U.S. aid to Afghanistan exceeds Marshall Plan in costs, not results

[unhappycamper]

Last edited Sat Aug 2, 2014, 11:59 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-afghanistan-us-aid-outlook-20140731-story.html



Kabul has been rebuilt since this photograph was taken less than two weeks after the Oct. 7, 2001, U.S.-led invasion. But corruption and other problems have damped any democratic returns on the $104-billion U.S. investment in the country.

U.S. aid to Afghanistan exceeds Marshall Plan in costs, not results
By Carol J. Williams
7.31.2014

The United States has now spent more on the reconstruction of Afghanistan than it did on the Marshall Plan that lifted Western Europe from the ruins of World War II. But it can expect far less return on its investment in the still-unstable Central Asian nation, a Pentagon auditor reports.

Afghanistan is mired in political crisis and will remain dependent on foreign donors, primarily the United States, for years to come, writes John F. Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in his latest quarterly report to Congress.

U.S. spending on the Afghanistan nation-building project over the last dozen years now exceeds $104 billion, surpassing the $103.4 billion current-dollar value of Marshall Plan expenditures, which helped rebuild European nations after World War II. The spending helped a vanquished Germany emerge as the economic engine of Western Europe.

"SIGAR calculates that by the end of 2014, the United States will have committed more funds to reconstruct Afghanistan, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it spent on 16 European countries after World War II under the Marshall Plan," says the report.

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So our Afghanistan adventure (reconstruction costs only) cost more than the Marshall Plan OR our NASA program to put a man on the moon.

To put that in context, the F-35 program is FOUR TIMES THAT 100 BILLION DOLLARS.

Stealth destroyers now cost at least $5.5 billion a pop.

Our latest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford will cost somewhere between $16 to $40 BILLION DOLLARS.

[pscot]

1. It's a pity there's no way

to get an aircraft carrier to Kabul.