They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"
The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree -- and new as the new-cut tooth --
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

The Conundrum of the Workshops; Rudyard Kipling, 1892

Rudyard Kipling chronicled the British innings of Afghanistan's Great Game more than a century ago. Time has passed. New players have replaced those felled by exhaustion; but the Game, its rules and Afghanistan remain the same. America has invaded Afghanistan just as the Red Army did to install and prop up a puppet regime. From Alexander to Gorbechev western armies have come to conquer; stayed to be bled from a thousand cuts; and abandoned the passes and cities to the tribes in the end. The only thing left to them is to heed Kipling's advice to the Young British Soldier of a century ago.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Old men spin the wheel with young men's lives and pull the strings while the puppets dance. Now we have come to Kandahar and across the plain to Balhk. Old men announce we soon will march from Basra to Baghdad. Between these thrusts lies Teheran whose mullahs' hearts pump the blood of the East and that blood will fire the flames of war from Basra to Peshawar.

Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, holds hard by the South and the North;
But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows, when the swollen banks break forth,
When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall, and his Usbeg lances fail:
Ye have heard the song -- How long? How long? Wolves of the Zukka Kheyl!

Old men speak of a war to change regimes and see no farther than the next election then send the young to bleed and toil for the sake of what? For votes; for oil; for the sake of the puppet's dance. It is clever, but is it Art?