Analysis: Twin tragedies, and the strings that pull them

By NIKO PRICE
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Twin tragedies on opposite sides of the world are piling misery on people who have seen far more than their share. In Afghanistan, a group of gunmen known for sadistic tyranny rocketed back into power after 20 years. In Haiti, yet another earthquake and yet another storm struck a country exceptionally ill-equipped to handle either. On the face of it, little links the two catastrophes. One can be blamed on geopolitics, the other on nature. And yet these assaults on the usual suspects are deeply connected. They’re unfolding in two nations that sit at the fault lines of everything the 21st-century world struggles to control.