KABUL, Afghanistan — All was quiet in Kabul on Thursday, with the most dramatic events climatic in nature. A huge dust storm blew in around noon, bringing high winds and thunder.

Plans for the traditional military parade to mark Mujaheddin Victory Day — the anniversary of the overthrow of the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime by the Northern Alliance in 1992 — were scrapped Wednesday night after an Afghan Air Force pilot opened fire on NATO troops, killing eight military personnel and one contractor.

Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi did not mince words when he announced the cancellation.

“For security reasons and in order to avoid threats against defenseless people, the military parade and gatherings will not be held," he told reporters at a press conference Wednesday evening.

The concession marks a clear triumph for the Taliban, who had threatened to disrupt any festivities scheduled for the controversial holiday.

Mujaheddin Victory Day — known in Dari as Asht-e-Saur (8th of Saur, for the date on the Afghan calendar when the event occurred), tends to bring out the worst in Afghan inter-factional relations. Some see the day as heralding the worst years in Afghanistan’s recent history — the brutal civil war that tore the country apart and set ethnic and political groups at each other’s throats.

Others, however, relish the chance to honor the sacrifice that the Afghan fighters made in battling and ultimately defeating a far mightier enemy — the Soviet Union.

The Taliban have long scoffed at the government’s Victory Day celebrations; they consider themselves the true mujaheddin, who fought for their country’s freedom. The government of President Hamid Karzai, they say, has given Afghanistan back to the infidels, by welcoming the presence of international troops.

The peerless war correspondent Martha Gellhorn said it best:

“The way people stay sane in war, I imagine, is to suspend a large part of their reasoning minds, lose most of their sensitivity, laugh when they get the smallest chance, and go a bit, but increasingly, crazy.”

In my own case, after seven years in Afghanistan, I’m afraid that the craziness is winning out over the sanity on an almost daily basis.

But I can leave when it becomes unbearable. What of the Afghans, who have been living in this hell for the past 30 years?

A few days ago a friend of mine was telling me about an “amusing” incident he had recently witnessed. Kabul had been having unsettled weather, with heavy rains blowing in each afternoon, and the few river beds in the city, usually bone-dry, were experiencing flash floods.

“I was out for a walk after the rain stopped,” he said. “I saw a group of people on Pul-e-Sokhta, all pointing and laughing.”

Pul-e-Sokhta is a bridge in the western part of the city, known for attracting heroin addicts, who camp out underneath it.

“A torrent of water had come down the mountain,” he continued. “And it washed the addicts away. There were four or five of them struggling to get out of the flood. Two of them went down while I was there, and never came up.”

I listened in shock.

“Didn’t anyone try to help them?” I asked.

Another Afghan man in our group simply shrugged.

“They are just addicts. They are already expired,” he said.

I suppose this is as good an illustration as any of the desensitizing properties of conflict.

But there are many such examples in this land of eternal war.

Just ask Vice President Joe Biden about corruption in Afghanistan. During a now-famous dinner with Hamid Karzai during the 2008 U.S. election year, then-Sen. Biden questioned the Afghan president about corruption in his government. Karzai assured him that reports had been overblown by the Western media. Biden threw down his napkin and walked out.

It was all smiles and backslapping at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO-led security mission, as dignitaries gathered Saturday to bid farewell to Mark Sedwill, senior civilan representative and former U.K. ambassador.

Sedwill, who was the U.K.’s envoy to Kabul from 2009 to early 2010, assumed the position of NATO’s Senior Civilian Representative in January 2010, making him the mufti equivalent of Gen. David Petraeus.

Petraeus was full of praise and warm words for his civilian counterpart, pinning two medals on his chest and sprinkling his valedictory speech with superlatives praising Sedwill’s superb leadership and brilliant efforts to maintain the alliance during his 15-month tenure.

The departing ambassador entertained the illustrious crowd with fond if teasing references to Petraeus, speculating that a movie about his time at ISAF might someday be made, called, perhaps, “A London Limey ay King David’s Court,” a twist on the Mark Twain classic. He modestly suggested Colin Firth or Hugh Grant to play himself, depending, he said, “on whether it is a comedy.”

But he was unstinting in his admiration for Petraeus. “One man I must single out,” he said. “Dave, it has been an immense privilege to serve alongside you. I have learned more about strategic leadership in the past nine months than in the previous nine years.”

Petraeus was appointed to the ISAF leadership in June 2010, after his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was sacked in the wake of some very ill-advised comments made to a Rolling Stone reporter.

Both men were at some pains to further the narrative of “victory snatched from the jaws of defeat” that has become the standard ISAF line.

“When I arrived here, many thought this was 'Mission: Impossible,'” said Sedwill. “While as General Petraeus says, it is all hard all the time and there is a long, hard road ahead, we have proved in the past year that it is 'Mission: Achievable.'”