The Curse of the Patriarchy

How the U.S. tried and failed to recreate Afghanistan in its own image.

U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Smith, 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, talks to group of Afghan children during a combined patrol clearing operation in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, April 28, 2012. (The U.S. Army)

Imagine, if you will, an unethical social and psychological experiment.

Picture a mountainous nation ravaged by war in the previous centuries, besieged by various interlopers and invaders from antiquity well into the modern age. A brutal totalitarian regime has kept the country trapped in a medieval serfdom and squalor since time out of mind. It is a hotbed of terrorism.

Now imagine the majority of people living there are under the age of 25- well under it.

Imagining such a young population is difficult for us in places like the United States, Japan, and parts of Europe. We are used to our aging populations, our Baby Boomers. We are accustomed to seeing people of all ages, virtually everywhere we go in society.

Truly understanding why the population is so young in this particular nation will be even more difficult, though the explanation is a simple one; War.

War, it need not be said, is a blight on humanity, the worst imaginable perversion of our twin gifts of creativity and engineering. No further social experiments or lessons are necessary to prove this immutable fact. War represents a failure of our intelligence, the ultimate breakdown of community, communication and compassion. It is a…