You get no points for quoting from a 50 year old travel guide and a 70 year old National Geographic. Such publications of that time were written to entertain middle class white folks who were never going to go there. Those descriptions of Afghan life are probably no more valid than the dime novels that popularized the old west.

I have watched several films on Afghanistan recently that show something somewhat different about pre-Taliban life.

Their life is primitive to me but they have nothing I need or want and they have a right to live and progress however they choose.

Most Afghans probably do not usually aspire to be shopkeepers but I doubt that most of their shopkeepers are non-muslim.

They are not aboriginal to the extent of say the Australian bushmen. They have have a small population of intellectuals, many of whom were apparently women.

They are an agrarian society, opium is the money crop.

So they can't point out America on a globe, why should they.

If the people of Afghanistan hate America it is only because they are told to by the zealots (Taliban and al Qaeda). Remember they can't even find us on a map.

As an American, the only thing in Afghanistan that I care about are the persons that killed our people and threaten our lives. Add to that anyone who stands in between and refuses to get out of the way. When we have finished our business there, I would want nothing more than to leave them to the life and government of their choice. If we must participate in U.N. peacekeeping so be it but I would rather not. It is a better job for the Pakistanis or the Turks.