What Afghans think of the guardian: Matthew Leeming says that right-on liberal commentators were quite wrong about the war against the Taleban.

Publication: Spectator

Publication Date: 30-NOV-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)

Faizabad

I WAS halfway up the track that leads to the salt-mine at Taloqan, described by Marco Polo as producing the finest salt in the world, when an old man driving a donkey, two huge blocks of rock salt tied to its sides, stopped me and started jabbering in Persian. `He wants to thank you for getting rid of the Taleban,' said my interpreter, as the man started shaking my hand. `Not at all,' I said modestly. `Don't mention it.' `He thinks you are American,' added the interpreter--rather snidely, I thought.

And one can see why the salt-miner is happy. Things are getting better. As I crossed the Shomali plain north of Kabul, where four years ago 200,000 civilians fled from fighting, I saw Perspex-visored locals clearing mines. Black smoke from new brick kilns drifted across my path. Bazaars of shops made from shipping containers have sprung up to sell tree trunks stripped of their bark as roof beams. Coca-Cola is available from roadside stalls at reasonable prices. The truck drivers no longer carry guns. In August the first party of tourists arrived at Kabul airport. For the first time since I started visiting Afghanistan in 1993, there is a sense that this country's dreadful martyrdom may have run its course.

That night I returned to my file labelled `Lefties on Afghanistan', which contains clippings of various articles that appeared last year and this, with renewed interest. The prospect of war in Afghanistan afforded George Monbiot, a stalwart of the Guardian op-ed pages, a truly biblical vision of the end of time....

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