key members of the Afghan diaspora, including Hamid
Karzai, created a plan for the establishment of a
democratic regime. A first step was the nationwide grand
assembly, the Loya Jirga, which elected Karzai to lead the
interim government. Things were looking up for
Afghanistan. A majority of the Afghan people were longing
to leave the Taliban behind. The international community
thought that all that Afghanistan needed now was a large
infusion of foreign aid. Representatives from the United
Nations and several leading NGOs soon descended on the
capital, Kabul.
What ensued should not have been a surprise, especially
given the failure of foreign aid to poor countries and failed
states over the past five decades. Surprise or not, the usual
ritual was repeated. Scores of aid workers and their
entourages arrived in town with their own private jets,
NGOs of all sorts poured in to pursue their own agendas,
and high-level talks began between governments and
delegations from the international community. Billions of
dollars were now coming to Afghanistan. But little of it was
used for building infrastructure, schools, or other public
services essential for the development of inclusive
institutions or even for restoring law and order. While much
of the infrastructure remained in tatters, the first tranche of
the money was used to commission an airline to shuttle
around UN and other international officials. The next thing
they needed were drivers and interpreters. So they hired
the few English-speaking bureaucrats and the remaining
teachers in Afghan schools to chauffeur and chaperone
them around, paying them multiples of current Afghan
salaries. As the few skilled bureaucrats were shunted into
jobs servicing the foreign aid community, the aid flows,
rather than building infrastructure in Afghanistan, started by
undermining the Afghan state they were supposed to build
upon and strengthen.
Villagers in a remote district in the central valley of
Afghanistan heard a radio announcement about a new
multimillion-dollar program to restore shelter to their area.
After a long while, a few wooden beams, carried by the
trucking cartel of Ismail Khan, famous former warlord and
member of the Afghan government, were delivered. But
they were too big to be used for anything in the district, and