Midway through the long article on Afghanistan in the eleventh edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, one comes across this description of the inhabitants of that ancient mountain country:
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome, intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of constant occurrence.
This refreshingly frank passage, by Colonel Sir Thomas Hungerford Holdich, was published in 1910. I was put in mind of Sir Thomas's commentary just before Christmas, when the New York Times took its quote of the day from one Faqir Muhammad, an officer in one of the many squabbling anti-Taliban armies: "This is what Afghanistan is", he said. "We kill each other." Indeed. And not only each other, so the American and British troops now enjoying the hospitality of the Afghans would do well to acquaint themselves with this travel advisory. It is as pertinent today as it was a century ago.
