Robert Fisk: Forget the cliches, there is no easy way for the West to sort this out

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‘Afghanistan — as the armies of the West are about to realise — is not a country. You can’t “occupy” or even “control” Afghanistan because it is neither a state nor a nation.

Nor can we dominate Afghanistan with the clichés now being honed by our journalists. We may want a “broad-based” government, but do the Afghans? We may regard cities as “strategic” — especially if reporters are about to enter them — but the Afghans have a different perspective on their land.

As for the famous loya jirga, a phrase which now slips proudly off the lips of cognoscenti, it just means “big meeting”. Even more disturbingly, it is a uniquely Pashtun phrase and thus represents the tribal rules of only 38 per cent of Afghan society.’ Independent UK