Rudyard Kipling once wrote:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd like a soldier.

We would all do well to know more about Afghanistan.  There's a cool
website with a brief history of the First (first! there were three)
Afghan-British war.  In it the author says:

"Known to Europeans since the days of Alexander, Afghanistan is a land of
mountains, ferocious warriors, uncompromising Islam, vicious tribal
rivalries and a political complexity that entwines bloodlines, religion,
history, opportunism and treachery into a mix as incomprehensible to the
outsider today as it has ever been."

We seem to think the Russians are the only ones who have failed there, and,
worse, we seem to think we, with our gadgets and gizmos, are smarter.  I
wonder.

Click on

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/afopen.htm

for more.

Charles
'85 Westy