My mistake
Looks like I blew it on the $43 million US aid to Afghanistan thing.
Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix explains what really happened. Looks like Colin Powell made a side comment about supporting the Taliban's ban on poppies that got blown out of proportion into sounding like that was the reason for the aid.
Mea culpa. I guess this underscores what I was saying the other day about not trusting what you read, especially on the Web.
(Of course, now I'm assuming that Kennedy got the facts right. But he provides more specific detail than any other source I've seen.)
URLs:
Jim Romenesko's Media News letters page (which led me to the Kennedy article)