How much more money are we going to spend on Afghanistan's infrastructure?

In my three tours to Afghanistan I noticed a disturbing trend. Some of the locations and types of projects we were funding and providing security for were peculiar. I began to wonder if we weren't building things to draw Taliban attacks to us. Here we are spending millions of dollars on a project the locals want (just not where or when we wanted to build it) and it seemed to get attacked while building or destroyed shortly after completion. If we truly are only there in an advisory capacity then why are we building anything? That time has past, whether a tactic of war or to truly beef up their infrastructure, which will only be owned by the Taliban eventually. They are like dandelions in your yard. As soon as you have them all gone, the seeds from the neighboring yards blow into yours and they're back.

You would think we have a never ending supply of disposable income.

We have to stop sending billions overseas. Remember that it is OUR money and tax dollars spent on infrastructure should be spent here as Gunny says above.

Disgraceful but then again, try to build it here in the US and all the tree hugging, "not in my back yard" protestors come out and make it impossible.

The best things to build in Afghanistan are the simplest, cheapest, and most helpful. Cisterns and water conservation projects are of great assistance to the local population, are very easy to maintain, and are difficult to demolish if the Taliban is feeling frisky. Problem is, they benefit the local insurgents as well. National-level projects like transmission lines and roads to nowhere are fool's errands.

At one time Afghanistan was moving into a modern world, then the extreme 5th century islamists took over.

I think the key phrase in that story was, "lit like it was in the 19th century." That's about where the Taliban and other such groups want it, although I'd modify that by saying they want things as they were in about the 14th or 15th century, if not earlier. Dependence begets servitude and when you have a populace pining for the days when the Taliban were in charge, there's something clearly very wrong.

It's a vicious cycle, to answer the original question: we can't stay there and hold their hands forever; and yet we're still in Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea after several decades. And you're right to point out that this is costing John Q. Citizen every day for benefits that seem, as best, like mixed blessings. And that's with money we really don't have, for the record.

On the other hand, if Afghanistan, particularly in the heart of Pashtun country, regresses to the way it was before OEF began, we'll be right back where we started in late 2001. If the Afghans could embrace the concept of federalism or some form thereof, maybe, just maybe, the internecine tribal and intra-tribal conflicts could be put to the side and they could harness mother nature's provisions instead of relying indefinitely on generators. Frankly, that seems like a long reach at this point.

Watch the movie "Charlie Wilson's war" with Tom Hanks and you will have a different prospective.

Check with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union.
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/86116:afghanistan-where-empires-go-to-die

What a great picture to show what a waste of money it probably will be.