Afghanistan is a country with violence at Palaeolithic levels, a misogynist religion, and endemic corruption.  It is surrounded by countries that are hostile to it and the West.  In fact, it seems to be made up of territory that is unwanted by the countries that surround it, as if the value from incorporating bits of Afghanistan would not be worth the pain of having the Afghani people who would come with it.  It does not produce anything that the world wants in a positive way.  Its major export is heroin, bringing misery and death to a large arc from Russia to Western Europe.   It sounds like a hopeless case of a country in which to do nation-building, but that is not the worst of it.  The modern history of Afghanistan is written in its wheat statistics.  Back in 1960, there were nine million Afghans and they grew 2.3 million tonnes of wheat in that year.  By the time the Russians invaded in 1979, wheat production had risen to 2.7...(Read Full Post)