Democratization and modernization take more than "regime change" (substitution of one set of political leaders for another) -- they take capital for job creation in the private sector and infrastructure investment in the public sector, the capital that the United States can't export, as it is the world's largest debtor nation whose financial health in part depends upon the precarious fiscal health of the world's largest debtor government (Japan).
***** Projects to Rebuild Afghan Roads Going Nowhere, Despite Promises
By Susan B. Glasser Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, August 7, 2002; Page A01
KABUL, Afghanistan -- For months, the Asian Development Bank had promised that it would take on one of the biggest headaches in postwar Afghanistan: the cratered, agonizingly slow highway connecting Kabul with Kandahar. The project to rehabilitate the major artery between the country's two largest cities was estimated to cost $150 million, the largest single investment in Afghanistan's infrastructure since the collapse of Taliban rule last November.
Instead, the deal fell apart.
In meetings last month, the bank demanded that the Afghan government accept loans to finance the project. Frustrated with international donors that have promised to help rebuild the country, only to impose conditions the fledgling government cannot meet, the Afghans said no. "They're pulling out," said a top aide to President Hamid Karzai. "Their excuse is that we won't accept loans, but in reality it is too big a project for them."
The Kabul-Kandahar project is not the only road work stalled by the combination of balky donors, the slow pace of bureaucracy and the daunting logistics of accomplishing anything in a barely functioning country. In fact, not a single major road project has been started since the fall of the Taliban....
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52452-2002Aug6> *****
Liberal imperialism doesn't come cheap, but cheap is what the US government must be.
What is interesting is that the full-fledged military occupation of Iraq (cf. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/middle_east/2320625.stm>) and other nations in the future will be expensive in its own way, entailing the sort of expenses that weighed heavily upon formal empires of yore. The USA in fact surged ahead and replaced such formal empires in part because it never had to run a formal empire itself (except temporarily in Haiti, the Philippines, etc.). Today, the US government is contemplating a resurrection of what has been consigned to the dustbin of history, just at the moment when it can least afford it. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>