Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42

by William Dalrymple

As so often in international affairs, hawkish paranoia about distant threats can create the very monster that is most feared.

“There is nothing more to be dreaded or guarded against,” he wrote, “than the overweening confidence with which we are too often accustomed to regard the excellence of our own institutions, and the anxiety that we display to introduce them in new and untried soils. Such interference will always lead to acrimonious disputes, if not to a violent reaction.”

“We wish that you had come among us as friends, and not as enemies, for you are fine fellows one by one, though as a body we hate you.”

“Last month,” said one, “some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, ‘Why do you hate us?’ I replied, ‘Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.’ ” “What did he say to that?” “He turned to his friend and said, ‘If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?’