Oh .and then along came another bunch of friendly locals to trash their country..

Oh and then there was the Taliban who were successful in destroying the poppy harvest whilst denying education for women and human rights and also fostered and harboured terrorists active in Al Qieda

And don’t forget the past…

for centuries warlords and tribal factions have ebbed and flowed to maintain power..trade and drugs, the silk road…

I am in disagrement with the view that Afghanistan is a nation State…It is not and will never be….it is a sparsely populated land occupied by loosely linked communities but strong in the fear of the outside world.

I have heard the Military espousing the view that that we have to win the war in Afganistan to defeat terrorism….rubbish…

The reason that Bin Laden etc are holed up between Afghanistan and North West Pakistan is that they are better able to avoid detection .

And everyday you can score, heroin from Afganistan and cocaine from Columbia ,in vast quantities within the UK.

Try any port, from Aberdeen, Leith, London and then the inner cities to reveal the grip and misery that is imported from these distant lands. Cocaine….consumed by bankers and the media….heroin… by street dwellers that live beneath the urban tide of city life…

In nuclear terms.. don’t worry about Russia..a comparative cuddly democracy with Oligarchs thrown in, it.. bears no relation to North Korea or Iran..

Russia and the US can sleep safe , in my opinion, knowing they can destroy lesser powers…..the ideological battle is over , they all want Porches and Superyachts…..a few disfunctional states that can be viewed by satellite, remote drone or blackbird …a worry but the USA and Russia could soon deal with that and still keep the oil flowing….!