Swans

[Our] Special Forces aren't social workers. They are an imperial detachment, advancing American power and interests in Central Asia. Call it peacekeeping or nation-building, call it what you like -- imperial policing is what is going on... In fact, America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock to Americans...

Imperialism used to be the white man's burden. This gave it a bad reputation. But imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect. ... Nation-building is the kind of imperialism you get in a humanitarian rights era, a time when great powers believe simultaneously in the right of small nations to govern themselves and in their own right to rule the world.

The British imperialists understood the power of awe. ... In Afghanistan, awe is maintained not by the size of the American presence but by the timeliness and destructiveness of American power.
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Effective imperial power also requires controlling the subject people's sense of time, convincing them that they will be ruled forever.

[N]ation-building will fail [in Afghanistan] unless the force of 4,500 foreign peacekeepers ... is expanded. ... but the Europeans aren't likely to back fine talk with actual soldiers, the Pentagon does not want to put peacekeepers on the ground and the Bush administration needs all the legions at its disposal for a potential operation against Iraq.

has been slow because the political institutions left behind by Tito's Yugoslavia were weak. None of the ethnic groups has any experience in making democracy work.

Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor led the internationals to believe that most of the aid that deluges these countries gets siphoned into corrupt pockets. In Bosnia, the entire criminal and civil justice system was staffed with corrupt leftovers from the Communist era. The internationals ignored this and insisted on early elections, believing that democracy would throw out the crooks. Six years on, Bosnia has had four elections, it still has the same leadership...
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Bosnia now has the roads and schools it needs, yet its ethnic groups remain as divided as ever.

The problem of Bosnia is corruption, and that is a better problem to have than war.

Pristina, where it was supposed to stop the victorious Kosovars from killing all the remaining Serbs.

The British called it "indirect rule." Local agents ran the day-to-day administration; local potentates exercised some power, while real decisions were made back in imperial capitals. Indirect rule is the pattern in Afghanistan: the illusion of self-government joined to the reality of imperial tutelage.

In Tokyo in January, promises were made for reconstruction this year. The Afghans hear the promises. Now they're waiting for the money. In anticipation, Kabul landlords have jacked their rents sky-high -- a decent four-bedroom villa that rented for $1,000 a month only a year ago now commands as much as $10,000.
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The theory is that Brahimi's people [Lakhdar Brahimi heads the U.N staff in Kabul] will force the "U.N. family" and what is laughingly called "the international community" to work in harmony. The reality, as in all nation-building cities, is ferocious competition among donors, United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations for a market share in the money and misery.
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American foreign assistance concentrates on food aid in part because it sops up U.S. farm surpluses. The unpleasant underside of nation-building is that the internationals' first priority is building their own capacity -- increasing their budgets and giving themselves good jobs. The last priority is financing the Afghan government.
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At the Afghan Assistance Coordination Authority, ... the officials believe that as much as $700 million has so far gone to U.N. agencies, while only $100 million or so has gone to the Afghan administration itself.
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How is Afghanistan to build its own civil service if the government can pay senior officials only $150 a month and any international N.G.O. or newspaper can pay its drivers $1,000?

It would be too much to say that the brick maker wants us infidels here, exactly, but I would venture that he knows he needs us. With us here he is able to gamble. But without the Americans in floppy hats nobody is going to feel safe enough to start building a house with his bricks.