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■"A Bit of Wall St. on the Tigris: Iraq Stock Exchange Isn't Waiting for the War to End," by Don Kirk, New York Times, 19 November 2004, p. W1.
■"Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level, U.N. Says," by Carlotta Gall, New York Times, 19 November 2004, p. A3.
Neat story about the small-but-still humming stock exchange in Baghdad. Focus for now is on banks (no surprise there), but the amount of money changing hands each day is minor ($2m or so) in an Iraqi economy of roughly $25B/year. Of course, that economy is overwhelmingly based on oil right now, but having a stock exchange is all about trying to change that. What's missing in the equation? Traders give the obvious answer: foreign investments. Why? Lack of securityóplain and simple.
But at least Iraq has somebody dreaming about a better future. All Afghanistan has is a near record heroin crop. Guess what that gets you? A countryside where drug lords rule and farmers do as they're told. When you don't make the SysAdmin effort in Afghanistan, toppling the terrorist regime gets you the makings of a narco-state. When that happens, all the "savings" from your transformed Leviathan's victory are essentially dissipated, setting you up for another drive-by regime change down the road.
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