Contrary to Peter Preston's belief, the nation of Afghanistan was established in 1747. Mr. Preston is promoting what is generally believed by Afghans to be pro-Pakistani propaganda. Why is this propagandistic? Because it supports the idea that Afghans are just too tribal to get along. As Congressman Charlie Wilson once said to me, "You put two Afghans in a room, you end up with seven factions." The trouble with this idea is that Afghanistan has been a cohesive nation nearly 30 years longer than the USA. So who wants the world to believe that Afghans can't get along? Pakistan. The reason for this is the Durrand Line. The Durrand Line, drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand in 1893, is the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it is not very stable. There are Pashtun tribal regions on both sides of the border, and at some point since the establishment of Pakistan (about 60 years ago), it was suggested that the Pashtuns on both sides of the border should unite to create Pashtunistan. This idea makes the government of Pakistan very nervous. In response, its policy has long been to destabilize and control Afghanistan. They pursued this policy in the 1980s and early 1990s through their support of Gulbaddin Hekmatyar (leader of Hezb-e-Islami Hekmatyar, a/k/a “HIH”), because he agreed not to dispute the border, but also because he was deeply feared and disliked by Afghans, and would thus continue to be reliant on Pakistan as his source of power. Later, during the mid 1990s, when he failed to control Afghanistan on their behalf, Pakistan nurtured the Taliban into power. In recent years, rather than merely terrorizing Afghan civilians, the Taliban, a Pakistani “paramilitary” force, has also busied itself killing NATO soldiers, in hopes that the world will give up on Afghanistan, and Pakistan will be allowed to terrorize the country completely without interference -- an outcome for which Peter Preston sounds disquietingly eager.