re: #105 opnion

or do we conclude that the Afghans are backward primitives & that the situation is hopeless?

One observation: People can be backward and primitive, without being rabidly violent. To the extent we can get a good portion of the Afghan people to see themselves as protecting their way of life against an alien, Saudi-funded ideology, that will be a good thing, even if those same people are quite happy to live in the Middle Ages themselves. And, of course, to the extent we can start pulling more of them into modernity, all the better.