A note to General David Petraeus and Obama: the offensive taking place to push the Taliban out of Helmand Province will fail unless there is a cash component to the economic strategy.  

Rewind.  The audacious, and in some ways brilliant, deployment in Afghanistan of 4000 Marines to "clear, hold, and build" has some merit.  No one likes the Taliban, and this will give the population some breathing room to escape their grip.  But no one is talking to the Americans because they are afraid we will soon leave, and the Taliban will return to settle up scores.  The danger is that the "hold and build" part of the operation will be a repeat of the practice of dropping schools and bridges all over where no one wants them or needs them, when what people really need is enough to eat, and a way to turn down the Taliban's $8 a day wage when they return after the troops are gone.  

Cash is easy to hide and hard to trace.  Anyone who accepts a school, bridge, or or other highly-visible American project is likely to have their village slaughtered before winter.

To my knowledge no kind of cash-for-work projects are planned, and its important because, if this offensive doesn't succeed, we are back to square one and looking at another 10 year quagmire from which we will never pull out.  There will be the real threat of a Taliban takeover, because of a vulnerable population with 40% unemployment and millions of young men who of necessity will take the Taliban's poppy money (they control the trade) to attack government and foreign targets.  Another trillion dollar war. There goes our healthcare.  There goes renewable energy jobs programs for us.  War is the killer of all progress, hopes, and dreams.

I'm going to say something revolutionary here, but carefully considered: of all the conflicts in the world, this may be the only one where if you dropped dollar bills over villages from helicopters (a dollar is often a day's wage for 12 hours of hard labor here), it would have a distinctly positive impact on security.  Those dollars would be squirreled away for food for the brutal upcoming winter, and put a brake on young men rushing to the Taliban just because they need the money.  

The Pentagon knows it.  Col. Tom Collins, the top Pentagon spokesman in Afghanistan, told PBS:

    "There is a low percentage of the total Taliban force who we would call ideologically driven. We refer to them as Tier 1 people who believe their ideology, that what they're doing is right. The vast majority of Taliban fighters are essentially economically disadvantaged young men."

And General Karl Eikenberry, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, told Congress in 2007:

       "Much of the enemy force is drawn from the ranks of unemployed men looking for wages to support their families"

Why then is USAID, the "hold and build" part of the operation, announcing that

USAID plans to launch a new program in Afghanistan which will implement civilian-run stabilization projects in targeted areas, primarily during the clear and hold phases of counterinsurgency (COIN)...USAID...will manage an operational platform and an in-kind small grants mechanism aimed at promoting the objectives described above.

"in-kind small grants mechanism" means stuff, not money, that the Taliban can ferret out and punish you for.  It would be different if they were talking about paying Afghan crews cash to repair their own roads or dig their own ditches, but that's not how this reconstruction has worked, which is why we are in this fix.  They will bring in Bobcats and bulldozers leased from Halliburton to put it all in place, at a tidy profit, with Afghans standing back looking at their new road, as hungry as ever.  The UN reports that nearly 40% of all Afghans do not meet the minimum daily calorie requirement for prevention of malnutritition.  The upshot?  We're not going to shoot our way out of this.  And we're not going to Halliburton our way out of it either.

War is too important to be left to generals and politicians.  The people whose money it sucks up and whose children it kills have to take charge.  Do something patriotic this 4th of July weekend.  Tell them how to stop a war.  It's not their money they are playing with, it's yours.  Cut and past and forward this to the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  We will soon find out what kind of Commander-in-Chief Obama is.

LINK TO CONGRESS EMAILS.   LINK TO EMAIL WHITE HOUSE.

The diarist is the co-founder of Jobs for Afghans.

Man begging in street in Kabul
Jobs for Afghans.

Film-maker Robert Greenwald ("Iraq for Sale") continues to work tirelessly to bring us the truth behind the Supplemental War Appropriations bill, now in the hands of the Senate.  It's often at the risk of journalists getting Predator-droned themselves, as they ride in cars around the countryside chasing the story the TV news won't tell.  Afghanistan is already being called a "Democrat's war," and Republicans are gleefully helping Obama to walk into his own trap.  If they can blame last year's financial crisis on Barney Frank and Democrats when Obama wasn't even in charge, they can sure blame a war gone bad on them when he is.

The heavy lifting is being done by Rahm Emmanual, whose party loyalties have always been suspect.  His party is MIC, military-industrial complex.  Beyond that it really doesn't matter to him who is in charge.  

How can we support the troops?  By:

-- Not playing the Taliban's game of whack-a-mole, which results in the civilian casualties they are looking for in order to turn the population against us.  It's not easy, because the Taliban is unpopular.

-- Keep troops largely to bases for the next year, since the only times the bombs drop is when small units are outnumbered, and only indiscriminate bombing can stop them from being over-run.  Put the lion's share of the Supplemental Appropriation toward civilian aid projects, where people can come work and collect a wage, and the Taliban will become irrelevant.  

-- Freeing up the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) from rules prohibiting any kind of cash on the battlefield, including Afghanis (Afghan currency.)  This is needed for commanders to have the freedom to create make-work projects for Afghanistan's 40% unemployed, and to pay young men in cash since there are no banks or ATMs in the sticks, where the jobs are needed most.  No greedy young captain is going to try to convert 100 G's in Afghanis to dollars, since it would look mighty suspicious.  It was a couple of these scandals in Iraq which caused congress to throw out the baby with the bath water. Petraeus himself says out here "money is ammo."

VOTE NO ON THE WAR SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL IN THE SENATE UNTIL IT INCLUDES A PLAN FOR WINNING, EXIT STRATEGY AND CIVILIAN AID.  THIS IS JUST A PLAN FOR LOSING

Senate numbers, email them the video link to Democratic members so they can have a taste of the campaign ads the Republicans will be running against them.  They will say "I was just giving YOUR commander in chief what he wanted, and he botched it."  (Now that would take gall.  Do you doubt they have it?):

Your Senators here (enter zip code):
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

"we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex" Dwight D. Eisenhower

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With Taliban looking on approvingly, these tearful children in Afghanistan swear that they will now be suicide bombers after losing people they love in the only thing that more war funding gets you: More war.  Film-maker Robert Greenwald  ("Iraq for Sale") urges us to keep calling the swing Democrats in the War Supplemental up for a vote, as we are now just three short of sending it back to the drawing board, for an exit strategy and a renewed focus on civilian aide rather than bombs for Afghans.

No one deserves this, and yes the Taliban plays it to its advantage.  That's why they look so happy in this video.  Greenwald points out, more bombs are not going to address 40% unemployment, and a rampant picking-through-garbage-for-food scale of poverty. U.S. Generals and command staff in Afghanistan are desperate for more jobs on the ground, to keep young men paid and tired and not fighting for the Taliban's $8 a day, since they are the ones who have to ride out in helicopters and apologize for the bombs falling in the wrong place.

They feel terrible, the pilots feel terrible, the soldiers on the ground feel terrible.  But the Taliban has a bullet-proof strategy.  Create more and more kids like this, swearing vengeance, and their little insurgency takes off nicely.  Pretty soon the Taliban won't even have to pay most of the kids to fight, like they do now.  They'll do it for free.  From a paid insurgency we are obliging the Taliban in helping to create their dream: a generation of true haters, who will kill any Americans they see.  They will be taught who pays for these bombs.

The Taliban wants desperately for people to hate Americans, because people already hate the Taliban, what with the cutting off of hands and all that Afghans well remember.  Why do we have to make their job so easy?

Where is Obama on this?  I daresay if he tacked on an exit strategy without being forced to he would be savaged from the right for surrendering.  It's up to us.  I recall an idealistic presidential candidate telling us to stand up for our convictions.  I daresay, even if it costs him more time on the War Supp Bill and another vote, he would be proud of us.  

Here are the key hold-outs.  It's easier than ever to call them, HERE, with this automated dialer and quick script.  It dials the swing votes in random order so even if you only get through a few, it is very effective.  VOTE NO ON THE WAR SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL.  EXIT STRATEGY AND CIVILIAN AID.

Peace.

   Leaning No:

 1.  Steve Cohen
  2. Keith Ellison*
  3. Chakah Fattah
  4. Mike Honda
  5. Doris Matsui*
  6. Ed Markey*
  7. Jim McDermott*
  8. Gwen Moore
  9. Jared Polis*
 10. Jan Schakowsky*
 11. Jackie Speier
 12. Mike Thompson*
 13. John Tierney
 14. Mel Watt*
 15. Anthony Weiner

Undecided:
  1. Andre Carson
  2. Donna Christenson
  3. Jim Cooper
  4. Danny Davis
  5. Bill Delahunt
  6. Al Green
  7. Phil Hare
  8. Maurice Hinchey
  9. Paul Hodes
 10. Carolyn Maloney
 11. Jim Moran
 12. Grace Napolitano
 13. Donald Payne
 14. Charles Rangel
 15. Laura Richardson
 16. Linda Sanchez
 17. Bobby Scott
 18. John Tanner
 19. Ed Towns
 20. Peter Welchs

With the Iraq-Afghanistan War Supplemental Appropriations Bill meeting a surprisingly high level of resistance and weekend voice-mails flooding fence-sitters, it could be coalitions like U.S. Labor Against the War which pushes the sudden show of people-power against the war over the top.  A cursory look at major contributions from just one brother/sisterhood, the international electrical workers, (IBEW) shows that labor is a major supporter of many fence-sitters in this vote, of which just four more are needed to vote "no" to send the war bill back to the drawing board:

Mike Thompson (D-Calif)   $9,500
Keith Ellison (D-Minn)    $8,000
Artur Davis (D-Ala)       $5,000
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)  $5,000
Jackie Speier (D-Calif)   $2,500
Keith Ellison (D-Minn)     $1,000

U.S. Labor Against the War declares:

Congress may vote this week to authorize an additional $100 billion for continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Resistance to this appropriation has been growing.  The 51 members of the House, who voted "No" the first time around because of their opposition to the wars, have become more influential.  They need our support to continue building the antiwar bloc in Congress.  If you have not yet called your member of Congress and Senators this week, please do so today!

USLAW then gives the congressional switchboard toll-free number to call: (866) 261-4755, or 202-224-3121.  However, you should take a minute to try out this great new tool, a virtual phonebank, to leave messages for congressmen here.  Basically it looks up and dials the number for you so you can focus on what you want to say.  If you are a union member against the wars, by all means point out labor's past support for the congressmember and express that the time has come to stop continuing the policies of George W. Bush which have made is less safe, which have cost us enormous prestige, and which continue to ruin the lives of young soldiers like Trevor Hogue ("Fifteen Months After Bloodbath in Iraq, Young Veteran Takes His Life.")  You cannot read this piece without feeling a sense of enormous loss and waste.

A New Approach to Afghanistan: Troops Out, Jobs In for Peace

The war in Afghanistan is driven primarily by economics and a 40% unemployment rate, not ideology or any overwhelming hatred of Americans. The Taliban pays $8 a day to its insurgent fighters, and too often it's the only job in town.

It doesn't matter you talk to, former Mujihadeed, former Taliban, Afghan government officials, ISAF command staff, or Special Forces soldiers. The degree of consensus that lack of jobs was at the core of the insurgency is remarkable.

With a works program centered around jobs which pay $5 a day, this war is a tragedy which can be avoided. The entire cost of such a program would amount to less than ten percent of what Congress is intending to spend on the military occupation, which will buy only more civilian casualties and a real rise in anti-American sentiment.

In your phone message to the fence-sitters, please consider the message "troops out, jobs in, in Afghanistan."

AFL-CIO President George Meany started out a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War.  When he turned against it, it was arguably the beginning of the end.  In the beginning Meany meant to show that the US labor movement was not to be confused with communism and lack of patriotic loyalty.  As time went on, it was the children of his rank-and-file, city-based blue collar workers who were dying in the rice paddies at the same rate as farm boys from Nebraska.  U.S. labor has power.  U.S. labor has muscle with Democrats.  Let it be the force which stops these tragedies.

"Fifteen Months After Bloodbath in Iraq, Young Veteran Takes His Life."

Something happened to Hogue, though, in the weeks before his death, loved ones said. He seemed to have achieved some kind of peace. He rode his bicycle, hung out with friends, played his guitar. "He seemed like the old Trevor," his mother said. "Normal as can be."  Perhaps, his sister Tracey said, he was at peace because he had finalized the decision to take his life.

Key Hold-outs (citizen's whip count at FireDogLake)

Leaning No:

 1.  Steve Cohen
  2. Keith Ellison*
  3. Chakah Fattah
  4. Mike Honda
  5. Doris Matsui*
  6. Ed Markey*
  7. Jim McDermott*
  8. Gwen Moore
  9. Jared Polis*
 10. Jan Schakowsky*
 11. Jackie Speier
 12. Mike Thompson*
 13. John Tierney
 14. Mel Watt*
 15. Anthony Weiner

Undecided:
  1. Andre Carson
  2. Donna Christenson
  3. Jim Cooper
  4. Danny Davis
  5. Bill Delahunt
  6. Al Green
  7. Phil Hare
  8. Maurice Hinchey
  9. Paul Hodes
 10. Carolyn Maloney
 11. Jim Moran
 12. Grace Napolitano
 13. Donald Payne
 14. Charles Rangel
 15. Laura Richardson
 16. Linda Sanchez
 17. Bobby Scott
 18. John Tanner
 19. Ed Towns
 20. Peter Welch

There is no Taliban

It's an extraordinary statement, but people here believe it's true.  That's not to say men aren't fighting for the Taliban, they are.  But it's not because they are Taliban.

An illustration is best.  Take Dani, not his real name, a man of about 40, with a wide smile and an engaging manner full of warmth and kindness.  Before the Taliban, he was with the Mujihadeen, as a young commander fighting against the Soviets.  When the Taliban came in, he grew his beard, and was a top Taliban commander.  Now that the the Taliban has fallen, hecut his beard again and is with the Afghan National Army.  Afghan Army pay is $150 per month, or about $7 a day.  Where the job is, that's where he'll go.  He doesn't care much about politics.  But he's the only breadwinner for his family in a place where family, extended family, is everything.  Your cousin is like your brother.  If he dies, you can no longer watch his children starve than you can your own.

During the reign of the Taliban, 100% of Helmand Province was Taliban.  Now, they are flocking to the city for jobs with the ANC.  One thing we know is that the rural population of Helmand was not suddenly replaced with new people in the space of a few years.  They are the same people.

Dani's story is not an exception.  It is the rule.  The Taliban is a construction made up 90% of hungry men with hungry families looking for the only job they can get, in whatever army is in power, whether the Taliban or the one financed by Uncle Sam.  But for the black eyes and black hair, the youth and open expressions on most of their faces say they could be American mountain men in Appalachia, tough mountain men that is, who have come here to take the only job in the country for farmboys with no skills, except knowing how to fight.  The only other job is joining the Taliban, which pays $8 a day.

It's hard to go more than 50 to 100 yards in any direction without seeing a man or men with an automatic weapon, the ANC sporting nice new American weapons, and security guards hefting whatever beat-up looking AK-47 your dad or grandpa handed down to you.  I'd have more photos of men with rifles for you, but some don't take to having their pictures taken, and pointing a camera is a good way to get shot. It's understandable.  They aren't trying to be mean, but being with the government can mark you for death.  The rule is: ask first.

Positive meetings all around today, with startling agreement all around that unemployment is the number one problem driving the insurgency.  This came from non-governmental organizations, military officials,  and government departments alike.  Spend one-tenth of the appropriation on the military for a $10 a day wage, public works program instead, and chances are the insurgency will melt away.  The problem isn't implementation.  The problem is political will, most of which the difficulty believing anything like this could work.  It's too easy.

It's like a man locked up for 30 years turning around and seeing the prison door standing wide open.  It doesn't compute.  It's a trick.  So he'll stand there, not walking out, now successfully imprisoned by his own mind.  We are in a mental prison that tells us war is necessary.  That's what we've been told. I had to come here and see it for myself, and if I thought this was an unnecessary war before, I think it tenfold now.  

These guys with guns are country bumpkins with simple faces and ready smiles, until they are locked in a firefight, when they are fearless, skilled fighters.  I don't see why we wouldn't want to spend a few billion to give them $10 day day jobs clearing trash, which would make them love us.  I hear it over and over.  Instead, we're running up civilian casualties (which the leadership of what calls itself the Taliban, which most people around call "the nuts,") plan deliberately to radicalize the countryside.  

Our hosts are an amazing story, which I will share more fully later.  They have a foundation which prints an independent magazine and other publications, builds roads at a fraction of the cost of USAID, and is a major presence in the community.  At it's compound tough-looking former Taliban commanders sit working on the magazine on computers, Shahir having been the only man in the world to have ever reached out and taught them computer skills.  It is remarkable, and they are clearly devoted to him.

Took a long walk around downtown Kabul.  Passing through a busy major traffic circle, I had a fleeting thought that this is the kind of place where a car bomb blows up.  It was silly, of course.  Kabul is relatively safe.  Relatively. Nevertheless, I snuck sideways glances into cars, and felt a bit relieved when I saw families or bored-looking men in suits.  It's a kind of tension you can't describe, but these people live with it every day.

At another traffic circle an ANC soldier pointed at our car in the signal to stop.  He approached my passenger side passport and asked me for my passport.  I looked around to make sure he meant me.  He did.  I pulled it out and handed it to him, open to the right page.  American. He handed it back and I gave a soldierly wave, and he waved back.  He looked about 18, a kid's friendly face.  

If we can keep the confidence of this people we will have a truly strong ally in the war on terror.  If we alienate them, we've got a problem.  I'd venture to say we'd have no better friend or fiercer foe.  If they believe you are honest and really to trying to help them in their miserable, semi-starvation, they'll die for you.  If they believe you are trying to screw them and use them the way all empires have for 30 years, we will go the way those empires have gone.

The way your reconstruction money is getting spent in Afghanistan is now getting hammered out in a conference committee on War Supplemental Appropriations bill, co-chaired by:

Sen. Daniel Inouye, Ph: 202-224-3934 Fax: 202-224-6747

and Rep. David Obey.  Ph:(202) 225-3365 Fax: (715-842-4488)

Please call ask them to create cash-for-day labor jobs for Afghans to shorten the war, then email and call your own congressman to ask him or her to call them too, as your representative on a matter of war and peace.

The key pressure points are manageable now, and you can make a huge difference by calling these two at this time, asking them to create jobs for Afghans.  At 40% unemployment, it's the only thing that will stabilize this country and allow US troops to go home. Please print out this Mission Statement, then fax it to them. Also please send a copy to President Obama.

Ralph will be blogging from Afghanistan this week.  You can follow it at JobsForAfghans.org.

Boy selling plastic jewelry in front of military compound.  I shook my head twice, then he said "I'm so hungry, no business, I'm so hungry." Had to by a few, no one can bear that.

Burkas are not imposed unlike Taliban days, many women choose not to wear them.

My Afghan Buddies

Leaving for Kabul in a few hours, navigating New York city transit to JFK and then on to Dubai.  I can't believe in 20 hours I'll be touching down someplace which seems to me like the moon.  I have never been outside of the states in my life.  Been in the same house for twenty years, with a trip on the Boston subway more than 3 stops away a bothersome adventure that makes me think twice.  And now I am going to Afghanistan.

The people at embassy in New York and along the way leading to this moment have been extraordinarily kind.  They seem so happy that someone is trying to push for civilian aid to go for the creation of jobs, simple, unskilled labor $10 a day jobs, which would help the country become something more than the sink hole of misery it now is.  Blind elderly and deformed children begging in the street everywhere, one out of four babies dies by the age of five from malnutrition and-or dysentery.  Two-thirds of population without clean drinking water.  We've been here how long?  And all we've managed to give them is bombs and bullets.  

My hosts are sponsoring my Afghan friend and I, a recent Harvard Kennedy School of Goverment graduate I met in my hometown in Boston, to fill them in on what we are asking the U.S. to do, which is simply to spend the non-military assistance we are already spending there in a way which helps the people, not foreign contractors like Halliburton.  Half the Taliban would throw down their weapons and run for $10 a day jobs, digging ditches, leveling rural unpaved roads using shovels and gravel, simple work.  Instead we insist on ramming schools down their throats.  

Schools are nice, but you've got to eat first, and that is what too many Afghans are not doing.  Anytime I hear someone say, forget creating jobs for them, we need to create our own jobs, I am reminded of the most selfish, stupidest kinds of behavior.  It's like the gay marriage debate: since we are already spending that money on reconstruction funds, as taxpayers, and all they are asking is that it be spent better, it's no skin off anyone.  That money is gone and appropriated as of this budget cycle, with a Senate Subcommittee hammering out final details.  If it doesn't affect you, or cost you anything, why care, what reason is there to oppose it, except it makes other people happy?  The U.S. is not leaving Afghanistan any time soon.  Obama has made that clear.  It's not going to happen.  So why not spend the money to create $10 a day jobs so men don't have to join the Taliban to feed their families, because the Taliban pays $8 a day, that's right, $8 a day, and at 40% unemployment, it's the only job in town?  

I don't care who gets married.  That doesn't affect me.  And if the little reconstruction money we spend in Afghanistan gets spent on helping actual Afghans with jobs, instead of making Halliburton rich, that doesn't affect me either.  To say "don't think about their jobs," even though it would amount to a paltry, tiny fraction of what we are already spending on the military occupation, is an idiotic mindset that will come back to haunt us in the form of a hideously expensive, protracted war.  That hurts our economy, not helps it, if it's our economy one is worried about.  If that's what makes them happy, fine.  We're already spending the money.  What does it hurt?

Americans have never been known to be particularly forward-looking or prescient thinkers, at least not since the New Deal or the Marshall Plan.  That's when a little thinking about someone else's job besides your own gave us decades of peace and prosperity, for everyone, not just a few.  Now wouldn't that be nice again?

The way your reconstruction money is getting spent in Afghanistan is now getting hammered out in a conference committee on War Supplemental Appropriations bill, co-chaired by:

Sen. Daniel Inouye, Ph: 202-224-3934 Fax: 202-224-6747

and Rep. David Obey.  Ph:(202) 225-3365 Fax: (715-842-4488)

The key pressure points are manageable now, and you can make a huge difference by calling these two at this time, asking them to adopt something like the plan described here, then fax it to them.

Ralph will be blogging from Afghanistan this week.  You can follow it at JobsForAfghans.org.

Starvation in Kandahar

As the House Supplemental Appropriations Bill goes to the Senate, now is the time to call Sen. Dan Inouye (D-HI) and your own senators to ask them to bring an early end to the war by conducting it the smart way. The House Supplemental contains $1.5 billion for civilian reconstruction assistance, a pittance compared to the military component.

Perhaps a bigger problem is that it is set to get wasted in large quantities like previous civilian aid, due mostly to foreign contractors being hired for unaccountable work and taking huge profit margins. Up to 50% of foreign assistance for the Afghan reconstruction has been taken via multiple layers of subcontracting before a dime reaches the country.

In the end there is no assurance that the funds will end up helping many ordinary (read, dirt poor, the vast majority) of Afghans. These are the people who have seen absolutely no change in their lives since the Taliban was driven out in 2001, and for whom if anything, things may have gotten worse.  The former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, now the ambassador, has said "Much of the enemy force is drawn from the ranks of unemployed men looking for wages to support their families."   A police chief in Farah District told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, "Farah is now dominated by unemployment and poor living conditions.  This is what makes young men join the opposition."  (Read this article "The Occasional Taleban.")

OXFAM's Matt Waldman summarized the "aid effectiveness" problem in a report 2008 sponsored by ACBAR, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief:

  * Over half of aid is tied, requiring the procurement of
donor-country goods and services (i.e. equipment and material are purchased outside Afghanistan, even if they are available inside.)

  * Over two-thirds of all aid bypasses the Afghan government.

  * Less than 40% of technical assistance is coordinated with the government.

  * Profit margins on reconstruction contracts for international and Afghan contractor companies are often 20% and can be as high as 50%.

  * Most full time, expatriate consultants, working in private consulting companies, cost $250,000-$500,000 a year.

The bill working its way through Congress does not change the way funds are disbursed by USAID, the agency which will handle most of that $1.5 billion. It's not all USAID's fault. These are for the most part dedicated development professionals who do the best they can with the way the rules are written.  The rules are written by Congress, and the Obama administration.

Jobs for Afghans is lobbying for a major cash-for-work program to be inserted into the Supplemental Appropriations bill.  These projects address a root cause of the insurgency: 40% unemployment and desperate poverty.  Such projects bypass most of the problems Waldman describes and gives traction to reconstruction assistance. They have already been tried and proven successful in Jawzjan Province, Uruzgan, and Balkh Province.  The challenge for Congress is to expand their implementation on a large enough scale, and place Afghans on a stable enough economic and political footing to allow US forces to withdraw within one year.  What Afghans need is a "jobs surge."

Cash-for-work projects have the advantages of:

- Being tried and proven on a small scale.

- Accountability.  Cash-for-work projects are labor-intensive and easy to audit, since little machinery or building materials are required. Most cash-for-work projects require only hand tools, involving projects such as clearing debris and rubble from canals, or digging miles of ditch for future water and electricity infrastructure.

- Being inexpensive.  A competitive wage in Afghanistan for day labor is $10 per day.  $5  per day compares with pay on the Afghan National Police force.

- Allowing the prioritization of projects which are useful to the community.  Afghanistan is currently in a pre-development stage of economic growth, in which basic infrastructure in water, sewage, and electricity are completely missing.  Three-fourths of the population has no access to safe drinking water, and many die from preventable, water-borne disease.

- Cash-for-work is easy to manage and supervise.  Most supervision is indigenous once the project is defined, so that many foreign engineers are not needed in the field, which is a security risk.

- Economic sustainability.  Such a program will encourage small capital formation which is critical to the evolution of the small business sector, and will complement all other development initiatives.

Afghans are weary of economic misery.   Eight full years after liberation from the unpopular and oppressive Taliban, malnourishment is widespread, it has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, the highest maternal mortality rate in the world (women dying during childbirth due to lack of basic midwifery and sterile supplies.)

Jobs for Afghans is proposing that a fund, equal to no less than $4 billion, be administered by USAID.  Funds would then be disbursed to a mix of NGOs and Afghan government departments submitting qualifying proposals, and agreeing to USAID reporting requirements, including random headcounts of workers at work sites and spot audits.

If the U.S. Congress can spend $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out the bad investments of banks, it can spend $4 billion to stop a war.   With most of the population disaffected with the Taliban, there is no reason a semblance of stability cannot be achieved in a year, hopefully much sooner, allowing for withdrawal to begin. Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the target of our call campaign. Please call him at 202-224-3934, and fax a letter to him, fax: 202-224-6747.

After you call Sen. Inouye, please call as many of these Senate Appropriations Committee members as you can, with the message to insert a cash-for-work program equal to just five percent of the total budget.  Tell them it's the "Five Percent Solution" and fax or email the details from this page:
http://jobsforafghans.org/lettertocongress.html

Ralph Lopez is the co-founder of Jobs for Afghans.  His co-founder is an Afghan citizen and recent graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Now that a Spanish judge is making our congressmen look like clowns because we can't even prosecute our own war criminals, (and that includes Pelosi, she was briefed) you would think they would try to avoid looking like venal clowns as well.  Those bail-outs didn't just happen.  They were bought and paid for. The financial services industry spent $114.2 million on political contributions in the 2008 election. They got back $295.2 billion from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  That's an extraordinary return of 258,449 PERCENT.

The big recipients of campaign money from the bailed out banks are:

Rank    Candidate    Amount
1    Obama, Barack (D)    $38,102,702
2    McCain, John (R)    $28,159,757
3    Clinton, Hillary (D-NY)    $20,128,350
4    Dodd, Chris (D-CT)    $6,031,918
5    Coleman, Norm (R-MN)    $2,754,220
6    McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)    $2,387,708
7    Cornyn, John (R-TX)    $2,051,098
8    Sununu, John E (R-NH)    $1,771,380
9    Biden, Joseph R Jr (D-DE)$1,644,336
10    Baucus, Max (D-MT)    $1,597,925

Members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Senate Finance Committee and House Financial Services Committee all by themselves received $5.2 million from TARP recipients in the 2007-2008 election cycle.

So on top of the $1 trillion we have now spent on a war which was waged because we were told Saddam was ready to launch a WMD in "as little as 45 minutes," and that we would see "a mushroom cloud," we are now footing the bill for years of gambling on financial instruments which Long Shot Harry wouldn't have taken a bet on. One party picks your pocket while the other one holds you down.  Then they trade places.

A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.  One problem with the Greatest Thefts in History we have been seeing in the last ten years is that it's hard to understand how much a trillion is.  Think of it as roughly $10,000 per family of two adults one-and-a-half children.  They weren't happy stealing a $1,000 per taxpayer at a time, which is what a $100 billion Star Wars program represents.  Now it's the big time, grabbing your childrens' futures, and your retirements, by the tens of thousands.  Yee haw!  

Not everyone is hurting...well, it depends on what you mean.  When you are in the top 1 percent that the Wall Streeters and CEOs are in, it means you buy a smaller villa or, darn it, have to settle for the 40 footer instead of the 60 foot yacht.  Too Much: The weekly Newsletter on Excess and Inequality reported that last September:

several top Wall Streeters purchased villas in The Colony, a new Caribbean luxury project touted as Jamaica's "most expensive gated oceanfront development on record." The villas run up to $7 million each and carry a $72,000 annual fee that gives owners 60 days of butler, chef, and maid service. The best part: Villa owners pay no taxes on their properties, thanks to a complex financing deal that involves an "offshore special purpose vehicle" based in the Cayman Islands, the notorious super-rich tax haven

Donald Trump has been bragging that, sure, he's lost plenty of net worth, but what do you do when you're depressed?  You go shopping!  It's bargain basement time in the stock market!

"We're going up," says Trump. "We're buying things we couldn't have dreamed of buying two years ago. And we have a lot of cash."

Wouldn't that ten or twenty thousand dollars be nice to have right now?  The way the pie is divided in America and how it got there is neatly summarized in these two charts, from the Too Much Newsletter on Excess and Inequality:

The top one percent, the Trumps and Wall Street guys, have a third all to themselves.  The next richest 9% has the next third.  And 90% of the country - that's us - get to share that last third.  Here is the Too Much folks' chart:

It wasn't always this way.  It started with Ronald Reagan, and it got worse no matter what party was in power, Bill Clinton or any Bush.  Here's how the top 1 percent's share of income has changed:

But back to the wonderful world of TARP.  Some examples of how investments in congressmen broke down:
Institution || Contributions 07-08||TARP Payment ||Return on Investment from Congress

Bank of America Corp || $6,000,000  || $45,000,000,000||309335%

Citigroup Inc.     || $4,799,678 || $50,000,000,000  || 401194%

AIG    ||       $929,770  ||   $40,000,000,000  ||  376556%

JPMorgan Chase & Co.  || $4,778,638  || $25,000,000,000 ||245754%

Prepare for the onslaught of stories in the major media about how the super-rich feel your pain. They are not feeling your pain.  They are feeling your pockets.  They'll come around in 2 years and ask you for your vote, then leave you in the morning.  Let's get rid of the Incumbent Party, the War Party, like a bad boyfriend.
The New Broom Coalition