Good News on the Afghan Front

In all the reporting on Iraq, most people missed this article in the LA Times on the growing success of US Army "Provincial Reconstruction Teams" in rebuilding Afghanistan.

From the article:

The PRT program has $38 million for reconstruction and operations, twice the Afghan civil assistance aid budgeted by the U.S. military the year before. It chose Gardez for its first base, the town in the unsettled southeastern portion of Afghanistan so racked by violence that it had become a no man's land for aid agencies.

Since the PRT opened in Gardez with its special armed cohort of 20 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, violent incidents have declined sharply. Their fears assuaged, half a dozen aid agencies have opened their doors in Gardez since the first of the year, U.S. embassy officials say.

So far, PRTs have been so successful, officials here say, that the program may be copied for reconstruction efforts in Iraq once the war there has ended.

Those successes have also lowered resistance in the aid community. Francesc Vendrell, the EU's special representative to Afghanistan, said in a recent interview that he had overcome his initial doubts about PRTs, saying they may be the only way to deliver security to some areas.

The biggest problem with the PRT concept appears to be with the bigotry of international non-government organizations to the US military. It isn't just knee jerk Anti-Americanism by the usual Transnational Progressive types. The "Suits" in these organizations see the U.S. Military as a business competitor.

Again, from the article:

"Lt. Col. Bob Knight said the unit was sensitive to aid agencies' objections that the PRT was usurping their functions. As a result, the U.S. is shifting to a strategy of taking on projects in which aid-givers have no interest, such as rebuilding police stations and other public buildings. The next major project the PRT will undertake here is the nation's first provincial hospital, with 170 beds."

This is simply another example of why multi-national non-government organizations are in the camp of America's enemies.

See this Boston Globe article and this London Telegraph article on the fur balls the multi-national NGOs are throwing up over the Anglo-American victory in Iraq.