ON THE KABUL-TO-CHARIKAR HIGHWAY, AFGHANISTAN -- In early 2002, not long after the fall of the Taliban, the Shomali Plain looked like a theme park of wartime devastation. Villages on this once-rich agricultural plain had been dynamited by the Taliban, the fields were seeded with landmines and the highway from Kabul to Charikar was littered with the remnants of armored vehicles.
Things had improved a bit here by 2004. The mine-clearance teams had cleared a wide swath of land; small brick factories were starting to spring up to supply construction projects in Kabul; the U.S. government had funded a modest roadbuilding and irrigation project. At the time, there was reason to be cautiously optimistic about Afghanistan. The country was headed for its first direct presidential elections, and for the first time in a generation, Afghans seemed to have a shot at dignified poverty.
The past five years, however, have seen a lot of disappointment. But making the short drive through the Shomali Plain earlier this week, I was still struck by the pace of change. The Kabul-to-Charikar highway is now a well paved road, dotted with billboards, brand new filling stations and roadside shops. New electricity transmission lines run parallel to the road. Lots of new construction was in evidence, including some Afghan McMansions springing up on the northern fringes of Kabul.
Part of this, of course, may be the trickle-down effect of the U.S. military presence: The highway is a conduit between Kabul and Bagram Airfield; one very well-traveled road close to the capital does not reflect the state of development in the rest of the country. As always, there's a risk of seeing what you want to see: Think of the cheerleading hacks who predicted an economic boom in Russia (hey, Moscow has a T.G.I. Friday's!) before the 1998 ruble crash.
Much of the reporting from Afghanistan focuses on the kinetic aspect of things, and those headlines are often bleak. But the development picture is more elusive. Along that stretch of road, at least, I saw at least some reason for optimism.
*[PHOTO: UNHCR]
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