Parts of the city look like nothing so much as the former Yugoslavia. Soviet style apartment blocks riddled with bullet holes.
But West Kabul is a crime. Once, there was a city there. Teeming, crowded, bustling, joy, sorrow, life. Now, just flattened. They say fifty thousand died.
Massoud, the architect of this particular horror, is also a national hero. He fought the Taliban tooth and nail and forged the Northern Alliance which played a crucial role in taking Afgahistan back from those, other, monsters. He was killed just before September 11th and, at the time, his death was considered a great blow to Afghan freedom.
Massoud's heirs now rule the country and exploit a memory now growing golden. You see Massoud's picture on billboards, over doorways, on the side of supermarkets, hanging from the rear-view mirrors of taxicabs - all over the city he destroyed.
There are no unambiguous heroes.
Posted by Martial