20,28,26,21,25,21,23,20,20,19...

[theophilus]

I keep wondering what they are dying for?

Here is one answer to your question:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-29/op...mid-karzai

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

I think we had a good reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place; they were giving refuge to Osama bin Ladin. But our attempt to capture him failed and I am beginning to think that the government we helped put in power isn't much better than the Taliban.