How I coached a basketball team in Afghanistan and what went wrong
This piece is amazing, and highlights one truth: the amount of self-afflicted human misery in Afghanistan is truly astounding.And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.