re: Sorry, weren't we discussing Afghanistan?
Tom; "And frankly, I'm getting a little tired of people here trying to convince me that the old Afghanistan and Iraq were somehow better and more peaceful than the current situation. Unless we're just talking about the general leftist wistfulness for totalitarian "order." "
Of course things were better. All the orderly murders were out of sight and out of mind of Americans. Americans never got to see the 100's of thousands Saddam and sons raped, tortured and murdered.
And in Afghanistan we didn’t hear or see about things like teenagers being stoned to death because they were raped.