Comment by colinb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colinb | Hacker News Reader

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which 'always'? The rotten kleptocracy it appears to be right now (from my cosy European point of view)? The warring tribal zealot-ridden hellhole it was after the Soviet invasion? Or the (apparently) fast-advancing more-or-less liberal democracy it was before the Soviet invasion?

People and countries can change. And people and countries DO change. I think the lesson I've learned from my safe distance these last 20 years is that it is hard to influence the direction in which this change happens, even with the expenditure of blood and treasure. Oh, you can stir shit up, but there's no knowing how it will settle.

[incidentally, it really isn't clear to me why this sort of thing seems to have worked well for the de-nazification of Germany and pacification of Japan]

You say countries change but the only part of Afghanistan that's changed at all is the cities. Once you get out of the cities you're turning the clock back a thousand years. It was never anything like a "liberal democracy". The fundamental political unit is the tribe and any analysis that does not use the word tribe is misinformed. It's very difficult for someone from the west to understand that a society so different from their own can exist today. It's a pastoral society centuries removed. There is no print media, no radio, no cell phones. Travel is difficult, and only possible some times of year. Most people in Afghanistan have never heard of 9/11 and do not understand the war(s). https://www.pbs.org/video/pbs-newshour-what-does-911-mean-to...

edit: The comparison to Germany and Japan shows just how out of context Afghanistan is to western eyes. In european terms Afghanistan is pre roman europe. No roads, no laws, no central government, no news, no standing army. By contrast germany was a western country and japan was westernizing very quickly post Meiji.

Hey. So at the end of the 19th century both Germany and Japan where backward agrarian societies. I have read (sorry, no reference) that bigoted westerners considered Japanese people to be lazy and feckless. I repeat, things change.

What? This is extremely wrong. The end of the 19th century is ~1900. Germany and japan were absolutely not backwards agrarian societies at the time. This was post industrial revolution.

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