“Trust a snake before a harlot and a harlot before a Pathan.”   Hindu proverb quoted by Rudyard Kipling in Kim.

Had the current rulers of the US and EU nations studied history they would have discovered that the British were summarily kicked out of Afghanisatn twice and the Russians once and rather recently.  Alexander the Great had a go, but his rule there lasted a short time.  Foreigners are not welcome!  Afghanistan is not even a country, it’s a collection of ever-warring tribes.  Whatever are we doing there?  The idea, a really stupid idea, was to pacify the place and then put an oil pipeline through it from Turkmenistan.  Well, maybe, if you station a platoon of foreign soldiers every ten yards along the line.  We are ill-served by our leaders.  How can one look on from an Epicurean garden and stay peaceful and calm, watching this nonsense?