Damming Afghanistan: Modernization in a Buffer State

Abstract

In May 1960, historian Arnold J. Toynbee left Kandahar and drove ninety miles on freshly paved roads to Lashkar Gah, a modern planned city known locally as New York of Afghanistan. At confluence of Helmand and Arghandab rivers, close against ancient ruins of Qala Bist, Lashkar Gah's eight thousand residents lived in suburban-style tract homes surrounded by broad lawns. city boasted an alabaster mosque, one of country's best hospitals, Afghanistan's only coeducational high school, and headquarters of Helmand Valley a multipurpose dam project funded by United States. This unexpected proliferation of modernity led Toynbee to reflect on warning of Sophocles: the craft of his engines surpasseth his dreams. In area around Kandahar, traditional Afghanistan had vanished. The domain of Helmand Valley Authority, he reported, has become a piece of America inserted into Afghan landscape.... new world they are conjuring up out of desert at Helmand River's expense is to be an America-in-Asia.I Toynbee's image sits uneasily with visuals of recent war. In granite battlescapes captured by cameras of Al-Jazeera network in days after September 11, 2001, Afghanistan appeared as perhaps one spot on earth unmarked by influence of American culture. When correspondents referred to Afghanistan's