Old Blue,

blocks the reception of our real message.

What is our real message?

shows a greater lack of concern for and sensitivity to their culture, which has worked for them for literally thousands of years.

You no doubt saw more vestiges of traditional Pashtun culture than I did, but how ever well their culture may have “worked” for them before the Soviets came, what I saw of it is not “working” for them now. It is unraveling. The old forms of social control have fallen away but Western-style concepts of justice and professonal law enforcement haven’t replaced them.

The social cohesion is gone. The authority of the elders and maliks is undermined by big men with money and guns. Jirgas don’t meet like they did and are ignored. Pashtunawali is not observed as it once was. Kabul is too insecure to let lashkars and arbakai perform their traditional functions even if they still could and too weak to enforce the law and administer justice itself.

I believe in cultural awareness sufficient to get them to do what you want.