Only a husk of a state remains in this shattered land.
Afghan factions and adjacent states will have the greatest influence on the direction the country will take, but America can and should play a role in bringing peace to this shattered land.
His trip was aimed at winning or buying the loyalties of local commanders and tribal chiefs of his Pashtun tribe, and, in time, helping unite the shattered land if the Taliban were overthrown.
If the Islamists were permitted to form a viable, functioning and effective government, this shattered land might be able to return to the community of nations — and supertankers will be able to deliver oil to the United States without fear of getting hijacked.
It was the end of a terrifying journey, from the destruction of East Timor to the squalor and harassment of an internment camp in West Timor and back again now to a shattered land of poverty, bereavement and the roofless shells of burned and abandoned homes.
During Secretary Powell's six hours here, he caught far grimmer glimpses of a shattered land, where some 270,000 Afghan civil servants are without pay, armed men still roam the main roads, and a faded color photograph of former Secretary of State George P. Shultz still hangs frozen in time in the United States Embassy, which was evacuated in 1989 as the Soviet withdrawal left the country in chaos.
Wealthy Lebanese, for instance, have fled their own once prosperous now shattered land to invest in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
For their outstanding work on "Syria: Reflections from a Shattered Land," Tamer El-Ghobashy, Louisa Loveluck, Liz Sly and Alice Martins are being recognized with a runners-up citation in for the Bob Considine Award for best newspaper, news service or digital interpretation of foreign affairs.
By setting "The Whipping Man" in this shattered nowhere land, the director, Hana S. Sharif, encourages us to see the play through the lens of metaphor.
There are photographs of maimed people for sale, and Mr. Aki Ra's own simple paintings of people and animals being shattered by land mine blasts.
