

The Lost History of Helmand (2009) - dredmorbius
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/kabul_city_number_one_part_3

======
drawnalong
I also spent a few months deployed in Helmand and Farah provinces in 2008. My
platoon didn't go to Kajaki Dam in particular.. we saw a few little signs of
what this article talks about everywhere. The guys in the line company that
served in Lashkar Gah and Kajaki remarked about how bizarre the history was.
I'm blown away.

The whole concept of "Technocracy" interests me to no end. Eisenhower warned
not just of the Military Industrial Complex in his famous speech at the end of
his presidency - he also warned of the repercussions of state-sponsored
research and of those who were conducting it, and for what purposes (check out
page 10):
[http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents...](http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/farewell_address/Reading_Copy.pdf)

"..there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly
action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."

Eisenhower knew that we were learning so, so much about the world. Our ability
to reason was, and is, unlocking so many secrets to the nature of nature
itself, that there was a never-ending pressure for top-down, ambitious
projects - especially just following the dropping of the bomb and the ending
of WWII.

~~~
vonmoltke
Its interesting how the Apollo Program, starting just a few short years after
that speech, has become a driving force for the technocrats to push such
projects. How many times has the something like the phrase, "we put a man on
the moon, we can do this" been uttered in relation to some omnibus R&D
project?

~~~
dredmorbius
It's also about this time that the awareness started to develop that there
were problems with no technical solution. This was a key point of many of
Garrett Hardin's writings. Nuclear weapons and supersonic transport were two
of these. Another concept of his was that "just because we've got the
technological capability to do something doesn't mean that we should do it".

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gmays
It's bizarre to watch that video. I spent a year there in Helmand. I recognize
Kajaki dam and the streets of Lashkar Gah. I must've driven those roads
hundreds of times.

One of our interpreters actually grew up there in Lashkar Gah and told us
stories of the Taliban and how they would rape boys. He said things had become
much better, but we still saw some pretty miserable stuff, even outside of the
typical violence, particularly the treatment of women.

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andyjohnson0
There are some fascinating pictures of Afghanistan in the fifties and sixties
at [1]. While I'm sure not all of the country was like that, they do seem show
people trying to participate in the modern world. Modern buildings, women
working, education, industrial activities, etc.

More pictures at [2] and [3].

[1] [http://www.retronaut.co/2010/10/once-upon-a-time-in-
afghanis...](http://www.retronaut.co/2010/10/once-upon-a-time-in-afghanistan/)

[2] [http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/afghanistan-in-
th...](http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/afghanistan-in-
the-1950s-and-60s/100544/)

[3] [http://englishrussia.com/2011/07/21/the-afghanistan-of-
the-5...](http://englishrussia.com/2011/07/21/the-afghanistan-of-the-50s-60s/)

------
dredmorbius
NB: This is a resubmission of the original link rather than the blogspam I
happened to have been forwarded myself earlier.

Thanks to teh_klev and dmix for pointing me straight:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7209366](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7209366)

