Monsters do not get reflected in mirrors. But if by some miracle they did, Afghans would see in their mirror a whole line-up of tormentors. From Alexander to the Soviets, Americans and Pakistanis, ...

Like a tortoise shell on Asia’s back, Afghanistan lies athwart the spiny Hindu Kush mountains, sloping northward to the Oxus River and Russia, eastward to the Khyber Pass. Perhaps no land has been so ...