Comments on: That Damn Afghan Dam

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:51:48 +0000

Just isn’t true that the British press was silent/silenced about it. It was positively triumphalist.

By: R Scott

R Scott — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:06:48 +0000

Large projects like this allow the bureaucrats to state how much money they have spent of development work rather than focus on less costly projects that are difficult to put in the field like support for the long established cash crops that are still being cultivated…along with opium poppy…that the farmers would prefer; like cotton for which the British built a cotton gin in the 1960s that is still in operation but mostly unsupported.

At the time of the Soviets, the mujahadin left the Kajaki dam alone but took out the power lines, leaving Kandahar and Lashkar Gah in the dark. The Taliban put the power lines back in the lat 90s with the help of Turkmanistan and Pakistan. If the present “Taliban” want the new power source to remain isolated, when they finally get the turbines repaired and installed maybe next year, they will only have to take out the power lines, most of which have to be reinstalled. To guard the power lines across Helmand and Kandahar provinces would be the task to try to accomplish…not likely.

By: shohmurod

shohmurod — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

The dam is a fine idea a year from now after the Obama Administration sits with Taliban to make political reconciliation.

But right now, in fighting an enemy they hardly recognize, US/ISAF/NATO’s effort has become ad hoc at best due to the Bush Administration’s reluctance to make peace with the Taliban and end up with two losses in the legacy column.

Taliban are monsters, but we caused their creation. It is time to stop fighting them and start reigning them in for a long transformation into global neighbors.

I envision, five years from now, former Taliban men guarding the dam and working on running electricity lines to their villages.

“Thanks to President Hussein” as they might say!

By: Positroll

Positroll — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:02:47 +0000

“Other places in Helmand—Lashkar Gah, for example—have far bigger needs than a few more hours of electricity per day.”
Maybe. But if we ever want to see Afghanistan as a marginally functioning state, they’ll need enough electricity in the major cities so that businesses, factories, universities etc can work without importing tons of oil through Pakistan. In my view, that’s worth the effort, especially in order to show Pashtouns (sp?) that we don’t only care about development for the people in Kabul and the north.
Besides, giving up on the dam now would make the West look weak and unrelyable. We just can’t afford that.