You are so welcome @juanersatzman, I am so grateful to have that perspective myself. Also that the world is so small, and yet so huge and never-ending.
I agree about Afghanistan, and I suppose a similar degradation of culture must have happened / be happening in very many countries still; but one of my biggest lessons on this trip was that the people often make a place, and the people in these regions continue to be so deeply hospitable and warm, through all manner of hardships.
RE: The Silk Road Diaries: Pamir Highway, Part I