The World Bank says it’s going to cost $45 billion over the next 10 years to rebuild Afghanistan. That’s chump change (the Afghan government says it will cost $45 billion, which still isn’t that much). Consider that we funnelled $7 billion in military aid to the Afghan resistance in the eighties, or that we spent $20 billion in one fell swoop to “bail out” the airlines. We can get a country of over 20 million people back on its feet for less than $1,000 per person. The disparity in wealth between the developed world and the “developing” world is insane.