffer.
We know it's just crossed wires, John, we know you're a busy man. Perhaps input from other folks excited that there is a light at the end of the tunnel would help. The US can easily afford this, since it's what we spend anyway on bullets and bombs in 2 weeks. It could bring stability to Afghanistan, cut short a war, and save $9 billion a month for other purposes. It could save an awful lot of American and Afghan, lives. Tomorrow is the London Conference. This would be a perfect time to file the legislation. It would be fitting that a man whose remarkable career began with principled opposition to a war crowned it with a vital achievement which will stop one.
Please take the time to call Senator's Kerry's office, leave a message for him to "Please submit the Exit Strategy Appropriation proposed by Jobs for Afghans." Follow up with an email with this post copied-and-pasted and the link for this PRESS RELEASE. To his credit the Senator's general mailbox is accessible to anyone, not just constituents. Thank you.
(202) 224-2742 - Phone
(202) 224-8525 - Fax
The diarist represents Jobs for Afghans.
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