More money down the drain ?!

[bazwillrun]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18758148

I suppose in theory some UK companys should/could get some of the "re-building" contracts.

How do the rest of the UK taxpayers benefit ?....they dont

A massive chunk will vanish into unknown pockets, nothing unusual there !.

still we are pretty good at throwing money away to overseas "causes" so this should be no different.

[Euphemia]

With lots of little brown envelopes

[bazwillrun]

with the amounts we are talking about here it will have to be very large brown envelopes !

[jake-the-peg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

[ll_billym]

The Afghan government will also hopefully use some of the money to buy weapons from us. Which is nice.

[bazwillrun]

The Marshall plan was for europe and its allies post WWII, this has no relavance whatsover, the only thing in common is money being given away or in this case thrown away to a corrupt third world nation that will very shortly be back in the hands of taliban terrorists with or without our money.

Kharzi is no more than a puppet leader showboating on the world stage and getting his fifteen minutes worth !

[ll_billym]

Agree with Baz, in Europe nobody was at war any more. In Afghanistan they are gearing up for the next round of bloodshed when the UN have pulled out.

[jake-the-peg]

You're saying it's not relevant but arging that it's not practical because of particular alleged corruption.

your argument is unclear

Do you think the Marshall plan did not suffer from corruption?

Do you accept the principal that it would be worth doing if corruption were not a problem?

Or is the truth that this is an emotional argument in that you cant stand to see money going to people we've been fighting?

That was certainly an issue with the Marshal plan!

[bazwillrun]

Do you think the Marshall plan did not suffer from corruption?

No

Do you accept the principal that it would be worth doing if corruption were not a problem?

No

Or is the truth that this is an emotional argument in that you cant stand to see money going to people we've been fighting?

No

i'm sick of seeing us throw money at lost causes overseas when the money could and should be spent on infinitely more worthy causes here at home where we are being squeezed on a daily basis, constantly being told to tighten our belts due to austerity measure thanks to a recession.

But as usual we can find plenty of money to give away, dont worry about NICE refusing to buy another life saving drug becasues of the cost,etc etc etc l

I still fail to see the relevance of the marshall plan with regards to afghaschitistan and our chucking billions of pounds down the drain there

[Gromit]

If you have already spent half a trillion dollars on a country, then an additional few billion is neglible.

It is a bit late to start worrying about worthless spending 11 years after you started pouring money into the bottomless pit.

[gsr600]

neglible Gromit, lol

[pdq1]

Seems more like a bribe to me. Unless we keep propping them up they will slide back to what is was before we invaded. Why don't they tax the poppy growers?

[Brenden]

When we leave we will become the enemy - and you do not pay them to buy arms and blow us up.