a house divided, 1933–73The Helmand-Arghandab scheme was now a self-perpetuating, open-
ended project driven not by realizable goals or economic and social gains,
but by the need to uphold the prestige and credibility of both the usa and
the Afghan government. From 1956 onwards the political dimensions of
the scheme assumed an even greater importance following Prime Minister
Da’ud’s acceptance of a Soviet loan of $100 million. It is therefore some-
what ironic that the fiercest resistance to the American intervention from
2001 to 2015 came from the very settlements on the Bogra network that
had been promised so much by the u.s.-funded scheme, only for hopes to
be dashed and livelihoods destroyed by salinity, flooding and land grabs.
In Afghanistan memories of old injuries never die, they merely hibernate.
This is not to say that there were not some successes for American
development aid in the post-war era. mka and usaid were responsible for
the training of a generation of engineers and artisans and provided employ-
ment for thousands of labourers as well as scholarships. mka and usaid also
constructed schools and clinics, while graduates of the Cadastral Survey
School drew the first maps of the country. The Kajaki and Dahla dams
eventually provided hydroelectricity for Kandahar, Girishk, Lashkargah
and other towns, while Kandahar’s trade with Pakistan improved due to
A dc4 plane of Aryana Afghan Airlines plane at Kabul airport in the late 1950s or early ’60s.
The newly nationalized airline was founded in 1955 by an American commercial pilot who
imported a number of war surplus Dakotas and in 1957 Pan Am took a 49 per cent stake
in the company. Pan Am provided technical support and trained pilots until 1979. Many
of the airline’s planes were destroyed during the Soviet occupation and in the subsequent
infighting following the fall of President Najib Allah.