Afghanistan: historical, political, and social overview

Afghan Problems

In discussing the challenges of the military and poltical restructuring of Afghanistan, Black (2009) suggested that there were several points relating to this effect. First and foremost, the geographical territory that composes the territory of this nation, is extremely mountainous and not practical for military operations in many instances.

Besides the geography and lay of the land, Afghanistan is portrayed as a country consistently and constantly in turmoil and conflict. This steady dose of upheaval makes the people of this country very hard to govern as a result of their savage behavior. Another structural component dealing with this idea is the fact that there is no real structure and that entangling alliances dominate the governance structure making it hard if not impossible in detecting who is on whose side of the conflict. Black elaborated to highlight this point when he wrote " counter terrorist operations posed serious difficulties for military responses not least the identification of opponents and the brevity of the period in which it was possible to engage, " (p.162).

Question 3

Opium is a very powerful and popular material that can be used by humans to help or harm their existence. The history of the opium trade has shown that many people will go to great lengths to destroy other people for the ability to produce opium into more stronger concentrates such as heroin. Heroin is a very lucrative product that is often sold on the black market, however pharmaceutical companies use the plant as well for many of their white market or 'legal' drug dealings.

Afghanistan is has a knack for growing high quality opium and because of its social structure, it is the best place in the world to grow the plant. As a result other nations have historically tried to dominate this area in hopes to control the opium trade. The British's support of this idea suggested that an expansion into these areas would be beneficial in the creation of an empire and thus all imperial pursuits that may come after.

Question 2