The pakhtoons are the most barbaric, savage, uncouth and deeply fanatic people you can come across.
they were subdued by the sikhs and recently the tajiks did a fine job of keeping them subdued.
afghanistan would have been worse than iraq, if it hadnt been for the tajiks subdueing the pakhtoons.
You cannot grant independence to troublesome ethnicities like the pakhtoons or sects like the wahhabis and shiites.
You have to keep them subdued with another strong ethnicity.
cronos: The people around ghaffar khan might have been a tiny minority. Pakhtoon savage hordes invaded kashmir back in 1948. the paki army would have been crushed by the indians. It was a sea of savage pakhtoon fanatical hordes
that created the kashmir mess in the first place.
even today, you can link most of the terror in the region to mostly pakhtoon savages.
As I said -- they ARE a primitive people, but with no real intention of conquering other folks -- just to make moeny to go back to their mountains and clans.