And here, at the edge of a security zone where no cars were allowed and soldiers patrolled, men huddled around their elders and transistor radios and listened to their nation being reborn.
A1 THE PEOPLE -- As Afghans huddled around transistor radios to listen to their nation being reborn, a feeling of pride and satisfaction was nearly unanimous, as was the belief that this temporary government could maintain peace.
PRIDE AND SATISFACTION -- In Kabul and across Afghanistan, many people listened to radio broadcasts of their nation being reborn, and some later spoke with pride and satisfaction of the end of an era of terrorism and the beginning of another, promising peace if not prosperity.
As Libya continues on its path toward a newly reborn nation, and the profound complication of state building begins, Libyans will face another, less visible hurdle; reconciling those deep-seated societal scars resulting from more than 40 years of oppression and fear.
The writer Friedrich Christian Delius felt "a guilt-ridden, inhibited nation was suddenly reborn".
But then as a Pole this was the war that allowed a nation to be reborn.
Through the sacrifice of its sons, the sundered nation would be reborn as one.
"There was a great story waiting for someone to tell it," Byrd writes, "not about the war, but about the reborn nation, on the other side of the war".
The happily recovered mask of Warka, with its mysterious oval face and darkened eyes -- relic of the Sumerian civilization that invented writing -- is a suitable symbol of the reborn nation.
It is not that Europe is dead but that the European Union is teetering, and the nations are being reborn".
