Stephen Farrell: Marja 50 Years Ago: Model Villages and American Money

[Stephen Farrell is a columnist for the New York Times.]

Marja, an area of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province, is the focus of an imminent NATO military operation. Tribal elders are being assured that government and NATO forces will rid the area of Taliban fighters, and that they will be consulted on the appointment of local officials and development project proposals.

The older ones may recall that Marja and the surrounding region was the product of an earlier Afghan-American river and social engineering project half a century ago. The area was settled with hundreds of new families in the late 1950s and early 1960s to be “model villages” under a vast scheme to rejuvenate the entire Helmand River Valley — using an American company that helped build the Hoover Dam.

A dispatch from The New York Times dated February 29, 1960

“MISTAKES BESET AFGHAN PROJECT
Helmand Valley Work, Which U.S. is Aiding, Lags Badly – Fund Lack a Factor”

and

“still more money will be needed. The likely provider is the United States”

and

“Modern American agricultural machinery has been rusting in idleness for years. It was important to grow wheat for workers of the American company that did most of the valley’s construction.”