Bill,

>>PS I read that Rory drank Jagermeister out of the claret jug... what kind of an Irishman is that?

LOL.

Agree that there's no direct parallel with the Middle East- except that in the end, the bombings and rocketings made little difference, no matter how important it seemed at the time.

Sometimes I wonder whether we human beings are affected by entropy more than the Universe. ;-) We have an opportunity to set things up to deliver orderly society and a chance for every member of society to shine, and then it all falls down around our ears more often than not.

E.g. consider this image of Kabul University in the 1980s: https://bsnews.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Kabul-University-1980s-2.jpg ... easily in living memory for most of us, and yet those smiling Afghan women today most likely would be in burqas, denied University education and risking a whipping or even an honor killing for associating with men not from their families. I wonder what Afghan women who trained as doctors must think when they see their granddaughters denied the same education as boys. Sheesh, easy enough to attribute advancement to opportunity and affluence... but in the real world, sometimes it seems people *want* to go in the other direction.