(via Instapundit)  Apologies for the relatively "shallow" blog articles lately.   Been swamped @ work.   But here's a great article on what Afghanistan looks like today;  gives us some hope about Iraq tomorrow.

..."There is so much money to be made in Afghanistan now," he said in English learned in a Pakistani refugee camp. "The country has been held back for 25 years, and now is the time to invest and do business. Afghans are very good at this -- we've been doing it since the time of the Silk Road."

...In a city that had a handful of shopworn eating places two years ago, a new Chinese or Italian or American hamburger restaurant opens almost weekly, as well as kebab shops by the score. Small hotels have sprung up, and a $40 million Hyatt is on the way. The food bazaars are bustling and there are downtown blocks filled almost entirely with bridal shops. Rebuilt homes are rising from the ruins, and every little storefront seems to be stuffed with bathtubs or fans or with men building and carving things to be sold.

...President Hamid Karzai, who will meet President Bush in Washington on Thursday, points to this mini-boom as one of the most important accomplishments of his fledgling administration, a sign that people are voting with their money. "People wouldn't start businesses and rebuild their homes here unless they believed that peace and security were coming to Afghanistan," he said in a recent interview. "This is the most positive sign of all."

..."When I opened the Internet cafe, my friends thought I was crazy," said Latifa, 33. "But it's been in business about two months now, and it has already paid for itself."

An Internet cafe in Kabul?   Wow.  God bless America, Capitalism, and the Internet.