US state departmentI think that news agencies are too lazy (and have far too low an estimation of people's intellect) to report the details of the unstable political situation in Afganistan, so they just used an ad hoc simplification so they could have a good blood and blame story (How many people would tune in if the riots were actually about lack of internal security against suicide bombers, or the abuses of power by regional warlords, or elections and political representation?). Bo-ring: give the people something with bloodshed that we can blame ourselves for. Not to say we haven't dropped the ball on rebuilding and stabling Afganistan, but when you've got a re-election campaign to run like they did - something that looks like action but is counterproductive (invading Iraq), gets a lot more media attention than something that actually helps (rebuilding Afganistan, hunting down and dismantling Al-Queda and freezing/seizing their assets.)
