Damn Taliban blow up my memories

My junior prom was at the Kabul Intercontinental, which was still pretty new back then in the funky times. It was the first real Western hotel in Kabul, and on prom night 1971 it sort of symbolized to me and others how far Afghanistan had come. Benazir Bhutto once told me she went there to party down when her dad was running Pakistan.

When I went back in 2002 and bought a pile of history books at the hotel, plus some ISI propaganda tracts, it was a far drearier place, dirty and worn out, and it denoted to me just how much Afghans had suffered in the previous 25 years.

More recently, my favorite film about contemporary Afghanistan, Afghan Star, concluded with a lively, even joyous, scene in the hotel’s ballroom. (Btw, I see that Afghan Star is now available on Netflix. This is one of the best, and most enjoyable, introductions to post-Taliban Afghanistan you could have. Make it a double bill with Osama, which has nothing to do with old bin Laden and lots to do with what life was like under the Taliban.)

So yesterday‘s attacks on the hotel hit unusually close to home for me.