Australia's level of commitment to Afghanistan was far less than our level of commitment to Vietnam. We are learning our lessons, slowly, but as long as the US goes on paying most of our Defence bill then they will go on requiring a quid pro quo in return. Any claim that we should 'go it alone' has to include costings; how much will it hurt the taxpayer for Australia, all by itself, to create a credible deterrent to other countries in the region with eight, thirty or fifty times our population?

You said "Malalai Joya is the very embodiment of an Afghan-led solution staring Western leaders in the face. Unlike the people we openly back, she doesn't have blood on her hands. Armed only with her voice, she is empowered by popular support.

She and others like her have the power to unite the Afghan people. She's intelligent, secular and she's a survivor. She loves her country and its people and they know it. She is the kind of leader that the long suffering people of Afghanistan deserve and she understands that for many Afghans the healing starts with justice".

Now i wish this hope proves true. But, if my observation of the observations of people in the know are right, there are other forces more likley to take control and set Afghanistan (and its women) backwards once the US and othes leave.

Sure, we need to be reminded about the flaws of Western action, but how about a bit of thorough analysis rather than wishful thinking and more slagging off about our supposed evil leaders who are in bed with the US which supposedly has no idea at all.

Kelly, why don't you write a piece on how the world would have been if the US did nothing the last 20 years. Let's see if you can put the pieces together, by looking at all of the conflicts the US and allies have been involved in to resassure us that everything would have been ok if only we did this and that. This includes Afghanistan

John J and Chris Lewis....Exactly!

Yet another well researched and presented article Kelly. Your explication of the servile relationship of our political leaders and their behind-the-scenes executive advisors who 'manage' (control) the dysfunctional 'Defence' bureaucracies is irrefutable. As you perceptively argue, 'checking up' requires us to confront uncomfortable and sometimes painful truths and the eternal vigilance by every citizen.

It also exposes, and thus threatens, the politico-ECONOMIC interests of those claiming to represent and serve the majority of ‘ordinary’ (ie, Working Class and Lower Middle Class) Australians, whose sons and taxes are sacrificed in the pursuit of the highly-profitable war INDUSTRIES … in particular the executives and wealthy shareholders of giant U$ corporations and the career mandarins of the American military hierarchy … a collective behemoth known as the military-industrial complex.

Ostensibly serving and protecting U$ and “Australia’s” interests, the illegitimate bombardment, invasion and occupation of resource-rich but ‘less-developed’ and poorly armed countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan - and before that Yugoslavia, Viet Nam, Korea, and several Central and South American countries - under a variety of easily-seen-through pretexts (non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction and Humanitarian Interventions), is all about securing basic raw materials and ‘cheap labour’ to protect and preserve the highly divisive, anti-social and anti-democratic, profit-driven Capitalist economic system

Kellie, would you please document just what the Afghanistan adventure has cost you. I won't hold my breath for an answer.

Sowat another current thread documents the fact that lower middle income people in Oz pay in aggregate, no tax. A good thing too, as I can't afford any. That being the case, I'm afraid your argument falls a bit short.

It also fails on the fact that almost to a man, those who have been there are ready to go back if/when asked. This goes for my son in law, who has had one deployment, & reckons, with that experience, that we are doing the right thing.

As General Smedly Butlersaid in 1930,"War is a racket." He knew then it was the Banking Military Industrial Complex" pushing for war.They make money putting our Govts in debt,selling the arms,medical supplies
taking energy and resources.Just like Iraq, they then make more money on the rebuilding what they have destroyed.

With the perception that there too many people on the planet,war in their eyes is more easily justified.

Afghanistan now produces 90% of the World's heroine.It has over $1 trillion in Lithium needed for the battery industry and is the access route for oil from Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea.Is that enough motivation for invasion?

An aphorism I ascribed to in my early lifetime goes like this —politics makes you stupid. I still believe that, and every passing day makes the truth of that statement more obvious.

Afghanistan was always going to be a disaster and the reality we hear from our politicians is so far from the truth it's not funny.

War always means money and power for someone, it's the collateral damage that is the hidden cost for the money and power making that makes it such a travesty.

Arjay, the word is spelt "heroin". Unless you are referring to the millions of Afghan women and girls, the real heroines, and their male supporters, who have had the courage to lift their heads, go outside their homes, get an education and employment ?

The sisters who were living in hell before, under the Taliban, and will do so again if they return - at least those who survive ?

While their sisters in Leichhardt and Balmain and Carlton are sipping their soy latte lights and comparing Louis Vuittons.

And Turkmenistan is between Afhhanistan and the Caspian Sea. Did you mean Tajikstan ? And it would probably be gas that they are piping from Turkmenistan, not oil, and more likely through Iran rather than across the Caspian to Azerbaijan.

Kellie,

I have the greatest respect and affection for Malalai Joya, an amazingly courageous woman, one of an endangered breed. But for the life of me, I can't see how the Taliban can be controlled and contained once the Coalition forces leave. And if the Taliban takes over once again, and the most brutal and backward cultural practices are once again given free rein, all power will be given back to the men, with the women either murdered or driven back into the home to be nothing more than the breeding vessels, and servants, for the men.

And we know whose heads that crime will be on, don't we ? Are you ready for that ?

Cheers,

Joe

With lefties like Tranter, it's damned if we do and damned if we don't. Whether the US and Australia went into Afghanistan to instantiate human rights or they remained idle and let it be run by 7th century thugs, this is merely another opportunity to sink the boot into America, like the rest of Tranter's articles.

What is Tranter's solution to human rights abuses in Afghanistan?

Thankyou Kellie for your article. Ever since the sacking of the Whitlam Government successive administrations have acquiesed to US foreign policy. Books by John Pilger, Helen Caldicott, Robert Mann and others make this ubundantly clear. The problem to which you allude is, at its core, that the world has to wake up to the reality that the sociopathic US politico/ military/ industial conglomerate is in fact the dominant ROGUE STATE. In the last 250 years the US has been at peace with the world for only 21 of those years. Their interventions militarily in other sovereign countries have always been in support of their own vested interest and are well documented historically. Ref. Killing Hope by William Blum. Quite clearly from the Reagan years onwards US policy makers are afflicted with a "cowboy" mentality, their own mythological creation . In terms of global welfare they are demonstratively irresponsible. One only needs to consider their recent history of obstruction in relation to the UN and the establishing of an International court of justice.
DEN71

Thank you Kellie for the article. As most of the comments make clear however, it is likely your arguments fall upon deaf ears and blind eyes. Australians have an amazing capacity to ignore history, or more particularly those parts of history that do not conform with their blinkered and ignorant view of world history.
Most Australians would have had trouble locating Afghanistan on a map prior to 11 September 2001. They were profoundly ignorant of the role played by the US in undermining the nationalist and secular Tariki government during the 1970s which was implememting the very reforms our politicians claim justifies their presence in Afghanistan.
That conduct by the US through the 1970s and 1980s included the training and financing a radical Islamist groups to destroy the Tariki government. Among the mujihideen (Reagen's freedom fighters") was one Osama bin Laden.
When the Taliban eventuially emerged victorious from the post Soviet withdrawal chaos the Americans were quite happy to support them even paying the salaries of government ministers. It wasn't until mid-2001 when the Taliban government refused to agree to American pipeline plans that Bush approved the attack upon Afghanistan. This pre-dated "9/11" which then, as now, is the all purpose justification for a whole range of atrocities and illegal acts committed by the US.
The attack on Afghanistan was built on a lie, has been sustained by lies and even the purported end to Australia's involvement is just another extended lie.
Our puppy dog devotion to American criminality is not just contrary to Australia's true best interests. It is a crime against international law and the sooner Howard, Rudd and Gillard face the International Criminal Court the better. I am not holding my breath however, as the notion of accountability for wrongdoing is as missing from your commenters as their knowledge of history.

The war has been very messy and questionable. What I always fail to understand is why western feminist could not care less about young middle eatern girls not getting educated. Is the only selfish western causes such as the right to abort that they are prepared to fight for?

With issues like this, there always contains a deconstructive part and a constructive part. That is, pulling apart an issue and stating what isn't working is only part of the issue, there necessarily follows the ability to provide practical solutions to the issue. Tranter, and her follows here, are very good at deconstruction, but fail dismally in construction.
I take it the real problem with Afghanistan is the human rights abuses, after all, Tranter is a human rights lawyer? So even if we grant Tranter et al the position that America has failed to grant Afghans human rights, what is Tranter's solution?

Runner,

You raise a very interesting question. Clearly you are not on the Left. Your question may require answers over the next few years.

James O'Neill: as you note, some people " ....have an amazing capacity to ignore history, or more particularly those parts of history that do not conform with their blinkered and ignorant view of world history."

I regret that I will be holding you to this statement over the next few years, once the Coalition have abandoned the women of Afghanistan to 'history'.

I was born on the Left, and maybe with advanced age, I'm becoming one of those genuinely Grumpy Old Men, but as time passes, I becoming more and more contemptuous of what passes for the Left, in their apologism for the most backward and brutal ideologies - 'as long as it isn't pro-American in any way, it's okay.'

Yes, 'any century but this, and any country but his own.'

Joe

Joe Loudmouth,

One of the points I was making was that there was an Afghan government that made genuine efforts to improve the rights of women among other socially progressive reforms. That government was attacked and undermined by the US. It is staggering hypocrisy for the US (and its Australian apologists) to now lament the supposed backward steps that will occur for Afghan women when the Taliban sweep to power (as they assuredly will) in the near future.

Well there are two lessons from history - one is "don't invade Russia in the winter". And the other is "don't invade Afghanistan" - you won't win.

Tell me James, which part of the Afghan government were trying to improve the rights of women.

Was it the ones kicking them out of schools, or the ones canning them in the street, if they considered they were not complying adequately with the dress law.

I simply don't buy the argument or assertions in the very anti America anti Australia article. If the yanks had simply sat on their hands during the intended invasion by the imperial Nipponese forces, we would all be bowing and scraping and conversing in Japanese? The Americans paid a huge blood sacrifice, which bought and paid for our current freedom.
Yes we made many mistakes in Iraq. We should have sent a few cruise missiles through Saddam's front door during the very first gulf war? Failing that, when we had the republican guard on the run and beaten, we should have simply finished the job? And then occupied the place long enough to usher in free and fair elections and new leaders commanding popular support.
When we failed to do that, we set in train a whole series of far worse consequences, including the sanctions, which cost many entirely innocent young lives. And sure, we can blame an obviously inept American Leadership.
We have declared our intention to leave Afghanistan, with fully trained and competent security forces in place; and an elected parliament. Yes there are problems with the ELECTED parliament and or ELECTED parliamentary representatives; the perceived lack of women's rights etc/etc; ad infinitum ad nuseum.
However, there is no correlation between Afghanistan and Vietnam as claimed? In Vietnam, we imposed a very unpopular and patently corrupt regime at complete odds with the wishes of a mainly Buddhist majority; manifestly, because our "extremely intelligent" American leaders confused Buddhism with communism and in so doing; alienated almost the entire population and several near neighbours. Propaganda is full of half lies and half truths; and is designed to sway/convince the uneducated and ignorant? Rhrosty.

Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic Parliament.Birjitta along with Noam Chomsky,Chris Hedges,and Daniel Ellsberg are suing the US Govt over the NDAA (National Defence Authorisation Act)which virtually turns the West into a fascist state.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/18/suing-us-government-protect-internet-freedom

The NDAA is an Obamination.It allows the US Military to detain anyone in the West on the mere suspicion of being a terrorist,indefinitely without trial or legal representation.

Fools in this country argue about protocol,while the really big monster of fascism is about to consume us all.We live in a moronic stupor.

Hi James,

Yes, I would applaud the efforts to bring about social equality by the Tariki government, and the other Leftist governments after his assasination.

But it really is a non sequitur, to attack the US for supporting gender equality now: you would have to show that the US deliberately and consciously opposed Tariki's efforts towards social equality [rather than the presence of the Russians] to make any links, supposedy hypocritical, with their support today of gender equality.

What the US opposed - and thereby financed and trained all manner of opposition forces to oppose - was the close cooperation between Tariki and the Russians, and the eventual invasion of Afghanistan by the Russians.

If anything, since their efforts now to support women seem genuine, you and I should both be supporting those US efforts.

So often, political conflicts are much more than two-sided: there are usually more parties involved than the two main ones, each with their own agenda.

In Afghanistan, I would be prepared to suggest that even the Taliban and al Qa'ida may have different agendas, let alone those of the Northern Alliance, Hekmatyar, the Haqqanis, the US, various local groups (especially amongst the Hazaras) and genuinely democratic, even left-wing, groups. Not to mention the involvement of other countries, Pakistan, Iran, Central Asian nations like Uzbekistan, perhaps even China. The Pakistanis would like to add India to that list.

To attack the US for supporting a group at one time, and opposing it at another time, is facile, with respect.

Alliances are formed for specific purposes, which may shift and transform into something else over time. Agendas change. Alliances change. That's politics. Down and dirty.

Cheers,

Joe

I'd have to preface my remarks in response to this:
"What do I think of my country? What is there, which elevates my shoulders and stirs my blood when I hear the words, Australia":
Nothing. My blood runs cold. Australia is not a country based on anything. It's history has dried-up. Australia is a development, a good investment, an advertisement, valuable real estate, an American military base, a province of China (thinking ahead), a colonial museum.
Do I praise my country enough?
I don't understand the question; what is there to praise? Seriously, what is there to praise? It's a simple question..
"Soon many Australian troops will return home irreparably damaged".
I sympathise with the poor bastards absolutely, but they were irreparably damaged before they left (ideologically), and they'll come home and go mad because they'll finally see through all the bull-sh!t they fought for.
Yes it's time the troups came home, but it's also time we critically assessed not just our involvement, but ourselves.

>>Well there are two lessons from history - one is "don't invade Russia in the winter". And the other is "don't invade Afghanistan" - you won't win.<<

Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan and won. The NATO forces just need to refine their tactics a bit. Less tanks and cluster bombs: more Mongol horse archers.

Cheers,

Tony

@ Hasbeen. In the faint hope that you might be interested in actually improving your knowledge can I recommend you read Fitzgerald & Gould's Afghanistan's Untold Story and Peter Dale Scott's American War Machine.

Hi Joe Loudmouth. It is obviously difficult to traverse as complex a situation as Afghanistan in 350 words. Can I suggest however that your historical timeline is wrong. The US undermining of the Tariki government began before the Soviet intervention, in the 1970s, as Brezinski boasts in his book The Grand Chessboard.
My complaint against the US was not confined to its hypocrisy over women. Hypocrisy is a dominant characteristic of US foreign policy. In the case of Afghanistan my more important point was that the war is based on a lie: that Afghanistan harbored the people responsible for 9/11 (see David Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor Revisted for a comprehensive demolition of the official conspiracy theory). As I said in my original post the decision to attack was made in July 2001 when the Taliban government refused to accede to American demands to allow an American company to build the gas pipeline from the Caspian basin throught Afghanistan to a warm water port on the Arabian Sea being built by Bush's good buddy Kenny Lay of Enron.
The real reasons for the invasion were more to do with the aforesaid control of the vast oil and gas reserves of the Caspian; resurrecting the heroin trade (which the Taliban had virtually wiped out); accessing the rare earth minerals that Soviet surveys had shown existed in Afghanistan in significant quantities; and enabling the further encirclement of China as part of their declared strategy of "full spectrum dominance".
That Australia has allowed itself to be sucked into this morass, even for the likely real reason of a "security insurance policy" let alone the publically claimed reasons is nothing short of pathetic.

Jon J. if you confront someone with criticism you may make an enemy, if you show by example you may make a friend, your rational suggests that Australia should keep friendly with the biggest bully of the moment, the US of A.
Shame on you Diver Dan, Hasbeen and Chris Lewis, if you researched the subject more deeply you might come to the opposite conclusion. It is unfortunate that the people of the gulf countries are caught up in a medieval time warp, but do you honestly believe that the American military bombardment is about saving them from themselves. If the Australian people and our Government unilaterally agreed to toss American bases out of our country we would very soon see just how ugly a friend they really are. Pause for a moment and consider the US Air forces use of those wonderfully effective cluster bombs which slice living humans into unrecognisable pieces over a radius of ½ a mile. Gee! They could wipe out your whole suburb with one bomb. No! if America had kept its dirty nose out of other peoples sovereign affairs in the last 20 years far less people would have been forced into slavery and poverty on the alter of the free market ideology and millions of innocent people across the planet would not have been destroyed. Ok Aristocrat since you're “right” you tell us all the “right “ answer. James, thankyou. My point exactly. While I acknowledge that I have yet to fully understand the complexity of the global dynamic I have found that my local university and library have been mines of information. Newspapers and TV. alone give a very lopsided view of local or global affairs. “A little learning is a dang’rous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring, there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking largely sobers us again”.
DEN71

James O'Neill: Thanks for some factual context.
I find it strange that the one-eyed pro-US folks still think that Australia needs the US for "defence". The degree of ignorance required to maintain such a delusion is staggering...however all one needs to do is remain in the bosom of the mainstream media and the official history: (WMDs, Staging post for terror, "they hate our freedom", etc).
The US military strategy relies on low-level police action in order to achieve political and economic outcomes...the CIA is particularly illuminating as to the strategy (even from the few bits that have been made public).
Real war changed forever since the V2. Given our geography and wealth Australia can be *defended* with domestic missile batteries and smart mines. The traditional "diggers" are political cannon fodder...a stick for weak neighbours and a stick for hire for the US.
I respect the military, however not while it is used as a cynical political toy for ruthless immoral leaders. Causing mass deaths to enrich a few whilst ostensibly for "national defence" is a disgusting sham.

What is Aristocrats solution to human rights abuses in the US and for all the other countries they have occupied?
The US is by 21st century financial thugs who have no compunction about what they do to the population there as long as they are in control and looting the country.

Hi Saurian,

All that may be true but what has it to do with human rights, especially those of women, in Afghhanistan ?

I don't think the Yanks realised what they were getting into when they invaded the country, to deny it as a safe haven for al Qa'ida [or was that just propaganda ? Al Qa'ida doesn't exist, any more than the Mafia ? And anyway, it is a peace-loving organisation ? And anyway, even on the rare occasions when it isn't, the Yanks deserve it ?]

Either way, they inevitably opened up a Pandora's box of women's rights: after all, should they have left the entire social structure in place, with women confined to the home and traded like sheep from one family to another for breeding purposes, and menial labour ? Should the Yanks have left such vile cultural practices alone ? If they had, how could they ever have declared that they were fighting for freedom in any sense ?

So they had to try to open up opportunities for Afghan women and girls, mainly in education and employment, and in the process of course, stir up the resentment of the men, as a challenge to their reactionary culture ?

Now three million Afghan women and girls are either at school or in training, or in employment, as many had been before the Taliban and other mujahidin took over in the nineties. How do you put those women back in their medieval cultural boxes ? The Taliban will find a way, while the pseudo-Left in the West looks on.

Sometimes - I know it's hard to imagine - there are cultural forces more reactionary and evil than the Yanks, you know :)

So what does the pseudo-Left do in this situation ? Support reactionary culture. Support backward societies. Oppose human rights. After all, what's a few Afghan women in the scheme of things ? Opposing the US is all-important, regardless.

Cheers,

Loudmouth

sarnian
"What is Aristocrats solution to human rights abuses in the US and for all the other countries they have occupied?
The US is by 21st century financial thugs who have no compunction about what they do to the population there as long as they are in control and looting the country."

Answering a question with a question only (dishonestly) deflects the original question.
I'll ask again, what is Tranter's, and her followers like yourself, solution to human rights abuses in Afghanistan?
I don't deny that America has abused human rights, although I doubt very much it has done so on its own soil given that equality of opportunity is deeply entrenched in their culture, which is far more than what you can say for Afghanistan.
If America could, by some miracle, install its institutions in Afghanistan, then the women would be much more educated, much more employable, much more independent, much more financially secure; in summary, given all the opportunities women are given in America and the West.
If only leftists such as yourself and Tranter could apply their research and vindictive skills to regimes like the Taliban.

Aristicrat,

You're particularly vocal on the supposed altruistic motivation for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. And if we ponder the reason that they haven't bothered to extend the same "caring intervention" to places like Zimbabwe, you would no doubt say that America and its allies can't be expected to police the world....especially if the country in question offers nothing of intrinsic value to the invading force.

Thank you, Poirot, you've provided an answer to your own question:

Q. Why haven't the US invaded Zimbabwe ?

A. Because it does not provide a safe haven to forces which have attacked the US.

Isn't that so ? Isn't it the case that the Taliban 'government' sheltered al Qa'ida after its attack on New York ? Yes, yadayada, oil, gas, yes, but isn't this still true ?

So should the US have left a Taliban-'ruled' Afghanistan alone ? If they had, would al Qa'ida have never again mounted a similar attack, another 9/11 ? Not just in the US, but in any and every country it chose to ?

Would the Bali bombers have been able to flee to Afghanistan, knowing that they were completely safe to plan further attacks ?

Well, that was then, this is now.

So, Afghan women are now out in the world. Three million or so. What is your advice in connection with those equal human beings, your sisters ?

Cheers,

Joe

“Especially if the country in question offers nothing of intrinsic value to the invading force.”

I wonder why they (The US) has never invaded North Korea?

By the way as far as I can remember the perpetrators of 9/11 were mainly from Saudi.
Why did not the US invade Saudi?

Joe,

"Because it does not provide a safe haven to forces which have attacked the U.S.."

Is that so?

Why then did the U.S. invade and occupy Iraq?

And why is the U.S. such good buddies with the Saudis - a major source of funding for al Qa'ida?

Joe,
You really shouldn't allow yourself to be confused by American propoganda. If you want to know a closer approximation to reality about the events of 9/11 read Griffin's book that I recommended earlier.
No, Afghanistan did not shelter the perpetrators of 9/11. The Americans blamed bin Laden to be sure, but never produced any evidence to support the claim. He was not on the FBI most wanted list for 9/11 and when the FBI was asked why not their spokesman said, with refreshing candour, because "they had no hard evidence linking bin Laden with 9/11".
The Taliban offered to send bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the Americans produced any evidence of his link with 9/11. The Americans refused. You may think trial by assertion is an adequate substitute for proof but as a lawyer I certainly don't and it would be a sorry day if that was the case.
As a previuous commenter has pointed out, even according to the official conspiracy theory (the one promoted by the US and Australian governments) 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. None were Afghans.
As to al qaeda, again the history is rather more complex than your world view would allow. The term al qaeda is Arabic for "the list" and it originally referred to the mujihideen for training in Pakistan before infiltration into Afghanistan.
Since then it has served a variety of interests, including those of British and US intelligence, most recently in Libya and Syria. Read Ahmed's book The War on Truth, and Scott's The Road to 9/11 for filling the manifest gaps in your education.
The world is rather more complex than labelling critics such as myself "anti-American" or supporters of the Taliban's treatment of women. That is simply a substitute for asking the hard questions and seeking the even harder answers.

Ms Tranter, the pixie intellectual of Australian blogs; and, as usual, the usual anti-US rants follow.

As a first point let me observe that anyone who focuses on the half-arsed hegemony of the US and isnores the far worst oppression of Communism and Islam is a hypocrite and a coward.

The cowardice comes from knowing that any criticism of Islam is a fraugth exercise with dire consequences; just ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a real feminist not the faux type which this author typifies.

Hasbeen wrote "Tell me James, which part of the Afghan government were trying to improve the rights of women"
It was the government during the period 1979 - 1989 after which the Mujahideen financed and armed by the USA, brutally took over Afghanistan with USA support.
That is when the Aghanistan women once again had their Human rights taken away and were brutalised by the Mujahideen.

Hi Poirot,

Iraq ? A little unworthy of you, a cheap shot. Of course the US has aggressed on many occasions, ever since the invasion of Mexico and seizure of Texas. Its actions during the wars against Spain were appalling and self-serving, not to mention its overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala, its invasions of Panama, the Dominican Republic, Cuba (1), Cuba (2), Cuba (3) and Nicaragua (1) and (2).

But I could get funny too: are you suggesting that the US should invade Zimbabwe, on the same pretext as it did Iraq ? No, of course not. So let's get back to the issues instead of throwing cream buns at each other.

For all the conspiracy theories, did the Taliban harbour al Qa'ida, and did al Qa'ida organise the attacks on New York ? If so, then the Taliban 'government' was legitimately overthrown. I have no problem with that.

Iraq was of course an absurd side-issue to the struggle against Islamist terrorism, which, after Bali, Madrid, the weekly bombings in Thailand, Nigeria, Iraq (thanks to the Yanks), Pakistan, and elsewhere, I am fairly sure is a reality. The preoccupation with Iraq has put the whole effort in Afghanistan at risk.

But much of this is water under the bridge. Pandora's box has been opened. The women of Afghanistan, your sisters and my sisters, have been encouraged to exercise rights that you and I take for granted. Should the US have encouraged that ? How on earth can we say no ? That people should not exercise their basic human rights ? Is that what the Left has come down to ?

So to me, that's the genuine question: should the women of Afghanistan be abandoned, to satisfy the sensibilities of the soy latte set ?

Cheers,

Joe