About two years ago I drove from Taluqan to Fayzabad in the remote northeast of Afghanistan.  It took six to eight hours to cover a distance of 170km.  Across the river from the dirt track that served as the road, work crews were engaged in the seemingly ceaseless and impossible task of blasting and digging away at the mountains which hindered the desired course of the road.

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A recent story on Aljazeera reminded me how difficult it is to gauge public opinion and its potential consequences in Afghanistan.  While such stories may be accurate on the protest’s specific details or the immediate impetus, they fail to contextualize the story in such a way that non-expert readers can appreciate its implications.  The greater issue with Afghan public opinion on any issue is how disjointed it is and how it is intertwined with events that may or may not have happened.

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As Hamid Karzai continues to make statements that emphasise his supposed distance from the international community, militant groups, not needing to distance themselves, have come to appear more accommodating.

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