Afghanistan: Whats new and whats old?

Secretary of State Rice, our naive civil-rights activist,was recently in Afghanistan. She was praising the seeds of democracy that had been planted by the American invasion over 3 years ago. But these seeds are having trouble sprouting. The parliamentary elections are being delayed yet again until 2006-2 years after the original election date. The problem continues to be the disarming of 100,000 members of private militias. Why would any militia disarm? Even Americans have" the right to bear arms". Afghanistan is being occupied by 18,000 American troops. Any disarming would invite the occupying forces to stay. Another little known fact that is an obstacle to the elections is 28% of the voters are illiterate. How will these voters know what or who to vote for unless it is explained face to face-a challenging task.

America's mission has expanded yet again-spraying poppy crops with powerful herbicides to destroy the source of opium. With the fall of the Taliban, opium the main cash crop that equals Afghanistan's GDP has made a comeback. But spraying poppy crops can be sloppy. People,animals,staple crops and water supply are collateral damage.

In many ways Afghanistan is becoming another Colombia. Plan Colombia is more than 5 years old and has cost the U.S. about $5 billion. America spends about $1 billion per month in Afghanistan-$36 billion year to date.

Secretary Rice's 7 hour meeting with President Karzai in Kabul on March 17, 2005 was indeed most expensive in preparation with little to show from results.