The Afghanistan government could have protected their people, but they refused.

Protected them from what? Protected them from being listed under "collateral damage"?

How would they have done that, except by kowtowing to what the US wants? This leads to an erosion of the religious fervour that they were trying to promote when they took over the country in the first place.

When will you guys just get it? The Islamic fundamentalists just don't like secular westerners. Shipping in McDonalds and Disney to calm them down is the last thing they want.

And that's just the government. The average man in the street, strange as it may seem, doesn't hold a viewpoint that different. For him, though, it's probably not about religion, more the erosion of a lifestyle. The French don't particularly like US culture (or the absence of it), and they're just as western-secular as the rest of us.

Moreover, these people are poor. They're not worried about such basic human rights as self-determination. They're worried about such basic human rights as food.