$(document).ready( function () { talk_rendercallback({"enabled":"0","islive":"0","eid":5516,"total":"3","discussion":[{"nm":"David Levintow","rs":"0","ms":"The most compelling part of Rory Stewart\'s  comments are his emphasis on the duration of time and amount of resources that will be required in order to make some modest improvement in quality of life conditions for 30 million Afghans. In the mid-1970\'s I spent two years in Helmand Province based in Lashkar Gah trying to understand and remedy the technical and cultural constraints (both US and Afghan) that inhibited the benefits that should have resulted from construction of Kajakai Dam and the downstream Shamalan, Nadi Ali and adjacent irrigation projects.  I had a 7-man Bureau of Reclamation team, &  both direct-hire USAID and voluntary agency agricultural experts.  It took almost a year for a capable Asia Foundation advisor Harold Pillsbury to understand why introduction of urea fertilizer and high-yielding seed (Mexipak) did not produce better wheat crops than the traditional way of crumbling and spreading old mud walls after planting. (it reduced high soil temperature which limited germination of  any kind of seed. Oxen had plowed too shallow a furrow. After Canadians introduced Massey Ferguson tractors the problem was solved)  It took years of international negotiation to evade a US law forbidding assistance in cotton production, when cotton was the only rational cash generator for intercropping with wheat .  (The Brits were persuaded to do it, sending a technician and rehabilitated cotton ginning machinery and cotton seed oil presses.)  Farmers refused to use perfectly good wells for drinking, cooking and wash water, insisting instead on dipping buckets out of  the irrigation canals,  thereby preventing use of chemical weedicides and consequent severe aquatic weed infestation that blocked canals and drains. (The Koran teaches use of running water is preferable to still water.)  The best-intentioned American Marine whose interpreter speaks Dari but not good Pushto, will have trouble communicating with those villagers.   Helping Afghans is a daunting task.                                                     David Levintow  Oct. 19, 2009  13:30             \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n     ","pt":"Oct 19, 2009 13:56"},{"nm":"Lynn Mahoney","rs":"0","ms":" Mr. Stewart,         With a son just leaving Helmand Prov.serving the Afghanistan people as a Marine, I wish he had been able to understand his situation as you know it.  Please speak louder to Washington since they don\'t seem to "get it". Youv\'e made the situation understandable. We don\'t speak the " language" of people who don\'t understand or experience a world as we live it. ","pt":"Oct 14, 2009 17:29"},{"nm":"Dale McCarty","rs":"0","ms":"I believe from reading Mr. Stewart\'s informed comments and continuing news reports that the United States must not over extend our resources in Pakistan. Once again, Afghanistan will function as a failed attempt a backwater to our quest for success. Once again we will tire of our hopeless efforts to "win". We do not have the will for a very long, costly fight in Pakistan or Afghanistan.","pt":"Oct 14, 2009 03:13"}]}); });