Former King of Afghanistan dies - Mohammed Zahir Shah

BBC World broadcast ^ | July 23, 2007

[NormsRevenge]

Former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah is seen at the royal palace in Kabul in this August 4, 2002 file photo. Shah has died aged 92, the private Afghan television network Tolo said on July 23, 2007. Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed in 1973 and lived in exile Italy before returning home in 2002. (Peter Andrews/Files/Reuters)

---

Mohammad Zahir Shah is seen in this July 16, 1963 file photo. Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan who returned from three decades of exile to bless his war-battered country's fragile course toward democracy, has died, President Hamid Karzai said Monday July 23, 2007. He was 92. (AP Photo)

[NormsRevenge]

King Mohammad Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, center, rests his head in his hand as he watches birthday celebrations in his honor in this Dec. 1969 file photo in Kabul. Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan who returned from three decades of exile to bless his war-battered country's fragile course toward democracy, has died, President Hamid Karzai said Monday, July 23, 2007. He was 92. (AP Photo)

[PzGr43]

>That’s because the economy was crap, and he and his family >kept all the wealth and had all the cars. Think of how >little development there was in the country such that it >only had 500 cars! That makes things worse not better.
>

Afghanistan was/is an agricultural economy exporting fruits and wool. That is all there is. The land upon which Afghanistan sits does not have any of the requirements for industrialization nor any natural resources (oil, coal, metal ores) to exploit. Social structures in rural areas were feudal. When these were destroyed ("reformed") by the Communists (and by Revolutionary Marxist Islam from Iran), agricultural production ceased and the land was de-populated. So much for "reforms".