LONG AND
WINDING ROADS
viewed by the population as reckless,
to the point of deliberate, carelessness
for Afghan civilian life.”
For development work itself, Gordon
continued, “The bigger problem was it
was very difficult to find evidence of how
effectively these things worked. You’ll
be talking to a development official, and
you find yourself thinking, ‘Well, this is a
well-meaning individual who risked his
life, has done brave and incredible things,
but to suggest that this was somehow going to solve these great political problems
was naive.’ In a sense, that was the great
tragedy of the project.”
Wilder agrees. “A lot of our aid has
had a very positive impact, and in terms
of promoting development objectives,
there’s a lot of evidence that aid spent
smartly can do a lot of good,” he said.
“But if your assumption is that it’s going
to have stability impact, then you’re setting yourself up to fail.”
Today, even as they worry about what
will happen when the U.S. withdraws,
Afghans remain deeply skeptical about
the Western effort in their country. Karzai’s government remains as corrupt as
ever. Only Myanmar, North Korea and
Somalia rank lower on Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception
Index. A $6 billion effort to combat narcotics growth and trade has had virtually
no measurable effect. The army and police forces are still struggl