Can't We Do Anything Right?

Incompetence, malfeasance and blaming others. Why am I not surprised?

A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks: "The need is great. By the time the Taliban fell, decades of fighting had damaged or destroyed eight out of 10 Afghan schools, leaving half of all school-age children with no access to education. Four out of five adult women were illiterate. Health conditions ranked among the world's worst, with a life expectancy of 43 years. One in four babies died before turning 1.

'People need these clinics, and right now they are angry about it,' said Azizullah Safar, a health director in northern Afghanistan. 'People come to me and tell us, 'You cheated us. You took our land and there is no clinic.'

'Tell the Americans that the money they would otherwise be spending on their children and their schooling, that has been sent to the Afghan people-- it has been wasted.'

USAID officials pointed out that working in Afghanistan is a difficult and perilous job. Some construction sites are in remote areas, where materials and skilled workers are scarce. Security is a constant concern, they said, noting that workers have been kidnapped and killed while the buildings have been rocketed and burned."

Every day that goes by there is more bad news about our "war on terror". There seems to be the same amount of success as the "war on error". A miserable failure. So what else is new? Three years after supposed success it is still too dangerous to work in the country without being kidnapped or killed, poor housing and schooling, crappy medical services, etc. We just love to come in to a place, blow things up in the name of democracy and peace, destroy the infrastructure and screw up the rebuilding. How did we improve these peoples lives?

No wonder they are freely electing members of the Taliban to office. At least they keep their word.