TOMMY NATION POLITICS: "The Price We Pay..."

How exactly did twenty years, billions of dollars, and thousands of American lives result in the total collapse of Afghanistan? The United States has nobody to blame but itself, according to a scathing new report from the top U.S. watchdog for the Afghan reconstruction effort…

Right from the outset, the U.S. government never formed a coherent strategy to rebuild Afghanistan, SIGAR wrote. Why was that? Because the U.S. government does not have a qualified and capable agency to take the lead on rebuilding countries. For example, the Department of State is supposed to lead reconstruction efforts, SIGAR wrote, but it does not have the resources to lead and own the Afghanistan effort. The Department of Defense, meanwhile, is awash in resources to execute strategies, “but not for large-scale reconstruction missions with significant economic and governance components."