Post-War Aid Delayed
Promised aid from the U.S. for those with property damaged by the war in Afghanistan is slow in coming, reports the Washington Post. An excerpt: "Congress directed that an unspecified amount of money be spent to assist innocent victims of U.S. bombing in Afghanistan, just as it recently called on the Bush administration to identify and provide "appropriate assistance" to civilian victims in Iraq. But the money has not yet reached any of the intended recipients, U.S. officials acknowledged.
….
The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, had $1.25 million in last year's budget to help Afghan civilians who suffered losses as a result of U.S. military action, according to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. But the agency has not spent any of that money helping Afghans who had their relatives killed, their children maimed, their homes leveled or their livestock and livelihoods destroyed by American bombing, several U.S. officials in Afghanistan conceded this week."
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Maybe the payout should be in stock of Minderbinder Enterprises. Everyone has a share!
Shouldn't the Afghans just pull themselves up by their bootstaps? After all, when people end up in bad positions, it's their own fault.
Shouldn't the Afghans just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? After all, when people end up in bad positions, it's their own fault.
Part of the problem is that AID officials are scared to go outside their own compound.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0424-09.htm
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Mr. President, please attack Appalachia.
Strange comments here.
I wish those lazy ass Washington lawyers could get off their asses and figure out a way to get aid to these people. Jeez. At least this town will get taken care of by private citizens after this story, but come on. What are we paying these people for?!?!
Not USAID. It's pretty useless even by DC standards. I know--I used to work on a USAID contract for the DC office. I got to see how things looked both at home and out in the field, and it's ugly.
I shocked myself by finding out that Jesse Helms actually had a really good idea--just ditch the damn thing and replace it with a grant-making agency. The only thing I saw doing any good while I was there were grants given to existing NGOs (charitable organizations, for those not in on govspeak).
The rest of it was make-work for US contractors and ways to stroke the egos of government employees, especially those in the embassies.
It surprises me not a whit that actually getting money to disadvantaged people is so beyond their normal mode of operations that they can't do it when ordered.