Retreating

88 Replies to “Retreating”

1. Cjunk,
   In your responses to me, you never forget to call me names such as bigot … and this reference to me as being so bloody ignorant of the facts are some people and so bloody bigoted and full of hate.
   I have not done that to you. You sound like a leftist who has a stake is something regrettable and pointless, cannot let go and cannot tolerate anyone who disagrees. That is very leftist.
   You seem to have a problem with this topic, or rather, anyone who disagrees with you … perhaps it’s emotional, I don’t know you so I cannot make that judgment. Nevertheless, you respond to my position with name-calling. That means I win. Not that I commented with the thought of beating someone’s argument. You just happened to create the scenario where there is a debate to win or lose.
   I am not full of hate and I am not ignorant, but you sound like you fit that bill quite well. You don’t know me … so you are ignorant of what I am … by your remarks aimed at me, you sound like you pretty much hate me … for what? disagreeing with you?
   When you cannot have debate without personal insults and attack, you lose the argument.
   You think we can win in Afghanistan or a least help some of the women there, build schools, hospitals and so on. I say we cannot win anything the way we impose rules on our ‘conflicts’. We fight wars like we police our city streets with an emphasis of political correctness lest we hurt someone’s feelings or make a mistake.
   Soldiers are not social workers, but that is the role you seem to be okay with.
   I am not okay with that. I either want to see us killing tens of thousands over there until they surrender, or get the hell out. What we have going right now is like a very rough paint ball game and nothing much else.
   If we want to help rebuild a society, there are much better prospects than Afghanistan … so why are we there … really?

2. If we want to change them, we have to make them not muslim. That is not going to happen.

3. With Obama in charge get our boys out.
   He isn’t a fit commander. The Afghanis don’t want us there. They choose sharia law. Even though it destroyed them last round. Time to go! Everything we do to make life civilized is corrupted than turned around. If I thought people in Washington where serious I would say stay. We all know What Obama & his crew are.
   Appeasers who hate their own Civilization.
   Serious only to accrue more power unto themselves. While making them stinking rich.
   JMO

4. Abe: “nineteen year olds know nothing”
   – bigotry
   – ignorance
   – disrespectful
   There’s generally more intelligence gathered around a LAVIII during a planning session than is found in any blog comments section. Again, really and truly ignorant of the facts and a bigotted view of the military.
   “Muslim women have to want to change their society”
   … stunningly ignorant of the facts; especially in Afghanistan. Perhaps a bit more reading may assist.
   “Soldiers are not social workers”
   – nothing in what I’ve ever said would suggest that I believe that, in fact, I’d prefer they’d be allowed to do a lot more killing so that the social workers (teachers, aid workers, community planners, and doctors) can do their job safely.
   Name calliing? Nope, just pointing out the blatently obvious using the correct adjectives and nouns.

5. EBD.
   the average age of the dead soldier you listed is 26.4 year old. Only four of them were over 30. How old were they when they joined?
   Did they have a clue what they would be asked to do?
   Sure they are brave and noble, but what they are dying for is questionable at this point. I think it would be disingenuous to argue that their cause is worthy when the Afghan government itself is so worthless and corrupt.
   We cannot change the ingrained nature of those people. They have lived as they do forever. They are mostly devout to their religion … something that very few Westerners are anymore. Our Christian church has been made to be a parody of itself over the past few decades. It’s has no power left and we cannot draw strength from those former beliefs.
   I am not a believer so I must rely strictly on logic and reason to live my life. My logic and reason tells me that you and Cjunk are emotional about this topic. That doesn’t mean you are right.

6. Larben >
   “I say fight them there in their own pig sty rather than in our own neighborhoods.”
   That statement would be true if our troops were actually allowed to “fight them”. Their hands are shackled for fighting in the way that they need to fight to win! Look at the Liberal uproar recently about human right abuses by our troops for handing over captives to so called Afghanistan authorities?? Supposedly they are our allies, how can you fight against that?
   In other words we are wasting our time and this is nothing but a political joke, wasting Canadian resources and the lives of our troops for absolutely nothing. The Arab and Islamic world is laughing at the absurdity of our ideals, while the Oligarch money men of the western world design more scandalous deals to enrich themselves.
   Aisha along with thousands of other women will continue to have their noses and ears cut off for many years to come, with or without our “help”. We need to protect our borders and citizens from them, their culture and ideology, full stop.

7. “Name calliing? Nope, just pointing out the blatently obvous.”
   Firstly, nice spelling there Cjunk.
   Nextly, I know name-calling when I see it or hear it.
   You are now in denial that you have trashed me with insults rather than a reasoned argument. That too is a very leftist trait.
   What ever gave you the idea that you were on the right? You sound like a confused progressive.
   Just stating the obvious.
   Again, you lose.

8. Abe: “We cannot change the ingrained nature of those people. They have lived as they do forever”
   … add this to the list; I’ll save the adjectives for the imagination.

9. Cjunk,
   You have said nothing in that last jab at me. You have lost it man. Give it up! If you have something to say that makes sense, let’s here it. Your imaginary list of adjectives is childish.
   I have not heard anything from you other that I am ignorant, bigoted and full of hate. That is not an argument … that is name-calling.
   Give me an argument about what good we are doing in Afghanistan, why we should stay there and I will consider those reasons. If you convince me, I will say so. But please stop with the jejune crap, this is an adult site.

10. If we want to change them, we have to make them not muslim. That is not going to happen.
    ~minuteman
    Exactly.
    For those who are making the bad analogy of comparing it to what Canada and the Allies did in WWII I have this to say.
    We didn’t allow Germany to remain Nazi or to continue to hold up Adolph Hitler as the Supreme Example of the Super Man and to this day Mein Kampf is a banned book in Germany.
    We should no more allow Afghans to remain Muslim or to keep teaching from the Koran or have the violent militaristic immoral figure of the Prophet Mohammad as the ideal of the perfect Muslim man if we expect to succeed.
    Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic and the day the shooting stops is the day that the Taliban Commanders can lay down their arms and run for the seats in Afghanistan’s government, secure in the knowledge that they will again be able to rule that land according to Sharia Law just as they did before NATO invaded.

11. Two best quotes on this thread –
    “…& to the Khadr family, I hope your little maggot dies in Guantanamo Bay.” Posted by: KVB
    “If we want to change them, we have to make them not muslim. That is not going to happen.” Posted by: minuteman
    Who said Winston Churchill is dead and gone? Well done.

12. It seems to me that some people commenting are more worried, for partisan political reasons at root, about the Liberals and the NDP than Jihadis. Therefore the Afghan war must be abandoned lest the bad parties win here.
    An odd priority one would think, especially since a victory for the Jihadis in Afstan will give great encouragement to Islamists everywhere, including in Canada (“broad strata” aside).
    Mark
    Ottawa

13. Knight 99 said: Their hands are shackled for fighting in the way that they need to fight to win!
    … true in more respects than most realize, and definately one reason to pull out. But, that’s not a failure in Afghan courage, but a failure of will on our part. Like I’ve said above, there are some very good reasons to pull out, but on the balance I’m for staying.

14. Mark Collins>
    “….a victory for the Jihadis in Afstan will give great encouragement to Islamists everywhere, including in Canada (“broad strata” aside).”
    A moot point but well taken. The Islamists everywhere do not require any further encouragement. They see themselves as victors regardless of what the west continues or discontinues to do.
    As far as local Canadian Jihads’? Let’s bring our troops home and rout them out of their little hidey holes. Then close the border on Islamic immigration, deport all convicted Muslim criminals of foreign birth. And cut off all special privileges and incentives for those of Canadian birth that seek special entitlements by their birthright and religious status.
    “Yes we can”!

15. Abe: I’ve been posting on this topic for over 4 years, have had a son in the fight, have spoken first hand with many others who have been there in the combat role and headquarters role, and have read extensively from the op-ed and technical material. Distilling it down to “We cannot change the ingrained nature of those people. They have lived as they do forever” is simply insulting to the intelligence.
    Perhaps, you can start by reading Glavin’s work or the SASC for a feel of what Afghans think and are doing, then move from there to the CAV blog … or perhaps at least go to Canada’s own website where the strategic and tactical goals are clearly outlined. Links are below:
    http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/BLOG/blogs/
    http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/
    http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/approach-approche/index.aspx?menu_id=1&menu=L
    http://afghanistan-canada-solidarity.org/
    … and of course, you can wade through my polemics at Cjunk to understand why it’s so insulting to the intelligence to treat Afghans as no more than Untermench.
    http://cjunk.blogspot.com/search/label/Afghanistan

16. Posted by: Cjunk>
    “but on the balance I’m for staying.”
    I believe you have a legitimate right to that stance.
    Other than sympathy for the mutilation of Afgani women, which is felt by all SDA commenter’s, there is not allot of meat provided to balance the costs and efforts by Canadians, by other way of opinion.
    Many commenter’s here seem view Afghanistan as a terminally sick cancer patient with leprosy.
    It becomes a hard sell to many people as to why bother spending the vast resources of the west to risk infection for a dying, unwilling and inherently violent patient.
    Sympathy isn’t enough; especially when there are so many other places where the “help” would be better received and beneficial to all including the Canadian citizens funding the aid.
    The next question is the same one as always –
    Where is the rest of the Arab/ Islamic world in all of this? Not a peep, only condemnation for the west on one hand with millions of asylum seekers on the other. As a matter of fact who questions which side the Saudi Kingdom funds, or neighboring Pakistan? It most certainly is not the US, Canada, UK, NATO coalition gaining from their support.

17. Still Abe – Too horrible to contemplate. You know what will happen, vendettas, finger-pointing, summary executions in the soccer arena in front of filthy Taliban judges. We cannot let these people down after telling them we would protect them if they help us by pointing out the rebels. If the U.N. allies continue to pull out of the coalition, than Canada should pull out of the U.N. and other trade agreements with the others. The U.S. and their president and their allies will be heroes for not pulling out, and Canada will look much like the Spaniards and the Dutch. No thanks!

18. Knight99: Most Muslim states support ISAF. They express this through the UN and by contributing troops to Afghanistan.
    I agree that sympathy isn’t enough; in fact, it’s the least objective of reasons to be engaged.
    As I stated above, I’ve expressed one of my key reasons for staying in essay, here.
    http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2009/09/staggering-implications-of-losing-in.html
    I believe in the humanitarian goal as well, and the neocon goal, as well … but those are more altruistic and subjective.

19. larben: Good point. Tens of thousands of Afghans have assisted and backed Canadian forces in particular. These people are now marked … the Taliban will take massive revenge on those who backed and risked all for our guys; especially the women and girls.
    Given Western lack of will, I’m surprised any Afghan would risk supporting us knowing that we don’t have the stomach to stick it out. After Afghanistan, nobody will.

20. After Afghanistan Vietnam, nobody will.

21. The Taliban perpetrated these types of abuses (and worse) as a government from 1996 to 2001, yet the west did nothing. But, when a group of Saudis plans an attack in Germany and succeeds in knocking down a couple of American buildings, well, Iraq is responsible, and Afghani women and children need to be saved.
    This war has nothing to do with reforming Islam; think about who is profiting from this war for “hearts and minds”…follow the money.

22. Cjunk >
    A well written article and your points were well laid out. You have indeed looked into the issues and soul searched, forming an informed opinion.
    It does still leave me dry with regards to staying or leaving Afghanistan. As pointed out by you, nation building clashes with western ideals. In other words Afghanistan nation building is experimental at best and an “unfixable” quagmire of ancient warrior tribal culture, and virulent, violent religious ideology in reality.
    What is overlooked I think is that the reasons Canadians wish to be in Afghanistan is not for the same reasons other nations in the world wish us to be there. There is a lack of understanding of our “mission” on all sides. First and foremost from the US who is obviously using our troops as a political ally to bolster their own ambitions in Afghanistan which is very far from nation building. We become the useful idiots enriching their enterprises, lead by their “Nobel Peace Prize” winner, who continually expands his empirical wars ever more. Don’t get me started on the farcical and corrupt UN’s role in this.
    We do not need a global government dictating how we live our lives. It will always be used against an unarmed and uninformed public with who’s “rights” are given and retracted by will of the individuals in power. Corruption will always work its devious way to the top of any organization once ultimate power is positioned as reward at its summit.
    This is why I believe we need to stay out of global affairs and retain our national sovereignty and existing cultural systems. Although some voiceless poverty striken nations may win some trivial role in such an alliance, most will not, and we have everything to loose.

23. I am coming a little late to this thread but some of the commenters may be interested in reading two articles by Dr. Jack Wheeler.
    The first sets the stage for the second. It destroys the myth of Afghanistan being the graveyard of empires and is appropriately entitled The Doormat of Empires.
    The second is entitled Why Should There be an Afghanistan?
    

    Afghanistan is a problem, not a real country. The solution to the problem is not a futile effort of “nation-building” – that effort is doomed to fail – it is nation-building’s opposite: get rid of the problem by getting rid of the country. It’s a salvage operation – carve the wreck up and parcel it out to its neighbors.
    Which means we first have to look at the neighbors. The problem of Afghanistan cannot be solved in isolation but within its geopolitical context. Those neighbors are: Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. You can’t really count China’s tiny roadless border at the tip of the Wakhan Corridor.
    Afghanistan has a 19th century raison d’état – it was created quite specifically and for no other reason than to be a buffer state between the British Empire in India and the Russian Empire in Central Asia.
    That rationale shifted into a 20th century context of the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union – but with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rationale has in the 21st century been rendered totally obsolete.
    The world is a better place, clearly and objectively, because the Soviet Union no longer exists. The world will be a better place if Afghanistan no longer exists. Just as what ended the Cold War was the disintegration of the “Union” of Soviet Socialist Republics, so the War in Afghanistan will end with Afghanistan’s disintegration.
    There will be new problems afterwards, of course – just as the end of the Soviet Union was not the end of history. But let’s get rid of this problem now, this war now, this threat from Moslem crazies now. How to do so begins with the Tajiks.

24. At Dieppe in 1942, with a population 1/3 of today’s, Canada took in one day 913 killed. In four and a half years since early 2006 when we started a serious military (combat) mission at Kandahar we have had 143 CF members killed.
    In 2006 2,889 people died in Canada a result of road accidents. That’s around 20 times all dead in Afstan since 2006.
    Give up, eh. Why not argue for much stricter, government-imposed road regulations if life, ours, is the issue? Or is it money?
    Mark
    Ottawa

25. Knight 99: Thanks. Your thoughts are lucid and good counter to what I offer, with a more specific Canadian perspective.
    It’s a tough issue, no doubt about it.

26. The idea of “winning hearts and minds” in Muslim countries is a fools errand. Until and unless the Islamic ideaology is reformed, and the ideals of jihad and Islamic supremicism are denounced and eliminated it will never happen.
    They may take our help, but it is wasted blood and treasure if their ultimate goal is killing the infidel as a means of establishing a worldwide caliphate as Islam dictates.
    I thought the purpose of this war was to eliminate the training camps and safe havens of Islamic groups to prevent another attack like 9\11. If that were true at the beginning, things have changed now that Obama is POTUS. He has changed the rules of engagement for the troops – he has been funding Hamas and Pakistan to our detriment – he has stated that we are not there to win – he has betrayed Isreal and his sympathies lie with the enemy.
    I feel a great deal of sympathy for the women, children, and men who at heart are apostate but no longer think we are acting in our best interests by being there. Now the fight against violent jihad needs to be won here in North America.

27. Mark Collins>
    “…..is the issue? Or is it money?”
    Money is a good starting point. What a waste of it!
    I do disagree on your other points – I think 143 CF lives laid waste in some remote backwater cesspit in the name of Liberal idealism and American oligarchic vis-à-vis empirical pursuits, is indeed wasteful. Regardless of the fact that many more people die on roadways in a given year. That’s just me.
    An interesting note as far as more government regulation of our roadways or otherwise:
    Did you know that 2008 FBI statistics show that of over half the US murders 16,277 were committed by black people? Which is astounding really, simply due to the fact that black people represent only 12% of the US population.
    By your “more deaths by road accident” metaphor, you seem to be suggesting safety standards such as the government needs to regulate black people better. Certainly the deaths/ murders in one year by black people in the US far exceed the number of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. By an outstanding ratio of population density verses deaths by murder. Maybe you’re right, but I think another course of action should be considered. Check it out anyway –
    http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

28. Is this a declaration of faith?
    [……..but they will not be won over at the points of our guns……]
    It’s always worked before…..the third Reich is gone…the Confederate States…The Imperial Japanese Empire….Viet Nam don’t count….we won that one militarilly but the leftist quislings gave it up to their fraternal socialist allies….much like they are trying now.
    IMO is is better to engage them there with well trained, armed healthy troops than have them engage the general population here. Our troops have infinitely better odds of survival.
    A forever war……so be it…..even Afghans have a fatigue factor..Alexander, Ghenghis Khan and Tamerlane crushed them and made it stick.
    Perhaps it is time we finished the job the Medieval Crusaders began…..Deus Volt…

29. There are two types of relativists.
    The obvious ones are the leftists, who believe in feminism for me but not for thee, o sad women whose noses were chopped off.
    Then there are the rightwing relativists, who believe that these are savages we fight, and for whom the social evolution will take a millenia to change. Easier to advocate for their extermination.
    The left and the right both have much in common in their refusal to stand in solidarity against Islamic fascism, and liberate the innocent trapped within.

30. Brent Weston
    […The second is entitled Why Should There be an Afghanistan?….]
    link
    http://standupamericaus.com/why-should-there-be-an-afghanistan:34754
    Yeah…….

31. Like Iraq and Vietnam and the WOD & WOT these are not the sort of wars one ‘wins’ as in WW2. Wars against indefinable insurgents are always easier to perpetuate, good for the economy, you betcha!!!!….unless you get killed.
    Afghanistan is the perfect terrain for Teck-Wars; air superiority with mostly clear weather and no jungles to hide in. Use satellite surveillance with drones or stealth bombers to wipe out offensive targets. Retaliate in kind and start a war of terror on the Taliban. Strike at night from high above, give no warning, take no credit. Make it look like disputes between rival warlords. Fight smart and get the troops out, more boots on the ground isn’t the answer. Troops will always be perceived as an occupying force. That’s the mistake the British made in N.America, and Afghanistan.. The US in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Soviets in Afghanistan, etc. The Afghan’s are fiercely independent people with more firearms per capita than anywhere else in the world, and it’s been like that for centuries, likely millennia.
    How do you think N. Americans would react if the Saudis decided to post a multinational UN police force in N. America to make sure the next election was done ‘fairly’ and in their best interests?
    Issue an edict:Para-Military Camps and Opium fields will be destroyed without warning, Have a Nice Day,
    then pull out the troops and start the nightly terror attacks from the air.
    Post it in every town and village, drop leaflets from the air. If they’re in a opium field or a para-military camp then they’re not innocent, non-involved, people. This is the sort of thing they will understand, and more importantly respect because it fits with their own warrior code. The biggest problem we face with troops on the ground in the Muslim culture is that the people don’t respect the troops. That’s a far different attitude than was expressed to US troops in Europe and Asia during WW2, and it has everything to do with the success or failure of the mission.
    Use stealth and covert operations to wage a psych war every night. Cease daylight operations completely. If there are no visible troops then the insurgents have nobody to blame it on, and it becomes very easy to pit rival factions against each other.

32. Sasquatch>
    “even Afghans have a fatigue factor..Alexander, Ghenghis Khan and Tamerlane crushed them and made it stick.”
    If it stuck, we would be fighting the descendants of Genghis Khan and Alexander today.
    Unfortunately as stated in posts above the question is how do you “crush them”?
    If we turn any Afghani terrorist detainee’s over to so called Afghanistan nationals (The official government) the Liberal Party of Canada calls our soldiers human rights violators. If they don’t treat the Afghani “freedom fighters” better than a Canadian citizen they are up for court-martial and subsequent prison sentences. From the foot soldier to the generals all are suspect and at the whim of totalitarian idealism and its greatest weapon political correctness.
    How and why should our soldiers endure this treasonous humiliation? What makes anyone think that our soldiers will be willing to crawl up and down mountainsides searching every cave and cavern as did the armies of Genghis Khan? What do we suggest “Search and Destroy” what a bloody idiotic joke in today’s touchy feely world of Liberal insanity. Instead our troops will sit in hovelling defensive positions, blowing the crap out of whatever comes their way, and count down the days until Canada decides enough is enough and brings them home. They are political scapegoats, and we are the lackeys funding it.
    Invade Afghanistan – but don’t hurt anyone or else. We will give them flowers and schools, and books and music. They will love us and they will become like us, stupid tolerant losers that know nothing of real life, how wonderful.

33. Its not the money, and its not the blood. It just seems endless and pointless. Yes little girls get to go to school. But will only get to go to school if we stay there another 20 yrs. 2000 years ago I believe it was Oneider who said “while important for a General to know how to win a victory, it is FAR more important to know when victory is impossible”. I have no ideal what “victory” is. Unless somebody can tell me what our end game is. Time to go home. Rest, refit let somebody else play for awhile and if in a couple of year it is still rolling on. Go back in.

34. The Afghanistan nation building campaign is one of the Big Plans that Planners constantly come up with (on the left as well as right) but that has and will never work.
    An Afghan military campaign, on the other hand, is winnable, but unfortunately this is not allowed by our dear leaders.
    So, however tragic for some elements of the Afghanistan population, a Western retreat is the only sensible approach (note: not sensible “solution”, as there is none). Yes, there will be a civil war, but we’ve had them too, and we survived (and perhaps developed because of it).

35. Afghanistan was a relatively enlighted place for decades. Women had rights. They were educated. Then the country became a pawn between Soviet and American interests and the Soviets moved in around 1979. When the Soviets left ten years later (they had no better luck in Afghanistan) it made it possible for the more repressive regimes to move in. This is overly simplistic I know–I’m not doing the subject justice. However, Afghanistan was on its way to being a liberated, modern country until it became a pawn on the world’s chessboard. Perhaps that’s why I feel a certain affection and extra responsibility for what is happening there now.
    But I agree that the notion of war as a kind of social reform vehicle is a hopeless cause. Wars should be fought against an enemy and hopefully won. If you can’t identify the enemy, or if you’re not allowed to fight him properly because of all sort of political shackles placed on our troops, or if you’re not prepared to stay the course, then you don’t belong there.
    One emotional argument (the photo is horrific) should not replace rational thought. It will take more than military action to change the mindset of people who can do such a thing. If we had the patience to stick it out for another generation or two? Perhaps.

36. I don’t think that Canadian support for our military presence in Afghanistan can be reduced, as CJunk has suggested, to the political #9, where a pacifist Quebec controls our decision. I think the decision is larger than Quebec though its constitutionally embedded and unfortunate role in our politics cannot ever be ignored.
    I think we have to ask ourselves the question of our goals. Obviously we want to enable those people to move out of tribalism and into democracy. The question then becomes: can our military assistance in this endeavour assist this goal?
    I am more and more coming to the conclusion that it cannot. The reason is within the Afghan govt itself.
    The suggestion by rita that Afghanistan was a ‘relatively enlightened place’ for decades is unfounded in fact. Its few attempts at modernization, lasted in the 19th c for a year or two, were rapidly cut short by assassinations etc. Under the Soviets in the 20th c, the modernization failed as the tribes rejected them.
    What is factual reality is the splintering of the peoples into local subsistence tribes, each adversarial against the other. What is factual is an almost non-existent literacy rate and education.
    It isn’t the case that the west ‘wants to install its culture’ on this region. Democracy and economic middle class freedom is not a western phenomenon in itself, although it emerged first in the west. It is a societal necessity – I repeat, necessity – in a population above the carrying capacity of a tribal economy. The tribes of Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world reject this necessity…
    My view is that the West cannot continue to fight tribalism in Afghanistan unless that country’s govt changes the economic infrastructure of the population. That is a first necessity. That is, Afghanistan requires an economic infrastructure that enables a middle class urban economy to emerge. It requires roads, hydro, water; it requires education.
    One third of the population lives below the poverty line; illiteracy is the norm (with less than 25% able to read); subsistence agriculture is the mainstay – and in an ecological envt as barren as it is, the focus ought to be on industrial technology and services.
    I don’t see how these peoples can move out of a peasant economy and tribal political system just by western military aid. The fact that the Afghanistan govt is not focused, totally, on this modernization means that our military work is having a minimal and almost evanescent effect. The fault lies within the Afghan govt. Unless it changes – we should get out.

37. ET: Things may not be as they seem:
    Eight years later, millions of girls are in school. The country has a constitutional government that reserves a quarter of its parliament to women. There are a dozen universities, several dozen newspapers, radio stations and television stations, and one in six Afghans owns a cellular phone. Five million refugees have returned. More than 80 per cent of the people have access to basic medical services. Almost all children have been immunized against polio and childhood diseases. The big debate in Afghanistan these days is whether the incumbent president, who was elected peacefully four years ago, has earned enough votes in a scandal-plagued run for a second term to avoid a runoff against his nearest rival. etc.
    http://cjunk.blogspot.com/2009/09/staggering-implications-of-losing-in.html

38. Once the Taliban returned to power after the Soviets left Afghanistan, women were no longer allowed to leave the house without being accompanied by a man, they had to cover up from head to toe, they were no longer allowed to work. Prior to that, women held professional jobs, political office and enjoyed some measure of freedom within their culture. (This was not true in rural areas.) Such freedoms fluctuated depending on the changes of power (assassinations as was pointed out by ET). Now, within the presence of our military, some of these rights are upheld (going to school, running for political office etc.) but it’s very tenuous and I don’t expect this progress to survive long once the troops leave. I hope it does, and perhaps enough of a beginning has been made that it will “take” this time. It just seems so unfortunate that promising beginnings have been scotched so many times.