Terrorism or war against terror, a failure proved to be a boon for some business magnates in the United States. This is how the story went…
New Delhi: "The US lost its 20-year campaign to transform Afghanistan. Many contractors won big," says a write-up in 'Wall Street Journal'.
The article under the provocative headline 'Who wins in Afghanistan? Private contractors' says, "Those who benefited from the outpouring of government money range from major weapons manufacturers to entrepreneurs." It further goes on to say, "A California businessman running a bar in Kyrgyzstan started a fuel business that brought in billions in revenue. A young Afghan translator transformed a deal to provide forces with bedsheets into a business empire including a TV station and a domestic airline."
According to estimates, the US military spent $14 trillion during two decades of war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. While many lives were lost in the entire bargain and terrorism did not disappear, only middlemen got themselves enriched . It also says, "…. Pentagon spent $6 million on a project that imported nine Italian goats to boost Afghanistan's cashmere (a type of wool that is very fine and soft) market." This project also did not materialise in the manner it was hyped, and money was pumped in.
The report also claims that top defence manufacturing companies – Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Technologies could get the lion's share of expenditures made on US tax payer's money. Like everything in life, terror has many faces, as they put it.
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