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IPFS News Link • World News

How Not To Win Hearts and Minds in Africa

• http://original.antiwar.com

In fact, the U.S. military spent billions of taxpayer dollars in both Afghanistan and Iraq on nation-building infrastructural efforts of all sorts, and the Pentagon's Inspector General (IG) repeatedly reported on the failures, disasters, and boondoggles that resulted. In 2012, for instance, the IG found that of the $10.6 billion in Afghan funding it examined, $7 billion was "potentially wasted." And this has never ended. In 2014, the IG typically reported that "some 285 buildings, including barracks, medical clinics, and even fire stations built by the Army [in Afghanistan] are lined with substandard spray insulation so prone to ignition that they don't meet international building codes."

As of this year, more U.S. and NATO money had been "squandered" on the "reconstruction" of Afghanistan than was spent on the full post-World War-II Marshall Plan to put a devastated Europe back on its feet. And how has all that spending turned out? One thing is certain: those torrents of money helped create a devastating economy of corruption. As for reconstruction, the Inspector General found mainly "poor planning, shoddy construction, mechanical failures, and inadequate oversight."

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by PureTrust
Entered on:

How not to win? Let the medical and military stop this. We won't win any hearts and minds in Africa if we stop this.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jY2yab0uLc



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