"Press Clips", The Village Voice (21 January 1980).
“

We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too.

— Alexander Cockburn

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too." in the context of ""Press Clips", The Village Voice (21 January 1980)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Alexander Cockburn" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Alexander Cockburn

About Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Claud Cockburn pronounced koh-burn (June 6, 1941 – July 21, 2012) was a Scottish-born political journalist who was raised in Ireland and has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together, with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edited the political newsletter CounterPunch. Cockburn also wrote for The Nation, The Los Angeles Times and The First Post.