While Colon Powell's "we broke it, we bought it" argument has convinced many of the need to stay in Iraq—including myself until recently—that sense of responsibility for post-war recovery has been noticeably absent from our involvement in Afghanistan.

From the minute the Taliban fell and the U.S. turned its attention to Iraq, the government, the international community, and the American public has essentially neglected the rebuilding process and the Afghan people. Maybe the country was deemed beyond repair by some, or maybe they were just compelled by the bigger, sexier war in Iraq.

Whatever the reason, Afghanistan hasn't seen about $10 billion of the aid it was promised to help rebuild, and 40% of the money that has been delivered has been spent on "corporate profits and consultancy fees," according to the BBC:

The report by Acbar, an alliance of international aid agencies working in the country, including Oxfam, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and Save the Children, says the international community has pledged $25bn to Afghanistan since 2001 but only $15bn has been delivered.

The US is the biggest donor to Afghanistan but is also responsible for one of the biggest shortfalls. The US delivered only half of the $10.4bn it committed between 2002 and 2008, according to the Afghan government, today's report says.

Over the same period the European commission and Germany distributed less than two-thirds of their respective $1.7bn and $1.2bn commitments while the World Bank distributed just over half of the $1.6bn it committed. Britain pledged $1.45bn and distributed almost all, $1.3bn.

The report estimated that 40% of the aid money spent in Afghanistan has found its way back to rich donor countries such as the US through corporate profits, consultants' salaries and other costs, significantly inflating the cost of projects.

Afghanistan's biggest donor, USAid, allocates nearly half its funds to five big contractors. The US government has awarded major contracts, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to KBR, the Louis Berger group, Chemonics International, Bearing Point, and Dyncorp International, according to a study by the US-based Centre for Public Integrity quoted in today's report.

I've tried to explain before why rebuilding Afghanistan matters. The country was neglected after the after the Soviets and U.S-backed mujahadeen spent several years fighting and destroying the nation's infrastructure, and this neglect facilitated the rise of the Taliban. One could argue that if the foreign policy at the time hadn't been so short sighted, if Afghanistan had been rebuilt and stabilized, Bin Laden wouldn't have had a refuge in the years leading up to 9/11. Who knows what that could have prevented?

Now, the Taliban is resurging in some areas, and 2007 was the deadliest year for the U.S. since the 2001 invasion. History repeats itself.