Kandahar ... keeping our fingers crossed

Seeing Slobodan Milosovic described variously in the press as "the butcher of Belgrade" by a Sun editorialist and as "a hero for all Serbs" by a Serb nationalist caused me to dwell upon our mission in Afghanistan. To us, the Taliban, like Milosovic, are quite obviously incorrigible thugs, but do the villagers of Kandahar share our perspective? Many of them, after all, cleave to the same harsh religious beliefs as the Taliban. And when, after the departure of the Soviets, Kandahar descended into killing, raping, corruption and drug dealing at the hands of the warlords, the Taliban restored order. And, perhaps most importantly, the Taliban are their people, the Pashtun.

So when heavily armed foreigners appear in their villages, and tell them some of their sons, fathers, brothers, friends and neighbours, are scumbags and they are going to kill them, should we expect those villagers to welcome the strangers or to harbour a desire to take an axe to them?

Do they see their world as we do? Or are we blinded by hubris? We had better hope it's the former, or we may be in for a very nasty war indeed.