Afghanistan,what is the answer?

[buelligan]

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan#Pre-Islamic_period[/url]

[Mickie Hill]

"The area's Pashtun tribesman tangled with Alexander the Great in the 4th century, and their archers almost killed him. They held off the Mughal Emperor Babur in the 16th century and fought the British Raj to a standstill in the 19th and 20th. Rudyard Kipling celebrated their ferocity in poems, including one in which a tribesman vowed: " 'Tis war, red war, I'll give you then, war till my sinews fail."

In his 1912 memoir Campaigns on the North-West Frontier, British Capt. Hugh Lewis Nevill described the tribesmen in and around the Khyber Pass as "rapacious, untrustworthy and lawless by nature. They are constantly at feud with one another, but are always ready to unite in defense of their independence."

Unable to tame the tribesmen, the British pretty much left them alone. So did the Pakistani government after assuming power when independence came to the Indian subcontinent in 1947. "

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-10-01-tribes_N.htm

Yousee? Thats one of the main probs: the Pashtun tribesmen recognise no border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For hundreds of years they have moved backwards and forwards through the mountains of the Khyber Pass.

[buelligan]

Yeah, your probably right...a carefully researched piece on Afghanistan, it's culture, politics and history in USA Today is a pretty unimpeachable source![:D]

[Mickie Hill]

So you believe Wiki is unbiased then Mate?

Good for you.

http://www.hnn.us/roundup/entries/107097.html

 

 

[buelligan]

No, not at all, I 'spose I've had a bit of a life-long interest in Alexander.  The Mary Renault trilogy was one of the first things I read as a small child.  The Wiki reference is just there because it's easily found, widely recognised and simply written.  Interesting though that USAToday does not mention the several centuries that the Mongols occupied what is now Afghanistan.  Perhaps Americans don't like the idea of their better equipped army being poorer soldiers and less able strategically than a load of crazy little blokes on horses...[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn[/url][:D]

[Mickie Hill]

But the point surely old mate is that even Alexander and the Mongols couldn't tame the Pashtun tribesmen.

And I believe it is arrogant idiocy for the US and Britain to think they can!

These geezers are so up for a barney, they can't even agree among themselves!

 

[Frederick]

A scrimmage in a Border Station

A canter down some dark defile

Two thousand pounds of education

Drops to a ten rupee Jezail

Kipling

[Gastines]

Reading the historical notes posted ,it appears that Politicians don't study history or cultures but try to add their name to the history books for their own angrandisement. I was thinking of another posting ,"The U.K. what is the answer" but with Christmas just around the corner I think we have all had enough of reading the ever increasing problems. The only business that seems to be expanding in the U.K. at the moment seems to be "Charity" but mainly to bail out what the taxpayer has already paid for.

[buelligan]

I don't think you should take such a dim view, "Charity" is not the only thing we're good at exporting you know. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters[/url]

Anyone here read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts BTW?

[Frederick]

A good read about the history of the area

if you want to get a feeling of what it was like in Afganistan is "41 Years in India" by Field Marshall Lord Roberts