[Morgeruat]

Afganistan had their legislative elections last week amid threats from the Taliban that they would attack polling places and voters (their disclaimer not to attack "innocents" is about as worthless as a palestinian suicide bombers statement that he won't harm innocents, their definition is nowhere near ours). The opium trade in Afganistan is going to be one of the biggest problems as it's a ready source of money, and alot easier to produce than food (which can be bought with the money earned from opium and at a larger profit margin), since it's controlled by our "allies" and enemies there it's going to be hard to stop, but a fundamental step. As far as modernization goes, they (the afgani gov't) don't want it and will resist it as long as they possibly can. But the people want a taste of a better life, and are seeking it, as the massive voter turnouts for the legislative elections have shown.

Saudi Arabia is frothing at the bit about the US training the Iraqi military and police due to the fact that the only realy representation of Sunni muslims there are Kurds, an ethnic group that has suffered for a very long time at the hands of their arab sunni muslim rulers, the other muslim group being trained is of course the shiite muslims who make up the majority of the population and share the same ideological roots as Iran (and are considered a large threat by Saudi Arabia due to their size and lack of shared religious beliefs, ie sunni's view shiites as infidels at best, and apostates at worst (apostacy has but one sentence in Islam).

What was that chinese curse... may you live in interesting times?