12:01AM
Chart of the day: the surge in capital flight outta Afghanistan
Friday, July 9, 2010 at 12:01AM 
WSJ story. Not a pretty sight.
More than $3b "openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years." Our gov suspects our aid is simply being diverted by Afghan officials. Duh! Who else is getting their hands so quickly on $3B USD during the surge?
My God, they take the stuff out in pallets! Since it's declared it's considered legal, but you have to wonder how the USG can't track, by frickin' serial number or something, its own aid money. Ditto for NATO's money, which spent about $14B in Afghanistan last year alone.
Of course, some of this is opium money, but you know the bulk is simply corruption.
This is how well we track our SysAdmin spending almost a decade in.
Reader Comments (1)
The 3 billion or so is probably just one facet of the opium trade.
Relying on Barnett big picture type analysis, the cheap way out of Afghanistan is to simply buy the entire poppy crop at whatever the market. Take the output and ship it to Diego Garcia, where it will do little harm, hopefully.
The country then could proceed to govern itself, without any foreign troops, as nobody will care. Terrorists really do not need Afghanistan as a place to do outdoor exercises. .
PS Anybody remember pre-invasion Afghanistan when the Taliban stopped all opium shipments?