(Culturally insensitive comments to follow): A kid who's a friend of the family is there in some Army administration role. He just called for my daughter, high school friends, and she wasn't home. His take:

"I know why we're here, but I don't think we should be here. These people, who we're going to all this trouble to give freedom, are not worth it if you ask me. They are fucked up. Friday is the holy day, right? So on Thursday night everyone is out - you see all kinds of people, gay people are out in the town. There are these old men chasing little boys around, and they rape them, and that's what they do - and then on Friday it's the holy day. But on Thursday night everyone's out. They say we're going to change everything but if you get out in the town with these people you see it all, and I don't think we're going to change anything."

He was quick to backtrack and say "that's just what I think" and I think the caricature of the military guys who "if they're not complaining, things are not normal" probably applies here. But not a pretty picture and sort of supports the notion that Angus had, that maybe there's a reason they tend to have dictators in these parts.

This is just Afghanistan, obviously, and not the whole Middle East. Maybe it's like comparing any run down rural part of the U.S. with a more normal portion. It does make you wonder, though, whether you can build a nation on the foundation of a cultural backwater.