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Who is mainly to blame for so many Disastrous Mistakes in Afghanistan?
Grim picture of Afghanistan reconstruction
Posted from cnn.com
Afghanistan
Warfare
Taliban
Money
CNN
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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Me and CPT Meza, here on RP, were one of many project officers in Afghanistan. We did out best but there is corruption, opium-Taliban influences and influence by Iran in the West that makes it harder to make things better after fighting since 1979.
I think there is a lot of wealth in Afghanistan. Iran and China are mining minerals like Uranium and other things. This country has suffered so much. Some villages have kids that speak English(they were taught by adult Afghans) and who want to be more western. There is no easy answer. I lost my 1SG to this unique country. Good thing we have not left like we did Iraq otherwise ISIL would be established there too.
http://projects.latimes.com/wardead/name/blue-c-rowe/
I think there is a lot of wealth in Afghanistan. Iran and China are mining minerals like Uranium and other things. This country has suffered so much. Some villages have kids that speak English(they were taught by adult Afghans) and who want to be more western. There is no easy answer. I lost my 1SG to this unique country. Good thing we have not left like we did Iraq otherwise ISIL would be established there too.
http://projects.latimes.com/wardead/name/blue-c-rowe/
The Times collects the stories of California servicemembers who died during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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CPO (Join to see)
Sir, I understand as I was in IRAQ as NCOIC for USACE GRD Iraq. We had similar problems but on Shia/Sunni level and government being corrupt. On the construction side that is one reason I was assigned that job. One of my NEC's (Navel enlisted code) is Construction Quality Control Inspector. The big thing there and Afghanistan (I deployed there after my 1 year tour in Iraq and deployed AFG on my Seabee side) was the construction material is often faked or lower quality and it is hard to spot unless you know what your looking for and being on project site during certain phases is hard to do. They place concrete and tell you it passed and also give you the paper work that states it passes 3,000 or 4,000 psi and unless you have your labs do the test it is hard to tell. The electrical is the big problem and safety issue. As for my Seabee side in Afghanistan we had hard time also. The big thing was trying to train them and contractors brining fake material also. We worked for the SOTF so when we needed American quality materials we were able to have them brought in on purple flights. I like both countries and am upset when I see Iraq going to waist and lost one of my OIC's Navy CEC Commander working for USACE in Iraq also.
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LTC (Join to see)
CPO (Join to see) - Good point.I had my CERP work QC'd by a NAVY LT. Commander/S3 who went with my SSG/E-6 of my section who also was a contractor stateside. I figured they bought cement from Iran, 60km away since we were that close and Herat, a border town, was where we think much of it came from. We were told to help pay the contractors 10% at a time thinking this would help the Afghan (actually the Iranian) economy.
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LTC (Join to see)
SPC Andrew Griffin - It is very similar in Iraq and very clan like except that there was once a million Catholics/East Orthodox a decade ago. Now I bet they fled to Turkey or other parts of Europe.
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Afghanistan had a King until he was overthrown in the 1970s. This picture was taken of Afghan college women in the early 1970s. The same styles in Iran before the revolution in 1979.
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