Some reminders:
1. Remembering Afghanistan's Golden Age by Elizabeth Bumiller. Includes a multimedia essay.
2. Kabul - City Number One by Adam Curtis - documentarian and researcher. (thanks to Arno)
3. Life Before Death by Michael Yon.
An interesting piece, although I remain somewhat reticent about such rhetoric, because it can easily be used to deflect arguments against increased intervention by outside powers -- although the argument never seems to prevent involvement in any but the most humanitarian conflicts (Balkan Ghosts, anyone?). That is, it's an argument that might be deployed in Year 8 of a war, not Year 0. Nevertheless, because it helps disturb the sanguine (and maddeningly superficial) view of Afghanistan as a country that one can 't do anything about, as a land, discussions about which are bookended by phrases like "imperial graveyard" and "fiercely ungovernable", the piece is welcome. The evocative photographs don't hurt either.
(sorry, comment above refers to the NYT piece).