After billions in U.S. investment, Afghan roads are falling apart

[jakeXT]

SAYEDABAD, Afghanistan — They look like victims of an insurgent attack — their limbs in need of amputation, their skulls cracked — but the patients who pour daily into the Ghazni Provincial Hospital are casualties of another Afghan crisis.

They are motorists who drove on the road network built by the U.S. government and other Western donors — a $4 billion project that was once a symbol of promise in post-Taliban Afghanistan but is now falling apart.

Western officials say the Afghan government is unable to maintain even a fraction of the roads and highways constructed since 2001, when the country had less than 50 miles of paved roads. The deterioration has hurt commerce and slowed military operations. In many places, the roads once deemed the hallmark of America’s development effort have turned into death traps, full of cars careening into massive bomb-blast craters or sliding off crumbling pavement.

“There’s been nothing. No maintenance,” said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-billions-in-us-investment-afghan-roads-are-falling-apart/2014/01/30/9bd07764-7986-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html

[Thinkingabout]

1. While we were paying big bucks to build roads in Afghanistan our roads was falling apart.

[madrchsod]

2. "...george bush`s highway to hell "

one commentator at wp got it right....

oh yes since 2001---we have given so far 693 billion dollars to the war in afghanistan. we could have rebuilt or modernized our interstate highway system and put tens of thousand to work in the last 13 years.

[unhappycamper]

3. "After billions in U.S. investment, Afghan roads are falling apart"

After billions in U.S. investment, American roads are falling apart is also correct.