The hardest part to swallow is the complete lack of empathy, or even attempts at it, to understand how the Afghans live and what would actually help them recover. Instead, they throw money and “this-works-for-the-US” solutions at everything. No wonder it was a disaster 🤦🏻♀️
Alexa, I agree completely. Before I even read the whole article, I figured the main reason for failure would be the US government’s inability to listen to and cooperate with a totally different culture. It’s a shame because, spent the right way, so much more could be done with so much less. Of course our government doesn’t listen to the US Aid and other workers who actually live there and have a better understanding.
oh my gosh, right! It's baffling, and a sad example of how our government operates just by doing things the way they always have. It's so broken. Imagine what good could have been done with that money if someone bothered to listen, uf.
I actually really enjoyed slow-skimming this without any of the interactive stuff. It’s the quotes that are the bombshells. Like this:
“Why did we think providing electricity to communities in Kandahar who had no concept of what to do with it would convince them to abandon the Taliban?”
The first few paragraphs put the scope of this failure in perspective. We should all be reading up on Afghanistan.
Yikes. What a mind-numbing amount of waste.
The hardest part to swallow is the complete lack of empathy, or even attempts at it, to understand how the Afghans live and what would actually help them recover. Instead, they throw money and “this-works-for-the-US” solutions at everything. No wonder it was a disaster 🤦🏻♀️
Alexa, I agree completely. Before I even read the whole article, I figured the main reason for failure would be the US government’s inability to listen to and cooperate with a totally different culture. It’s a shame because, spent the right way, so much more could be done with so much less. Of course our government doesn’t listen to the US Aid and other workers who actually live there and have a better understanding.
oh my gosh, right! It's baffling, and a sad example of how our government operates just by doing things the way they always have. It's so broken. Imagine what good could have been done with that money if someone bothered to listen, uf.
What an unimaginable amount of waste. Absolute must-read.
PS: The article text and pictures should now be formatted perfectly on iOS as long as your app is up to date (current version is 5.3)!
so beautiful (the new formatting, not the unimaginable amount of waste)
Whoa.
I actually really enjoyed slow-skimming this without any of the interactive stuff. It’s the quotes that are the bombshells. Like this:
The first few paragraphs put the scope of this failure in perspective. We should all be reading up on Afghanistan.
Obama, wtf. :(