Letters to the Editor
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Yes I do know, because I took the trouble to do a LOT of reading after 9/11
A shortage of outspoken angry people on the left has NEVER been a problem in Afghanistan.
If you look at Agfhan politics over the last 40 years you will find absolutely no shortage of outspoken people on the left willing to hurl provocative insults at their opponents.
In the past, the outspoken, radical Afghan left has mainly succeeded in provoking and prolonging civil war.
They never built any bridges to their opposition. They had no strategy other than to overpower them -- a strategy that failed because urban educated Marxists represented less than 10% of the population.
What Afghanistan has lacked in modern times is a middle ground in politics.
There's a shortage in Afghanistan of people willing to compromise. That's what they've been lacking in the past. In the past almost everyone favoring modernization was a radical Marxist.
This tendency towards angry radical extremism on both sides of the political spectrum is largely how they got to where they are now.