The craft of his engines surpasseth his dreams

"It was at this very moment that a world famous historian called Arnold Toynbee visited Helmand. Toynbee had spent his life studying the giant sweep of History to find out what made different civilizations rise and fall. Toynbee drove from Kandahar to Lashkar Gah past all the giant canals and dams. He was shocked. What he was seeing, he said, was not a new civilization but "a piece of America inserted into the Afghan landscape. The new world they are conjuring up at the Helmand river's expense is to be an America-in-Asia" Toynbee quoted Sophocles' warning: "The craft of his engines surpasseth his dreams""