America Wasted $160 Million Trying To Get Afghanistan To Use E-Payments (vice.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The country might be home to America's longest-running war, but the US has spent more time, energy, and money trying to rebuild Afghanistan than it has spent killing the Taliban. American taxpayers send billions to Kabul every year and every year billions disappear into the pockets of Afghan government officials. Electronic payment systems would go a long way to solving that problem. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) wanted to do just that. The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day. Between 2009 and 2017, USAID spent $160 million and partnered American tech companies to set up e-pay in Afghanistan, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The goal was to get the border guards trained and using the new methods, with an aim of 75 percent of all customs transactions paid electronically by 2017. As of today, less than one percent of those transactions are electronic, SIGAR reports. And custom officials loathe the system. "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," one Afghan custom official told SIGAR agents.

Comments

only $160M?

[turkeydance]

peanuts. hold out for more.

Re:only $160M?

[bluefoxlucid]

$1 per taxpayer in one year.

In 8 years, 12.5 cents per taxpayer.

Re: only $160M?

[dougdonovan]

they mean obama wasted. agreed. he was a waste of time. 8 years worth but trump will clean it up.

Re: only $160M?

[Anonymous Coward]

they mean obama wasted. agreed. he was a waste of time. 8 years worth but trump will clean it up.

STFU prick.

Re: only $160M?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump will clean it up and put it in his pocket where he thinks it belongs.

Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[Harold Halloway]

"We tried convincing corrupt customs officials to change to a new payment method which would prevent them from stealing large sums of money but they weren't interested. We are at a loss to explain why that might be."

Re:Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[fermion]

It is also that the US military runs on bribes and money laundering. There is never enough money, they always need more money, because there is aways some US officers, some US administrator, some US contractor that is taking 10% off the top. With electronic payments that are 100% auditable this revenue stream disappears. I assume that these e-payment contractors chose to take a bribe to fail rather than a bullet.

Re:Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, why would the Afghani camel jockeys give up their bribes?

Re:Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[David_Hart]

"We tried convincing corrupt customs officials to change to a new payment method which would prevent them from stealing large sums of money but they weren't interested. We are at a loss to explain why that might be."

this 1000x..... Plus importers who are used to paying bribes to expedite contraband aren't interested in using the new system either. Plus government officials that get their cut... etc...

You can't just tell people that they "should start using the new system". You have to tell them that they "have to use the new system". The only way this type of thing works is if you force it on the users and customers and fire/fine those that are actively bypassing it.

The problem here is that the US is a third party. I'm guessing that Afghan government officials also get their cut. So it's not in their interest to enforce the use of the new system. So, basically, all the US can do is ask them nicely....
 

Re:Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking about Afghanistan "Saudi Arabia of Opium/Heroin" here. What worth is any means of paying but cash in such an economy?

Re: Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair, 1935

Re:Gosh, well, who'd have thought..?"

[arglebargle_xiv]

Also "We tried to introduce a high-tech electronic payment system to a medieval Islamic society and they found it too hard to use. We have no idea why, the US technology companies who sold us on it said they found it easy".

Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to drag minorities to Western civilization since 1865.

Re: Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the main problem was doing it the way they did prior to 1865...

Re: Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

The way it was done before is the default condition of humanity.

That said, it would have been cheaper to just leave everyone where they were.

Re:Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

Just continuing what the Europeans have been doing since the Age of Discovery. And what the Romans did before that with the expansion of the Roman empire. But no, you're right, America was the only one to ever impose its will on native populations of other regions. And no other country these days would *ever* do that...

Re:Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think we would have learned by now.

Re:Murrica

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think we would have learned by now.

Some things are just so fundamental to cultural heritage that they resist change even when so much else has. Unfortunate, but it would be hubris to believe we are that fundamentally different from our predecessors.

No waste here

[rsilvergun]

The system is BAU/As Designed. This is how we Americans do socialism. No dirty single payer health care, UBI or (saint's preserve us) "the dole" for us. We use our Military to keep our economy going. Otherwise wealth inequality gets to the point where it all shuts down like it did in the 30s with the robber barons and whatnot. Go google "Eisenhower" and "Military Industrial Complex" if you want to know more.

Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey guys, we think you're corrupt and stealing money, so we want you to adopt this new system that will make it harder to be corrupt and steal money."

And we're surprised the plan failed?

Re:Wait, what?

[kelemvor4]

"Hey guys, we think you're corrupt and stealing money, so we want you to adopt this new system that will make it harder to be corrupt and steal money."

And we're surprised the plan failed?

Exactly. Nobody should be surprised at all. Maybe next year we can spend a few hundred million on a campaign to have criminals imprison themselves instead of the inefficient process of having them be apprehended, prosecuted, transported to prison etc...

Who exactly got the $160 million bucks? That would be a story actually worth reading.

Brought to you by the creators of healthcare.gov

[jpschaaf]

No doubt the same contracting firms that built healthcare.gov created the payment system.

E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[JohnFen]

The numbers have likely changed, but in 2012 about 50% of all financial transactions were done with cash in the US. For transactions involving amounts of $25 or less, the figure rises to 75% in cash.

Getting a 75% adoption rate in Afghanistan seems over-the-top optimistic from the start.

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[thegarbz]

Not really. You're talking about the infrastructure for an entire country, here they are talking about specifically targeted transactions. It is very much possible to do that. Heck my work is sitting at 100% right now, far higher than the rest of the country. They simply don't accept cash at the canteen.

Also part of the USA's failure is that the system is stuck in the stone age of electronic transactions. Unsafe credit card practices (signature) combined without outdated payment methods (no simple wireless), add in some stupid bank related market forces that add high costs associated to supporting the platform and you have a recipe for low adoption.

On saturday here there are markets selling bootlegged shit on the side of the street. Even they accept electronic payment including paying with my phone. You won't see that in the USA very frequently.

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[JohnFen]

Also part of the USA's failure is that the system is stuck in the stone age

This is part of why I think it's unrealistic -- we're talking about electronic payments from US entities. Even US citizens don't trust the system enough to wholeheartedly embrace it. Why would Afghani citizens?

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[Kjella]

The numbers have likely changed, but in 2012 about 50% of all financial transactions were done with cash in the US. For transactions involving amounts of $25 or less, the figure rises to 75% in cash. Getting a 75% adoption rate in Afghanistan seems over-the-top optimistic from the start.

I don't know Afghanistan I doubt people pay customs on a bag of groceries they bought across the border. At the border I would think you're talking about supplies for stores, industry, markets and major/bulk purchases. Like, things they are probably quite capable of paying for electronically if they wanted to. If they wanted to get anywhere they should probably just have imposed a max limit that says customs transactions over say $1000 must be paid electronically, like you simply don't get valid documents otherwise. Then start hitting anyone dodging that limit hard for smuggling so they have to either structure it so they only do $999/trip or pay up. I mean if there's no risk to those paying the bribes it's pretty hard to see how the bribes would stop.

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[Drethon]

For 2% cash back I use my card for pretty much everything. At least until some places started adding the transaction fee to the card purchase, good incentive to go back to cash.

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[JohnFen]

On saturday here there are markets selling bootlegged shit on the side of the street. Even they accept electronic payment including paying with my phone. You won't see that in the USA very frequently.

I have seen them in the US before, but it's been a while. I used to even see panhandlers who took cards. I assume that they stopped because there weren't enough people stupid enough to allow them to swipe their card.

Re:E-payments aren't the usual in the US, either

[viperidaenz]

How many people in the US pay import taxes and customs fees in cash?

You think?

[PhantomHarlock]

The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day.

Why would they act against their own self interest given their situation? In very poor countries where everyone including government officials and police are paid very little, graft is a way of life. It takes a lot more than trying to force an e-payment system to change this type of behavior. There is a reason judges in the United States are paid very well. To make them more immune to bribery. If any given official who's job it is to handle lots of money is not paid well himself, he will tend to skim off the top.

It takes a deep-rooted cultural shift to move away from graft, and the solution is much more complex than simply trying to implement an e-payment system. Also, if, as the quoted official says, it is very arcane and difficult to use (and that is not just an excuse to keep pocking to the loot) that presents even less of an incentive.

A multi-pronged approach has to involve their own government's willingness to truly change the behavior of their officials from the top down, in addition to whatever magic etchnology solution the west is proffering. It is a very difficult thing to do when the culture is deeply embedded in an organization at all levels.

Re:You think?

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to change their culture of graft? Evil racist! Nazi! Republican! (oops, already repeating myself :)

Re:You think?

[aberglas]

You miss the point.

How much do you think US contractors were paid to implement that e-payment system? Probably even more than the Afghans steal.

A few points

[grasshoppa]

1) Corrupt officials don't like using traceable payment methods? I'm SHOCKED!

2) We have to admit the possibility that the payment methods really do suck. 10 years ago the states had card swiping at the register, right? Quick, easy, efficient. Faster than cash OR checks, it was really the ideal solution ( except for the security ).

Then we "upgraded", and now it's faster to use cash and, often, checks. Chip transactions take forever, and that's only compounded by modern machines which run SLOWER than the software/hardware we had a decade ago.

So it's entirely within the realm of possibility that the shit we saddled them with really is horrible.

Re:A few points

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we "upgraded", and now it's faster to use cash and, often, checks. Chip transactions take forever, and that's only compounded by modern machines which run SLOWER than the software/hardware we had a decade ago.

You're doing something wrong then. I'm sorry, but the old guy in front of me in the supermarket express lane is not faster when he waits for the total, then pulls out his checkbook, then searches for a pen, then writes shakily, then has to confirm the date with at least two different people, and then finally has to produce a photo ID for the cashier.

Re:A few points

[Anonymous Coward]

Chip transactions take forever

I haven't noticed that. When you know what to do and just do it, it's very quick. The problem is that the industry is divided. You have to ask if the machine accepts only swipes, or only chips, etc.

Re:A few points

[JohnFen]

Faster than cash OR checks

In the US, it used to be faster than cash, but that stopped being true a while ago when payment systems started adding all those stupid questions to the checkout process.

And chip cards are even worse. They seem to take about 1.5 to 2 times longer than swipe cards.

Re:A few points

[JohnFen]

Not in my area. Chip cards take an insanely long time for the machines to process around here.

Re:A few points

[Strider-]

That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.

Re:A few points

[JohnFen]

That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself.

Absolutely correct. I have no technical issues with the idea itself. But as implemented in the US, it's pretty awful. Cash is the fastest and easiest way to buy things here.

Re:A few points

[bev_tech_rob]

That's due to the underlying infrastructure, not the technology itself. In Canada, and most of the developed world, chip+pin transactions are virtually instantaneous. For small amounts, the NFC/touch pay is also pretty much instantaneous. It boggles my mind that transactions are so slow in the US... hell, when I travel to Europe, my Canadian chip card is no slower than it is in Canada, so it shouldn't take that long to process.

I agree. Used to when I watched other people use chip cards, most of the delay was due to them not paying attention to the card terminal and answering the prompts quickly or having the cashier to prompt them to do something. When most people (mostly old folks) see anything related to computers, they vapor-lock and are terrified of breaking something. And then they go to Wally World and use the SELF CHECKOUTS which is another eternity of waiting. SMH.

My bank FINALLY issued me a chip card recently and I find it is just as fast or faster than swiping. Referring to the infrastructure, I always shake my head when a restaurant or store has a card machine attached to a dial-up modem. Most establishments have internet access via broadband and the newer card terminals have Ethernet connections, which makes transactions almost instantaneous.

Re:A few points

[viperidaenz]

NFC is faster than swiping, get with the times America.

Re:A few points

[Anonymous Coward]

payment systems started adding all those stupid questions to the checkout process.

I really have no idea what this refers to. The most questions I can think of on the card reader would be debit/credit, PIN, cash back, and confirm the amount. Do you think these are stupid questions, or is there something going on in your neck of the woods I've never heard of?

Re:A few points

[JohnFen]

Apparently so! The number and type of questions can vary from store to store (or even in the same store from week to week). When I used one this afternoon, I was asked (excluding the questions required for the transaction) if I had a loyalty card and if I wanted to make a charitable donation. I think the most non-relevant questions I got in one go was four.

It wouldn't be as bad if the process was consistent, so I could learn the proper sequence. But it's not, so I have to actually wait and read every screen that comes up to make sure I'm done.

Really ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article implies that the US has spent more for development programs than it has for the 15 years old war. Really ?

I have difficulty believing that. Afganistan would have been a prosperous country if half a trillion was spent on redevelopment.

Re:Really ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article implies that the US has spent more for development programs than it has for the 15 years old war. Really ?

I have difficulty believing that. Afganistan would have been a prosperous country if half a trillion was spent on redevelopment.

Not if the Taliban keep blowing up the shit you just built. Those people are never going to get out of the stone ages. Let them rot..

Come on...

[HBI]

People I trust have flown into certain countries with literal pallets full of cash and were handing it out in bank wrap to local warlords as the price for their forbearance. Like, soldiers - not CIA agents or USAID people.

Regardless if you used a payment card or not, the very act of giving these people money IS corrupt, by any Western standard. But it's how business is transacted there. If you don't pay them, body bags come home unnecessarily. So your definition of 'wasted' money may not be adequate to cover the situation.

Re:Come on...

[Gavagai80]

And this is why Afghanistan might be better off if we'd left the Taliban in charge. As cruel as they are, the Taliban effectively enforce the rule of law and prevent anyone but themselves from being corrupt. That's a basis to eventually build a functional developing society from. If you try to skip that step and build a developing democracy on the sands of corruption, it'll never gain any traction.

Easy Fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy Fix. Stop sending money PERIOD. They might get the message.

Re:Easy Fix

[fredrated]

Better fix: leave the country.

Popular in Africa

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone based payment is a very popular in Africa, which I suspect has some similar financial and infrastructure constraints that Afghanistan has...

Re:GPL PROGRAMS ARE THE ARYAN RACE OF SOFTWARE

[Anonymous Coward]

And what are you planning to do about the American top-secret industrial military complex?

They sound smarter than us

[grasshoppa]

We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology, and now a transaction which took 2 seconds before takes almost a minute now. The situation is exasperated by the software "upgrades" at the registers which make them run slower now than they did 10 years ago ( they were fast back then ). The situation is so bad at some stores that I've started carrying cash again because of how long a digital transaction takes.

Maybe these Afgan folks are on to something here.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

One minute?? How did you manage to take something Europe had been using for years, with no speed problems, and make it run slow?

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Khyber]

It's probably tied to the Bitcoin network by now.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

And I wouldn't mind if the system was actually more secure, but here instead of "Chip and PIN" we have "Smile and Sign" because it might "inconvenience" the consumer...WTF.. all they did was switch liability from the bank to the vendor, not much changed for the actual consumer.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

*exacerbated

Re:They sound smarter than us

[thegarbz]

We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology, and now a transaction which took 2 seconds before takes almost a minute now.

You the US fouled up the transition quite royally. Transactions still take less than 2 seconds with chip+pin in the rest of the world, and it's even faster with paywave. Hell my mobile takes less than 2 seconds to pay on a bog standard payment terminal.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

And for some reason if the transaction is under $50 there is no pin or signature requirement. How, exactly, is that more secure?

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Wrath0fb0b]

Almost a minute? What are you smoking.

Also, the transaction is taking nearly the same total time, the only difference is that before you would swipe the magstripe and then more stuff would happen whereas now you can't remove the chip until the last step. So granted it's more convenient to swipe and put the card away in your wallet while the terminals finishes up, but that's nothing to do with how long it actually takes to acquire the transaction.

By the way, did you know that you can copy a magstripe card with a olde time two-cassette boombox?

Re:They sound smarter than us

[amiga3D]

At walmart it's near instantaneous and other places nearly so. At smaller stores I have indeed waited a full minute or more for the transaction to process. I almost never use a card for any transaction less than 50 dollars so it's not a problem to wait occasionally but if you think it works great everywhere you haven't been anywhere much.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[apoc.famine]

We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security. In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time. It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin, and then execute multiple transactions against it. Eventually some system will check and it will be declined, but depending on how long it takes to finalize the transaction, you can steal a lot of money. In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.
 
So the US is more secure, but it takes longer. I'm not sure that I'm willing to claim we fouled up the transition given that. Since the switch, I've had 0 fraud on my card. I used to get 1-2 fraud instances every year before this. Is that worth an extra 20 seconds at the check-out? I think so.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Diakoneo]

It must be your infrastructure. In the Minnesota metro area, I use chip+pin in many different retail locations. It only takes a few seconds. The longest part of the transaction is me entering my PIN. Well, OK. The longest part of the transaction is me entering my phone number because I forgot that stupid little fob to get my rewards. But still.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Nexx]

That's basically the retailer hopefully having done the risk analysis and saying "losing out on X sometimes because of fraud is better than slowing everything down by requiring signatures".

I've been asked to sign for a latte, and not asked to sign for $50 purchases. That's all up to the retailer.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

Were do you live? I live in the US and the chip readers work in a few seconds. It would be even faster if we bothered to get rid of the ridiculous "chip and signature" system and replaced it (like the rest of the modern world) with "chip and pin", but aside from the times where I have to sign, I'm usually waiting for the receipt ticker far longer than the chip reader.

I'd say it averages 1-5 seconds depending on the store. I've never waited almost a minute. You are either lying or live in the middle of nowhere.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[grasshoppa]

Central CA.

The problem is definitely multi-vectored. While the readers certainly suck, the registers themselves add a significant amount of overhead to the process. It honestly seems that the newer the register, the longer it takes to create a transaction and process a payment.

Hell, I'm not even talking about how long it takes the customer to figure out which end of the card to put in, when to take it out, ect...that's usually so much worse.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Bob the Super Hamste]

What credit card do you have that is chip+pin as mine are the stupid chip+sign ones?
This is a serious question as I haven't heard of any card issuer in the US doing chip+pin.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Kjella]

We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security. In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time. It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin, and then execute multiple transactions against it. Eventually some system will check and it will be declined, but depending on how long it takes to finalize the transaction, you can steal a lot of money. In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.

I don't know where "most of the world" is, but here in Norway at least 99.9% of the terminals and 100% of the ATMs are online doing balance checks and from I've entered my PIN and hit OK to it clears in maybe two seconds. It's long enough that I have to briefly pause before yanking the card out, not long enough that I bring my hand down to wait for the "approved" message. Waiters etc. have wireless terminals that work just as well as the wired ones. I can't imagine twenty seconds unless there's a modem doing dial-up on demand to relay the transaction. The back-end should most definitively answer in a second or less.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Whibla]

At walmart it's near instantaneous and other places nearly so. At smaller stores I have indeed waited a full minute or more ...

I'd hazard a guess that this is because in smaller stores the terminals are not permanently connected to the network, hence the delay while they connect so they can verify your pin before authorising the transaction. You still see it in smaller shops over here in the UK, where the shop phone can't be used at the same time as the terminal.

While it can be a tad frustrating, I'd say people could probably do with relaxing a bit if a one minute delay is enough to wind them up. That said, I do prefer using cash for the vast majority of my 'in person' transactions.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[jittles]

In the US, it checks the balance before completing each transaction. That's what takes so long.

That isn't why the systems in the US are slower. I can hit a payment gateway in another country, which then hits a payment processor back in the US, and have the result returned to a terminal in under 200ms most of the time. The problem is with the way that they are implementing everything that occurs prior to the online request being generated. I have seen some terminals spend over 20 seconds negotiating the transaction details with the chip prior to generating the first application cryptogram. Depending on how many prompts you make the user go through, the whole process from card insertion to removal should only take 2-10 seconds. That assumes, of course, that the person doesn't spend more than 10 seconds keying in their PIN.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

The most popular grocery chain in the state of Florida, Publix, has a chip system that seems to take 10-20 seconds to process. I notice because I go almost every day. The old mag-swipe method was 1-2 seconds maybe.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

Most customers I see that chip+sign are using a credit card and others are using an actually debit card connected to their checking account. Some credit cards let you set a pin making them become chip+pin. Discover supports adding a pin to your card.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[thegarbz]

We fouled up the transition if you only care about speed, and not security.

Claiming the USA has some lead in security is laughable and bordering on absurd. Here, let me secure against all this fraud with a little squiggle. That ought to do it.

In most of the world, pin+chip is recorded, and then the transaction gets balanced at a later time.

Balancing at a later time happens within seconds.

It's possible to clone a thousand cards once you know the pin

It's possible to do a lot of nefarious things when you know someone's pin code. That's why we keep it a secret. Mind you it's possible to do a lot if you're able to make a squiggle too, something far easier in the USA.

Since the switch, I've had 0 fraud on my card.

You do realise that fraud rates have plummeted in the rest of the world as a result of the move to Chip+Pin, and added security was the main driver right? Most of the world shares you lack of fraud on their card example, and without completely ballsing up the checkout process.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

We ( the US ) "upgraded" to chip technology,

Tell that to my bank. Still waiting for a chip card...

Re:They sound smarter than us

[viperidaenz]

Wow, at stores without internet connected terminals, you have to wait for them to dial up and connect before your transaction is verified?

Holy shit.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[viperidaenz]

Transactions in New Zealand are verified before being accepted. Only takes a few seconds. I can even see the transaction immediately after in my mobile banking app.
Once you know the pin, it's still pretty hard to clone a chip card. You'd need to get the private keys out of it first.

Re:They sound smarter than us

[viperidaenz]

Have you tried.... I don't know.... talking to your card issuer?

Re:They sound smarter than us

[Guybrush_T]

I've had 0 fraud on my card in Europe in my entire life (20 years of card usage).

10 days after moving to the US, I had a fraud on my debit card with Pin+Chip. And yes, it is much slower than in Europe, but no I don't see the point in extra security since the solution is good enough in Europe (and actually maybe even better).

Re:They sound smarter than us

[amiga3D]

The point being, in many places it isn't instantaneous as is claimed.

Re: They sound smarter than us

[Anonymous Coward]

As another European, I have to agree with Kjella. In 25+ years of chip card payment being obiquitous, I have never heard of fraud of someone I knew directly, and I doubt I've read about it often in the news.

It's just not a thing, so apparently there's no money to be had.

Yet, payment with chip cards rarely take longer than a few seconds, and then only in the Swiss mountains over a flaky gsm connection.

Someone seems to be doing it wrong, it doesn't sound like it's the Europeans this time...

Btw little known fact, up until the late nineties, US had more employees working on software than Microsoft.

Missing one important word

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Electronic payment systems

Don't you need "electricity" for those? Seems like "instant fail" for this location...

Half a trillion ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that the US has spent half a trilion dollars on development programs in Afganistan - which is what the article was implying (more spent on development aid than on military expenses). I seriously doubt that statement.

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[hey!]

Trump won. Look up definition of "Pyrrhic victory".

we need to get out of Afghanistan

[Presto Vivace]

one more example of why our presence there has nothing to do w/ national security

Re: we need to get out of Afghanistan

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. This is why I won't allow members of my family to join the military. I don't want them becoming cannon fodder for the rich man under the guise of freedom.

Re:we need to get out of Afghanistan

[fustakrakich]

Just another opium war... gotta keep the pipeline open

Re:we need to get out of Afghanistan

[Strider-]

Until Afghanistan turns back into a failed state like what happened after the Soviets left, or what happened in Iraq after the US left. The only thing that abhors a vacuum more than nature is power. If the US reduces its influence in the area, then someone else will fill that void, and we probably won't like the results.

BS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of $ goes back to military-related companies/contractors and other US companies which will have offshore tax accounts. Also don't forget the kickbacks to the lobbyists/government officials.

That's Crazy

[PaxtonProjects]

Amazing, could have been used for so many other things I'm sure!

E-payments?

[e_pluribus_funk]

Absolutely retarded.

Afghanistan is less developed than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The whole country has around 2 (as in 2.0) miles of railway. The literacy rate is 38%. Whoever expects electronic payments to take off in Afghanistan probably thinks we can eradicate poppy cultivation in exchange for planting corn and raising sheep.

Thanks Obama!

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid cuck!

No stab at Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

No twist how that would somehow be Trump's fault? Or at least some unrelated stab at him? Come on, you're slipping, Vice!

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

The American people lost. We only had two choices, Hillary or Trump. There was no way to win.

And?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called nation building and regime change. Corporate military industrial welfare. Bush did it. Obama did it. Trump's doing it. (And you sure as fuck better believe Hillary would be doing it).

Re:And?

[Gavagai80]

Stein wouldn't be doing it, so it's not my fault.

as they say..

[argStyopa]

..."follow the money".

The idea that this makes sense in Afghanistan - where safe running water and electricity are still primary concerns - is idiotic. So idiotic, I strongly suspect corruption.

So...follow the money. Just once, I'd love to see someone actually burrow to the bottom of this, find out WHO (SPECIFICALLY) authorized this, at the behest of whom, and how much $ was involved in 'no-bid' contracts or 'friendly' arrangements.
AND THEN PROSECUTE THEM AGGRESSIVELY.

most foreign aid goes to our own organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.politifact.com/global-news/statements/2017/mar/08/raj-shah/yes-most-us-foreign-aid-flows-through-us-organizat/

"The report [https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R44117.pdf] said that, collectively, 49 percent of aid flows through American nonprofits, for-profit companies and American educational institutions. Another 29 percent goes to international organizations such as the Global Fund and various United Nations agencies."

As for the UK - https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/13/everything-you-need-to-know-about-uk-aid-spending-pledge

"75% of UK aid was spent through private sector companies. These intermediaries will have their own costs and, in the case of private contractors, they’re also looking to make a profit. Following the money remains difficult and it’s almost impossible to say exactly how much aid is ever spent in the developing countries for which it was budgeted ... according to the latest annual report from the Department for International Development (DfID), more than 90% of contracts still go to British companies"

it's a miracle there's any left for corrupt border officials!

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the definition of "butt hurt"

ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

American taxpayers send billions to Kabul every year

Osama won

The most dangerous enemy of good is "better"

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess if the plan succeeds, there will be an all-out rebellion war and Afghans will call Russkies in (now that they are not godless Soviets any more, they are much more compatible culturally with each other than with Westerners).

Better look out, you are idealizing your allies around the world, but they are not so enamoured by your ideals. You cannot push or spur the history. Some ideas need to sink in slowly, and some realizations can really come only from direct experiences.

I'm sure the tech companies that partnered

[Anonymous Coward]

with USAID don't consider that $160 million to have been wasted!

I've thought so for some time

[fyngyrz]

Electronic payment systems would go a long way to solving that problem.

Problem? This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Look: it channels vast amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of US corporations, while also propping up the government of Afghanistan so as to channel even more tax dollars into the US military-industrial complex. The (cough) "problems" will simply result in more tax dollars flowing into the proper pockets (IOW, not yours, and not mine.)

Meanwhile, the average net worth of a US congress member is over a million dollars, the US education system is starved for funds and the ACA is deemed "too expensive."

Looks to me like the system is doing exactly what it's intended to be doing. The oligarchy gets richer, and most everyone else either treads water or gets poorer. Hurrah! How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?

Re:I've thought so for some time

[fustakrakich]

How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?

Are they going to win the World Series? I mean, if the Cubs can...

Anyway, keeping the opium pipeline open is worth every penny spent so far... but E-payments would step on some toes, so it hardly seems practical.

Re:I've thought so for some time

[HornWumpus]

Anybody else notice that when America was at war in SE asia they claimed that 80% of the world's opium came from there?

Synthetic opioids make it academic. One Chinese lab can make enough to keep the world fucked up, forever.

The last thing anybody in power wants is a way to truly track money flows. How would they get paid?

Re:I've thought so for some time

[Trailer Trash]

Electronic payment systems would go a long way to solving that problem.

Problem? This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Look: it channels vast amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of US corporations, while also propping up the government of Afghanistan so as to channel even more tax dollars into the US military-industrial complex.

Related:

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Looks like your typical DC "company" - donate to Democrats and get lucrative government contracts in return.

Re:I've thought so for some time

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, the average net worth of a US congress member is over a million dollars,

Are you trying to say that is high? I am a software developer, and my net worth is over a million dollars. A $1 million net worth seems low to me for anyone in the US government.

Re: I've thought so for some time

[sound vision]

The ACA is too expensive because it preserves the insurance/employer-based health care system, where an entire class of middlemen take their cut, resulting in costs several times what other developed nations have. Pumping more subsidies into that system won't make it more efficient. The only solution is publicly funded healthcare. Then maybe in a couple decades, costs will be under control. Insurance salesman will have to get productive jobs like the rest of us. Boo-hoo.

Re:I've thought so for some time

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody should give a damn which godsdamn political party they belong to
Take your primitive tribal alliances and go back to the stone age

Re:I've thought so for some time

[K10W]

How 'bout those Kardashians, eh?

Are they going to win the World Series? I mean, if the Cubs can...

Anyway, keeping the opium pipeline open is worth every penny spent so far... but E-payments would step on some toes, so it hardly seems practical.

you'll find most the worlds opium isn't Afghani at all. That is a myth that keeps getting pushed. Same claim happened with SE Asian opium in late 'Nam conflict era when a lot of it wasn't from there in the USA at the time. There are several big producers. SEA (Vietnam is inluded but bulk of production is China, Thailand, Laos, Burma), SWAsian (mainly Afghanistan), Mexico and Guatemala region, other South American (mainly Peru and some mountainous Columbia).

Opium hardly ever leaves the country if ever. It is more efficient to move in heroin form and it gives the processing methods away. Plus a lot of Afghani product is from poppy straw and not opium to begin with. They tend to turn it into sodium morphinate or morphine base close to harvest region and move that to labs (often shitholes and outdoors not what we think of as a lab) for conversion to morphine (usually sulph) at the very least before moving it across borders (the Russian triangle in Afghanistan). Then that is often converted in situ to heroin. The alkaloidal impurities ratios or absence gives good indicator of where it is from as affected by processing method because it varies by geographic location, namely the big 7 (morphine, codeine, thebaine, papaverine, noscapine, porphyroxine and meconic acid) along with the final product salt type or if it is base (a lot of European stuff seized is); less so acetyl codeine and 3-acetylemorphine and 6-acetyl morphine ratios relative to each other (places that use enough acetic anhydride don't get much of the former so may not be present). Combined with microscope inspection, tlc, gas chromatography and other types and maybe mass spec analysis you can determine pretty accurately where it is from even if you had zero idea where it was seized from.

As for the big firms they don't buy their raw materials from economically unstable or undeveloped regions. They grow there own. I'm European and I know where 2 of the global pharma firms has fields, all of them are European locations. You'd be surprised.

Re:I've thought so for some time

[K10W]

Anybody else notice that when America was at war in SE asia they claimed that 80% of the world's opium came from there?

Synthetic opioids make it academic. One Chinese lab can make enough to keep the world fucked up, forever.

The last thing anybody in power wants is a way to truly track money flows. How would they get paid?

aye just posted that above, you're right that myth seems to adapt to wherever the current conflict is. I didn't state above but a lot of US street opiates are South American and SEA (oft Chinese these days as Thai stuff dropped off) in origin but it is easier to deal in conspiracy claims than the truth which is more boring. The Chinese and other labs are indeed cuttign a lot of product with synthetics so unsure if that was insightful guess or you know that? Fentanyl and the like are common adulterants and it is causing some serious problems at street level when people fall out as naloxone can't always be given in time and know there are a lot of potentially reversible deaths in my home own alone. Like I also said the big pharma companies grow their own within Europe and probably the USA (I only know where a few of their Euro sites are) and their fields oft have different types of poppy anyway such as high thebaine Tasmania types or something where SWA (Afghani) is often giganteum or similar, as they uise a lot more than the morphine because thebaine is feedstock for a lot of sythetics they make..

Prison

[kbg]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just prosecute the corrupt officials for corruption? I mean how complex could it be? One undercover agent and then rinse repeat that for a few months until everyone is to scared to take bribery because they don't know if the traveler is an agent. Problem solved.

Re:Prison

[magarity]

Wouldn't it have been simpler to have had a military governor since 2001 and only now gradually introducing democracy instead of having elections 3 months after the invasion? Japan didn't return to fully self governed until '72 and it seems to have worked out OK for them.

Re:Prison

[viperidaenz]

It probably would be, if USA had the jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute people in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is not the 51st state.

Re:Prison

[Pembers]

The cases would have to be investigated by the Afghan police and prosecuted in the Afghan courts, as no one else has jurisdiction. In countries where the customs officials are corrupt (and get away with it), it's quite likely that the police and judges are corrupt as well. So even if the police and judges could be bothered to take on a case against a corrupt customs official, they could probably be easily persuaded (i.e. bribed) to drop it.

In other words, corruption exists (and continues to exist) because the systems that ought to stop it are themselves corrupt.

Thanks Don!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Trump their president too??

Perfect method to make your partner rich

[OricAtmos48K]

It is a global method for the Political Parties and Government to spend millions of dollars to make their political partners rich with useless tenders. Get used to it.

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

If Trump accomplishes nothing, it will be better than the damage Hillary would likely have caused. At least we've shaken things up.

Thank you Electoral College

[fyngyrz]

The American people lost. We only had two choices, Hillary or Trump. There was no way to win.

Yes, we lost, and Clinton has pretty much always been an obvious sycophant for the status quo - so yeah, it would have been some kind of loss either way.

But there was an obvious path to losing in a far, far worse way. And that worse way is exactly what we got.

Perplexing failure to adopt

[Headw1nd]

The Agency figured if it could convince those at corruption hotspots, such as customs agents and border guards, to use e-payment methods, then it might curb the amount of cash those agents pocketed every day.

So you're saying this foolproof plan didn't work? Huh.

Between 2009 and 2017...Thanks Obama!

[Anonymous Coward]

But for sure the democrats will blame the Russians and Trump

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up definition of "Pyrrhic victory".

That's actually a very insightful comment. The DNC successfully rigged the primaries to give Clinton the nomination; but it devastated the party and will end Debbie Wasserman Schultz's political career.

That's a new one

[93 Escort Wagon]

Is someone using copy-and-paste hit pieces from Breitbart to create Slashdot summaries now?

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see:
- neo-Nazi's and racists marching in our streets
- neo-Nazi's and racists running people over or trying (see news about last night)
- we're building a wall to nowhere and paying for it
- Obamacare was almost repealed; not amended or replaced with something better, but repealed/replaced with the status quo ante bellum
- we're sending more troops to Afghanistan in America's longest war with no end in sight
- the right to vote is under attack
- the Russia Gate scandal just continues to expose more and more contacts between Trump campaign and the Russian Government
- The White House is a mess of intrigue and will continue so for the foreseeable future
- The government is now all about Trump, Trump and Trump and his fragile ego.
- He also gives contradictory speeches and says things that are obvious lies.

What Real American would not be butt hurt at this point

160 Million spent on a good, but failed, cause

[FeltLion]

Unlike the billions spent on consistently failed causes without even the good premise this one had #drugwar #factoryeducation #TtrillionUnaccountedPentagonSpending

You call this rebuilding?

[azrael29a]

"the US has spent more time, energy, and money trying to rebuild Afghanistan than it has spent killing the Taliban" Rebuilding? Really? 1) Attack an oil-rich country disguising your invasion as "War on Terror". 2) Destroy nearly all of their infrastructure and industry. 3) Give American companies some lucrative contracts to provide services for the US Army and to rebuild the previously destroyed infrastructure, and take over the oil fields. 4) Leave Afghan industry still in ruins. 5) Profit. Ah, America. A true selfless sheriff of the world.

Re:You call this rebuilding?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's actually the good guys, you should see how shitty the bad guys are.

you sir have spoiled american syndrome

[Brigadier]

I don't want to do it because:

1. it's hard, because
2.it takes too long
3. I have to wake up earlier
4. I'll have to miss my favorite show
5. because it's my constitutional right and I don't care if it's wrong
and our newest
6. because it target's me as an individual, or/and generalizes my identity.

The old way was insecure, outdated, and cost institutions (see users) millions of dollars a year due to avoidable fraud. This way is somewhat more secure ... period

what a waste of money

[supernova87a]

Wake up everyone. Can you imagine the amount of benefit that our own country would have experienced over the last 15 years if we hadn't dumped $1T of our budget into that godforsaken wasteland?

Screw them. $0 in 2018.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw them. $0 in 2018.

That will fix all sorts of things.

Sadly, it won't dent the $20T US debt in 2017. Up from $5.6T in 2000. For that, we need drastic actions that no politician (or democrat) will like.

For reference: https://www.treasurydirect.gov...

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[gnick]

At least we've shaken things up.

All I can picture is a kid treating his ant farm like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Re: Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump has already accomplished significantly more than nothing. It will take years to fix the damage he's caused in just a few months -- consumer and environmental protections mostly, but the value of the world's lost goodwill is also enormous.

And it will be decades to fix if we stop falling for this "maybe the guys that don't want it to exist will fix it" crap every 8 years.

Some money makes it into the hands of employees

[rsilvergun]

and it's one of the few things that keep our economy going. The oligarchy was always going to get richer. The Military Industry Complex was the only was anyone could think of to pry some money out of their hands. Before that you just had robber barons and the like paying pennies a day. Eisenhower talked about this as he was leaving office.

The Complex was built to keep our economy going because it's easier to get people to pay for 'defense' when you're redistributing wealth. And like it or not we either redistribute wealth or it naturally accumulates at the top. I don't even need to argue that point, I've got 5000 years of recorded history to back me up on it.

Re:Some money makes it into the hands of employees

[Anonymous Coward]

And like it or not we either redistribute wealth or it naturally accumulates at the top.

The question you're begging is that this is some kind of problem to be addressed.
I'm not at the top; I'm much much much closer to the bottom. Think SNAP eligible (not receiving, thank you).
But my house is nearly paid off, and I have no other debt.
I'm doing okay, and it's no skin off my nose if the rich get richer.

That's because businesses are trying to use

[rsilvergun]

10-15 year old equipment to run the chips. Nobody wants to pay for new equipment so it's a mess. I've been to places with new terminals (Trader Joes in my neck of the woods) and it's a fraction of a second longer than swiping.

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

kid treating his ant farm like an Etch-a-Sketch

More like the parents (i.e. Congress) withholding the ant farm for that reason. You missed the original AC comment about Trump doing nothing. Not that Congress is much better but if they can't shake things up then nobody can...

New Translation Program

[hyades1]

I hope the people of Slashdot will help me test the translation program I have written. It allows on-the-fly repair of English statements badly-translated from the main Afghani languages and renders them into a more accurate English translation.

I entered the customs official's comment, "It's a very long and inefficient process and that's why people do not use this method," into my software, and this is what I got back:

"When they can't afford proper health care or to send their kids to college, how can I expect US taxpayers to make me a millionaire if they know how much I'm stealing?"

Does that sound about right to you guys? For some reason, the software has trouble with the snicker at the end of the official's words.

Re:Thank you Bush/Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anon to not undo mod... I laughed a little to hard at this, until I realized that it is a "It's only funny because it's true" kind of laugh. Kind of like at the end of a nuclear war, the victor may have won but they still lost.

E-Payments, what about back home?

[Midnight Thunder]

In Europe there is IBAN, while allows you to transfer cash from any account to an account electronically. Over here it isn't so simple. Last time I wanted to pay my landlord it was still by check - what is this? 1880?

Re:GPL PROGRAMS ARE THE ARYAN RACE OF SOFTWARE

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop replying to spam; just let it get downmodded and walk away.

Some argument, but you are partially right

[HBI]

Yes, not invading Afghanistan would have been smarter than doing what we did.

Pulling out now would be smarter than what we are going to do.

In 2001, nuking the country until the mountains melted and the sands glowed for 100 years would have been the correct response to an attack on a few thousand civilians emanating from there. The reason why asymmetric warfare has been so popular for the last 75 years or so is that the pinprick attacks weren't mass attacks (mostly) and weren't targeted at civilians (mostly). Therefore, there was no ambiguity about whether nuclear deterrence would be invoked. No sane person is going to nuke the enemy over 50 people getting killed in an engagement in Vietnam or the Middle East. However, if you don't respond with the deterrent when 2500 or so are killed, and the two biggest buildings in the biggest city in North America are destroyed, along with a fifth or so of the headquarters of your armed forces and a (foiled) attack on the President's residence, no one will believe you will ever use that deterrent. It broke the asymmetry and exposed that the emperor had no clothes.

There was a golden opportunity to make an example and shut down the spate of terrorist attacks cold. No country will tolerate attacks emanating from its soil if they feel that that might be the response. Instead, we have the endless war and the constant flow of body bags into Dover AFB. Until we finally have to use the deterrent in a less appealing place. It will happen - and because Bush was either a pussy or didn't even consider the option, those in the future will have to face the very unpalatable choice of nuking an actually important part of the world, and perhaps absorbing a warhead or ten in return as retaliation.

Re:Some argument, but you are partially right

[Gavagai80]

The only thing stupider than what happened if your proposal. Nuking a practically-defenseless country would've:
1) left the USA without any allies and most likely under sanctions
2) made the USA far, far more likely to be preemptively nuked by another country in the future, endangering 300,000,000 lives in a way that a handful of pathetic criminals blowing themselves up can never do
3) created a huge spike in terrorist funding and focused all terrorism efforts specifically onto the USA, instead of mostly on the middle east as is the case today

Re:Some argument, but you are partially right

[Gavagai80]

And also, by the way, most of Al Qaeda would've survived the nukes by living in Pakistan. And if the USA had nuked Pakistan, millions of Americans would've died in the response.

Re:Some argument, but you are partially right

[HBI]

Complete disagreement.

Preemptively nuking a practically defenseless country happened in 1945. People understood we'd use the things then. They don't now.

Deterrence involves fear. You're being a pussy like Bush was. Pussies get beaten up in the schoolyard.

Re:Some argument, but you are partially right

[HBI]

The objective wasn't to kill them. The objective is deterrence. If another country wanted to risk devastation by hosting them, their problem. I doubt it would have taken much effort to see the troublemakers dead after that.

Allies are not so the US can be defended - you can try to convince yourself of that, but it was never true. Allies were to prevent the European powers from Finlandizing towards the Soviets during the Cold War, which is why NATO is pointless now. The US doesn't need allies to defend itself. Nuclear umbrella + navy the size of the next three challengers. The rest is just gravy.

Anti-freedom

[easyTree]

American taxpayers send billions to Kabul every year and every year billions disappear into the pockets of Afghan government officials.

That money should be going into the pockets of home-grown God's honest American government officials!

Don't let America control your payment systems

[Anonymous Coward]

because they will always rig and subvert it to their own benefit, and literally corrupt the system if they think they need to.