Every man in Afghanistan is armed. Every family has a victim of the war. Schools have been razed to the ground. The medical facilities are inadequate in the country, and the hospital services are woefully inadequate. Besides, Afghanistan is the second largest producer of opium in the world and there are an estimated 100,000 chronic opium addicts in a country of 14 million people. Hashish and opium and the heroin refined from opium is smuggled out of the country through Iran and Pakistan. These are serious problems that can be tackled only if there is peace and stability.
The biggest export item is natural gas and large quantities of it have been taken away by the Russians, an estimated 2.4 billion cubic metres in 1876. At the same time, however, the Russians have given nearly $1.8 billion of economic aid to the country during the period 1980-87. How much of that actually filtered down to the common man is another question.