“Afghanistan hopes to lure back Western tourists,” the Telegraph reports. Though “most of Kabul’s hotels, including the supposedly five-star Inter-Continental have no running water, unreliable electricity and broken windows,” and the “airport runway has been destroyed by American bombs,”

[…] authorities remain optimistic. Plans have been announced to rebuild the great Buddhas, and according to the ministry of tourism the airport will reopen in a week’s time. However, the only guidebooks on sale in the bookshop of the bomb-damaged Inter-Continental are those left over from the 1970s.

Since 9/11, my wife and I have talked often about our desire to one day visit Afghanistan — to see it rebuilt and thriving. How cool would that be, to wander through a country so recently mired in medievalism…? Well, here’s hoping…

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