“It’s been a year now, and this new government promised so many things, but it hasn’t fulfilled its promises. It’s not the fault of Hamid Karzai; it’s the fault of the countries who promised help and haven’t given the money,” Mohammad Azim ones complained. According to the international aid group CARE, Azim is right. Shortly after the United States and a coalition of other nations began their military campaign against the Taliban for protecting 0sama bin Laden and members of his terrorist group Al Qaeda, coalition members promised they would help rebuild Afghanistan when the war ended. On October 2, 2001, five days before coalition warplanes began bombing the countryside, Tony Blair, the prime minister of Great Britain, said, “To the Afghan people, we make this commitment: We will not walk away.” In April 2002, George W. Bush, made the same promise: “We will work to help Afghanistan develop an economy that can feed its people.” At a January 2002 conference in Tokyo, the United States, Great Britain, and other countries and organizations pledged to give $5.25 billion over the next five years to help Afghanistan rebuild.
But, according to CARE, that aid is coming too slowly. In its report “Rebuilding Afghanistan: A Little Less Talk, A Lot More Action,” CARE writes, “One year later, Afghans are waiting, and they are worded…. Those funding promises now look increasingly suspect.” According to CARE, only 52 percent of the $1.8 billion that was pledged for this year has been received. Most of that money has been used to feed and provide temporary shelter to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been streaming back to Afghanistan in hopes of finding a better life. Zia Modaressi recently returned to Kabul after living in Pakistan for 15 years to find iris former home a pile of bricks and rubble. “My father built this house 40 years ago, and I want to come back and share in rebuilding the country.
The Essay on Afghanistan Is One Country Affected War
Afghanistan is one country, which has suffered greatly at the hands of war. Afghanistan has been hit hard by every possible catastrophe in the last twenty years? displacement, economic deterioration, sanctions, border controls, increased poverty and now one of the worst droughts that the world has ever seen. Such a combination of disasters would destroy any country. After the end of the Russian ...
But salaries are low, and rents are very high. There is no place to start.” Helping Afghanistan rebuild is crucial to ensure that the country won’t again plunge into civil war or fall into the hands of another radical group like the Taliban. After the defeat of the Soviet Union (see Time Trip), Afghanistan’s many ethnic factions battled for control. The country soon fell into a bloody civil war that led to the Taliban’s rise. To improve conditions, U.S. troops in Afghanistan will shift their focus toward more humanitarian assistance. There are currently about 8,000 U.S.
troops in Afghanistan. Their primary role has been to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban forces hidden in the more remote regions of the country. Though most U.S. troops will continue that mission, the U.S. Central Command plans to send several hundred soldiers to assist in constructing roads, building schools, and repairing water systems. Last month, Karzai took something of an initiative against the warlords when he announced the creation of a national army that his government hopes will supersede the warlords’ authority. Given the warlords’ continued power, it is anyone’s guess whether Karzai’s government will have the strength to enforce the ban against local militia forces. For its part, the United States has denied that its on-going military efforts in Afghanistan include resolving disputes between warring factions.
B-52 bombings in western Afghanistan in early December, U.S. officials said, were due to attacks on U.S. special forces in the region and had nothing to do with fighting between forces loyal to Ismail Khan, the governor of Herat province and an ethnic Tajik, and Amanullah Khan, a rival war lord who is Pashtun..
