pakistani342
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2013
- Messages
- 3,485
- Reaction score
- 6
- Country
- Location
Alliance in Support of the Afghan People (ASAP) seems to be making a lot of noise these days around the DC circuit
The hill has an article here, excerpts below:
A broad bipartisan coalition has launched a campaign pressuring Congress not to abandon Afghan civilians as the U.S. military continues its ongoing drawdown from the war-torn country.
The Alliance in Support of the Afghan People (ASAP) is backed by a wide range of political activists and foreign policy voices – representing the Obama administration, the Bush White House and the Hillary Clinton camp, among others – who fear any progress from the last 12 years will be lost if Congress doesn't continue backing efforts to move Afghanistan away from its long and repressive history under strict Islamist rule.
The group is focusing heavily on initiatives to ensure fair elections, women's rights, a free press and access to healthcare and education. But the underlying push is for the congressional funding that will help to prop up those institutions in the face of a war-weary public and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who fear the aid will be lost to a black hole of Afghan corruption and civil strife.
...
A series of troubling reports outlining the aid effort in Afghanistan will make ASAP’s job tougher.
Unveiling such a report last month, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told a House panel that the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2014 risks billions of dollars in American investments in infrastructure, education, sanitation and other projects around the country.
“Afghanistan’s endemic corruption constitutes one of the most serious obstacles to the effective and efficient use of U.S. reconstruction dollars,” the report warns. “As the United States provides more of its development assistance on-budget — directly to the Afghan government, rather than through U.S.-managed contracts — theft and fraud will pose an even greater risk to U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
The hill has an article here, excerpts below:
A broad bipartisan coalition has launched a campaign pressuring Congress not to abandon Afghan civilians as the U.S. military continues its ongoing drawdown from the war-torn country.
The Alliance in Support of the Afghan People (ASAP) is backed by a wide range of political activists and foreign policy voices – representing the Obama administration, the Bush White House and the Hillary Clinton camp, among others – who fear any progress from the last 12 years will be lost if Congress doesn't continue backing efforts to move Afghanistan away from its long and repressive history under strict Islamist rule.
The group is focusing heavily on initiatives to ensure fair elections, women's rights, a free press and access to healthcare and education. But the underlying push is for the congressional funding that will help to prop up those institutions in the face of a war-weary public and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who fear the aid will be lost to a black hole of Afghan corruption and civil strife.
...
A series of troubling reports outlining the aid effort in Afghanistan will make ASAP’s job tougher.
Unveiling such a report last month, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told a House panel that the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2014 risks billions of dollars in American investments in infrastructure, education, sanitation and other projects around the country.
“Afghanistan’s endemic corruption constitutes one of the most serious obstacles to the effective and efficient use of U.S. reconstruction dollars,” the report warns. “As the United States provides more of its development assistance on-budget — directly to the Afghan government, rather than through U.S.-managed contracts — theft and fraud will pose an even greater risk to U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
