This Big Picture post is all about Afghanistan.  It mentions the country's problems with tribal warfare, drug production, and poverty. 

My first reaction is, "Seriously?  Tribal warfare?"  It's hard to imagine people grouping themselves in tribes and protecting their settlements and tribesmen through primitive battles.  It reminds me of this picture showing Masai warriors in Kenya engaged in a bow-and-arrow fight with another tribe.  This stuff is still happening today?  I mean, we have iPods and space shuttles and TV shows with dancing.  On the other hand, I guess we're all sort of tribal in a sense.  I live in the tribe of America, specifically the cynical tribe of New Jersey.  It's the same thing.  But it's different. 

I sort of respect the fact that Afghanistan is good at growing drugs.  "Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin. The Afghan drug trade accounts for 90 percent of the worldwide production."  I mean, it's a shady, vile business.  But it's a business.  They're simply supplying a product that's in demand.  It's not like they're making cars that nobody wants to drive.  In that sense, they're better than General Motors. 

It's a shame that poverty, and in turn, illiteracy, is a problem.  Why don't they use some of that drug money to hire some of their tribesmen to build schools?  Two birds with one drug. 

Looking at some of those pictures, I'm amazed at the amount of natural beauty in a place where natural beauty isn't the first thing that comes to mind.  How about tourism?  If the price was right, I'd spend a little time in the mountains of Afghanistan.  Do they have ski lifts?  As a fictional movie about baseball in corn fields taught us, "If you build it, they will come." #travel