Just to correct my previous post, the Islamic smoothie I saw on Channel 4 News (UK) was quite definitely NOT the Mr Choudary pictured swigging booze on the front of today's Daily Mirror.

On the question of democracy, we should keep in mind that the US has given up trying to impose democracy on Afghanistan. (And whose wisdom determines that democracy is the best form of governance for such a country anyway?)

All that the west can do now is huff and puff that it will not give financial aid to Afghani departments that are led by corrupt ministers. In the end of course, even the corruption will be ignored, just as it is elsewhere around the world, if only because failed states are bad news. By which time the good people of Wootton Wotsit will have long since tired of turning themselves into a tourist attraction of rubberneckers amd the Islamic extremists who don't like the spectacle will have turned elsewhere for something to rail against.