Reply #9: Thank you. An excellent summary of what should be glaringly obvious to anyone

[ConsAreLiars]

who who is halfway reality based and halfway informed. Not a large number, sadly, seem to fit that category, despite their self-perceptions.

Words from 150 years ago by one F. Engels:

The Afghans are a brave, hardy, and independent race; they follow pastoral or agricultural occupations only, eschewing trade and commerce, which they contemptuously resign to Hindus, and to other inhabitants of towns. With them, war is an excitement and relief from the monotonous occupation of industrial pursuits.

The Afghans are divided into clans<41>, over which the various chiefs exercise a sort of feudal supremacy. Their indomitable hatred of rule, and their love of individual independence, alone prevents their becoming a powerful nation; but this very irregularity and uncertainty of action makes them dangerous neighbours, liable to be blown about by the wind of caprice, or to be stirred up by political intriguers, who artfully excite their passions.

...

Their khans have the right of punishment even to the extent of life or death. Avenging of blood is a family duty; nevertheless, they are said to be a liberal and generous people when unprovoked, and the rights of hospitality are so sacred that a deadly enemy who eats bread and salt, obtained even by stratagem, is sacred from revenge, and may even claim the protection of his host against all other danger.

From: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/afghanistan/index.htm

When I was there with my slightly scarfed companion, traveling by public bus and staying in non-tourist hotels, before Brzezinski persuaded Carter that importing fanatic crazies, provoking Soviet intervention, and turning it into a killing field was a Really Good Thing, the people I encountered were still, despite the vast cultural divide, "a liberal and generous people."