MacKay's Wonderful World

The only thing missing from video reports of Peter MacKay's quick photo-op trip to Afghanistan this week has been the soundtrack 'What a Wonderful World' playing in the background.

On Monday, MacKay handed over $10 million to pay for salaries of Afghan police officers which sounds like a Good News story unless you consider this:

Underpaid, undermanned and often corrupted by drugs and smuggling, Afghanistan's police have been swamped by a rising tide of Taliban violence, particularly in the southern provinces. Some have been abducted and killed, often in gruesome fashion. The failures are in spite of massive western funding. German officials have trained police officers while the US allocated $1.1bn for bringing the rank and file up to standard. Yet a recent Pentagon report found that American programme managers could not say how many policemen were reporting for work, and were unable to account for thousands of lorries and other equipment. As in Iraq, the lion's share of the budget has been funnelled through private contractors, in this case DynCorps. In an attempt to stabilise the violence-racked south, the Afghan government is inducting thousands of tribesmen into the police on one-year contracts. Many are drawn from tribal militias. But critics say that the scheme may only re-militarise the countryside - something the international community has spent five years and millions of pounds trying to avoid.

MacKay: putting a bandaid on a gaping head wound.

Stay tuned as he goes to to visit Pakistan's Musharraf who has been pondering putting up a fence and placing land mines on his border with Afghanistan while he's also been busy pointing the finger at Uzbekistan, Yemen and Libya for allowing so-called terrorists from their countries to make their way into Pakistan for terrorist training. Perhaps if he actually shut down those camps, those foreigners wouldn't be interested in going to Pakistan in the first place.

The best Mackay can do there is to get yet another photo-op shaking hands with Musharraf. Choose your own soundtrack for that one.