BBC report on Afghanistan

The only reason I am blogging this is because of the last line. This is a very heart-rending account of a three year old kid who was systematically amputated by criminals in Afghanistan as his father was unable to pay the ransom demanded. It also raised important questions about the criminal justice system, the rise in kidnappings and so on. However, read that last bit again:

But paying more to judges and government officials won't solve the problem of lawlessness in Afghanistan.

It's too deeply entrenched in the very structure of society.

Don't know about you, but to me that's deeply racist. What Jenny Cuffe is trying to say is that look, whatever has happened in Afghanistan's past and it's present mess is not the fault of the various imperial powers colonizing it, but really fundamentally their own fault. After all, they are a bunch of lawless nomadic tribes, and surely we can't expect Western style civilization from them, can we? And seen in that context, amputating the limbs of kids makes perfect sense of course...