Afghanistan--successful resistance agsint civilization again

Submitted by Kepha (United States), Apr 8, 2011 at 15:08

Around the 1600's, the last Syriac Christian church in what is now Afghanistan disappeared. By the mid-20th century, an equally ancient Jewish community in that country also packed its bags for 'Eretz Yisrael and other points. Thus ended any measure of "civilization" in Afghanistan, which once was the Silk Road between East and West.

Neither the British nor the Russians pacified Afghanistan, even though they tried. The last people to succeed in that task were the Mongols, who left cities like Balkh and Herat as piles of rubble guarded by towers of human skulls; and made sure that a good portion of the surviving population carried Mongol genes (see the Hazaras, and the survival of the Mongol language in parts of Khorassan and western Afghanistan down into the 19th century). But these Mongol tactics are not methods that Americans are willing to adopt, so when something as petty as Jones' act touches off riots in Afghanistan, it suggests that there is a better chance for a snowball to stay in Hell than for any civilization to take root in Afghanistan. Let's get out and let the country return to its traditional pattern of Muslim bigotry, blood feud, high infant mortality, ignorance, and willingness to be led blindly by people who are called "'Alim" only because they can garble a few lines of Arabic without understanding what it means. The whole country is not worth another American shell casing, much less life.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".