It might also be germaine to point out that the Taliban, whilst looking after the welfare of their commmunities in other ways, are not the only group in the world who deny women their rights as perceived by our "more enlightened" society. There are several sections of our Christian churches who follow the Pauline doctrine of treating women as being subservient to men. The Catholic, Presbyterian and some sections of the Anglican church are all against women priests. A few years ago, my cousin who married into the Catholic church was exhorted to obey during the marriage vows. The notion of subservience need not imply a lack of love or respect for those regarded as being of lesser rank.

David

CHRIS... in my view, Kellie Tranter does not 'listen'...she 'speaks' from her batcave. We are expected to pay careful and dilligent attention to her every word and salivate in expectation of her next discourse.

My view is that this from the Old Testament sums her up admirably.

"I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of congregation on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." (Isaiah 14:12)

Yep... reminds me of the progressive attitude.

Kellie apparently believes that to write an article for OLO is an 'accomplishment' worthy of listing in her personal "I made this" list.
http://www.kellietranterattorney.com.au/tranter-profile.htm

The error I would prefer to make war on is hers.. and her 'progressive'(Communist) views.

Here is the fatal flaw in Tranter's article:

//Afghan MP Malalai Joya, who will be speaking at Sydney's UTS at 5.30 pm next Tuesday, is just the kind of eye witness, personally and actively involved, who will be able to corroborate or refute Ms Clinton's sweeping statements.//

She simply assumes that because this person is 'Afghan' she will be totally impartial and not try to use such a platform to pursue an agenda of some kind... socialist.. progressive...Islamist.. who knows?

But ONE thing we know is that she is just as biased and 'tribal' as any other person in/from Afghanistan.

Fast forward to today, there are signs that:
There is still very little law and order (all the attacks and opium farming occurred while Afghanistan is under our watch after all), the country is still in many ways divided by tribal and racial alliegiances, there is no government worth supporting, there is still a substantial fundamentalist population (not just the Taliban), opium production has worsened, and the Taliban are concentrating more on Pakistan- a place we cannot reach;

I say we highlight all the regions of Afghanistan that actually TRIED to improve, become more moderate, allow women's rights (but were inhibited by law of the Taliban)- and have them secede from Afghanistan and become a Republic (or multiple among ethnic lines to prevent another attempt by some to use the Parliament for ensuring tribal hegemony)- the remainder that we failed to reach out to we can sell back to the Taliban- on condition that any failure to respect the sovereignty of their neighbour states (old and new), failure to stop Opium, or any harboring of terrorists will result in another visit from the US army.

I think that would be a better approach.
The alternatives are to:
-leave and hope the Taliban don't take it back (no chance)
-Negotiate with the Taliban to assume control of the WHOLE country again based on the conditions above
-or, considering the condition of winning this war is to win the hearts and modernize every backwater tribal nutcase in the country under a legitimate, transparent government- continue to fight and die for an unwinnable war.

Pick your poison.

Hazza....the Taliban (and most tyrannical regimes) have a simple approach.

"Where is your leader/chief?"

Here.

Question... "Do you support us?"

Answer..."no"

BANG.

There is only one way to fight that mate.

I can tell you one thing..it sure as heck is NOT 'win hearts and minds with projects etc' :)

At least you can see one thing.... that situation is EXACTLY what you read about in the Old Testament (see Joshua/Judges/Samuel)

There was a solution :).....why not see what they (The Israelites) did... we all might learn something.

After all..when u can see a winning strategy...wouldn't you want to follow it?

VK3AUU
sorry but the simple withdrawl of the West most emphatically does not mean that the Taliban would refrain from spending aid money on arms.. no, you're thinking that the Taliban are something like a extremist fragment of the Labor party. that is, its viewpoint can at least be understood by us.

No, their reasoning would be, now that we've got rid of the West from Afghanistan, the real war can start.. after all, the West is there in the first place because some lunatic knocked down two towers in New York..

In that way they are nothing like, say, the North Vietnamese, who at least never tried to launch terrorist attacks in the West.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that they would be able to take over Pakistan, or anything like that, but they could make an extraordinary nuisance of themselves both regionally and internationally..

Algore- that won't work either- there is no finite isolated supply of terrorists that we can simply genocide out of existence, as if it were merely a weed problem where once you pluck up the last root and spore the problem will go away;

These people are a spontaneous change of attitude, anywhere in the world, from what they believe to be necessity.

These people go from becoming your everyday adulterer-stoning nutcases whose only concern is to ensure anybody in their midst who says the earth revolves around the sun is promptly executed;
-into members of an international terrorist group willing to leave their godly paradises to the sinful lands abroad to go to war, is the presence of a foreign invader in the lands of one of their 'brothers' trying to make it un-Islamic.

And watching our poor handling of Afghanistan on TV, just like our excuses to invade Iraq due to "terrorism" and WMDs- motivates these people to make the jump from bad and local, to worse and international.

When the problem of infidels existence is over "there"- they are usually too preoccupied trying to find more free-thinkers to execute in their own midst to even notice- unless they can trace any social problem back to a foreign infidel.