No I didn't; although I do recall something about making Afghanistan into a western styled paradise back during the cold war ( the details elude my memory)--from the link:
Of course we had no real business in Afghanistan but the Cold War 1,0 distorted everything into a zero sum game between the US/west and the USSR.but almost immediately things started to go wrong. In 1949 the first, small diversion dam was built. But it raised the level of the water table in the whole area. And that brought salt to the surface.
The American engineers realised this meant that the whole project probably wouldn't work. But at that very moment President Truman made a speech promising to give aid to poor countries. It was the start of the Cold War and Truman was going to use development projects and American money to stop countries from becoming communist.
The Americans liked dams. They were a way of challenging the communists because they would create more fertile land - so people could be better off without having to redistribute land through a revolution. In 1952 the Helmand Valley Authority was set up. It was modelled on the Tennessee Valley Authority - the TVA - created by Roosevelt in the 1930s.
Faced with this the engineers' doubts about the project were buried and forgotten. Massive loans poured in from America and two giant dams were built plus 300 miles of big canals.
But more problems emerged. Everything became waterlogged which led to weeds. Salt kept on suddenly appearing. And the reservoirs and the canals made the water cooler which meant that there couldn't be any vineyards and orchards any longer. In future they could only grow grain.
Sidebar:
i did get some either Pakistani or Afghan hashish back in the 70's.
it was opiated with white stripes, and very shiny and coal black and very soft/malleable.
This was back when weed in the USA was all Mexican scrub- so it was a fine pleasure to smoke imported hashish
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