November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

The Afghanistan Americans Seldom Notice

(Page 7 of 7)

March 2009
by Pratap Chatterjee 
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Most American taxpayer money is actually spent on the troops, not, of course, on poor Afghans. In fact, with Pentagon expenditures in Afghanistan running at about $36 billion a year, the annual aid allocation for the 387,000 people who live in Bamiyan Province is outstripped every single hour by the money spent on 30,000-plus American troops and their weaponry.

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It turns out the villagers of Dragon Valley have two problems that can't be overcome. They have neither the Taliban to fight, nor opium crops to eradicate.

Pratap Chatterjee is the author of Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War. He is the managing editor of CorpWatch. He traveled to Afghanistan with cameraman Ronald Nobu Sakamoto. To view three of Sakamoto's videos with Afghan scenes from 2002 and 2008 that vividly capture some of the experiences Chatterjee describes, click here.

Copyright 2009 Pratap Chatterjee

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