You might be wondering: Why bother? After all, doom and gloom are supposedly the order of the day in Afghanistan. A Pew/USA Today poll in January found that slightly more than half of Americans believe the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.
A month earlier, a CNN poll found that the Afghan War might well be the most unpopular war in American history. An overwhelming 82% of Americans are now opposed to the war. 
Dire predictions of a civil war breaking out after the withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO combat troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014 have been a staple in the American media for years, including in quite sensible publications such as the New Yorker.
But a surprisingly under-reported set of developments has been taking place over the past several weeks in Afghanistan ahead of Saturday's presidential election. It shows that Afghans are not preparing for another civil war and instead a large majority of Afghans are planning to participate in the first democratic transition of power in Afghan history, while the presidential candidates are engaged in the kind of campaigning and deal-making that would gladden the heart of Bill Clinton.
Despite the entirely predictable efforts of the Taliban to disrupt the run up to the election, there is still likely to be a big turn out on Election Day. A suicide bomber wearing a military uniform, for instance, killed six police officers on Wednesday inside the Interior Ministry, which is both well protected and in the heart of downtown Kabul.