“Amazingly, when foreigners visit this country they can’t help but bang on about its ‘breathtaking beauty’ and how ‘noble and courageous’ its people are, but this is the reality of Afghanistan: pain and death.

There’s not one of us who hasn’t been touched by them in one way or another. From the Russians to the Mujahedin to the Taliban, war has stolen our fathers and brothers; the leftovers of war continue to take our children; and the results of war have left us poor as beggars.

So the foreigners can keep their walk of beautiful scenery and traditional goodness because all of us would swap it in a heartbeat for just one moment’s peace and it’s high time the sorrow that came to plant itself on our soil just packed up and went away to terrorize someone else.”

- Born Under a Million Shadows, Andrea Busfield

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