Asian Window

The corruption and incompetence of the current Afghan government. Michael Weiss at NewMajority.com:

The sad case of Dr. Mohammed Atash, the former president of Ariana, Afghanistan’s largest commercial airline, should be seen as a cautionary tale for what the U.S. and Europe may face in short order: namely, a failed state built on the ruins of the Taliban and sustained by cynical domestic interests.

Like many gifted students from the Middle East in the late 1960’s, Atash received a cosmopolitan education, first earning a B.S. in chemistry from the American University in Beirut, for decades the training ground for future Muslim luminaries-in Atash’s year, the school graduated the U.S. ambassador to both postwar Afghanistan and postwar Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, Voice of America journalist Rauf Mehrpour, former Chancellor of Kabul University and Minister of Finance Dr. Ashraf Ghani, as well as a host of other notable Afghans. And like Khalilzad, Atash continued his graduate studies in the U.S., attaining a Ph.D. in Educational Research, Statistics, and Measurement from Florida State University, which enabled him to act as the Head of Chemistry and Research Departments in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education Science Center between 1970 and 1977. Having completed that stint, Atash returned to the U.S. and worked as a researcher and professor of applied statistics; he also founded a chain of automotive lube shops; his own consulting firm, PARSA; and the non-profit Nooristan Foundation, which has been dedicated to rebuilding schools in the rural districts of Afghanistan and in 2003 received a $100,000 grant from America’s Fund for Afghan Children, established by President Bush. In 1999, Atash was invited to participate in the Rome Group of the Loya Jirga, the government-in-exile that sought a peaceful form of regime change during the pre-9/11 reign of the Taliban.

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