P is for Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates in the Taliban, and that comprises a plurality of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are some of the most hidebound, unscientific people on earth, their values unchanged for centuries--though the enforcement of those values is today conducted by Kalashnikov, not scimitar. They have unbending codes of honor, which involve, mostly, the oppression of women. They have a profoundly inflated sense of self-worth, which is why it is, for many of them, inconceivable that they be governed by an alliance of such "inferiors" as Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Perhaps a partition of Afghanistan, one that gives the Pashtuns a homeland of their own in the south (with the possibility, at some stage in the future, of incorporating Pashtun lands in present-day Pakistan) would be the best way out of a cycle of interminable civil war.