Afghan women

The specter of Afghan women protesting a law treating women as chattels would be heartening except for the vast and violent crowd that attacked them. This brave protest follows word of a public execution of a couple that tried to elope to avoid an arranged marriage.



One could argue these outbursts are merely a reflection of necessary chaos -- something like the work of Seth, the Egyptian god of the desert. These terrible events are merely the birth pangs of a new and just Afghanistan.



Perhaps, but I wonder if they are more akin to the TSN monkey picking sporting winners.



Put less crudely, I strongly suspect that the Taliban is in control of Afghanistan's spirit and the fighting to support the government there merely supports brutality with an urbane face.



That does not mean the mission is wrong or that we should leave. But it does mean we should realize certain preconditions ought to apply before there can be support of any government. One of them is that women ought to have the right to choose whom to marry -- that was the law in medieval Europe which was not really a progressive place for women's rights.



If the minimal standards we require are not met then we need to recognize the mission in Afghanistan is limited to ensuring the Taliban cannot reach outside that country. It is a purely military mission without a nation building component.



That is a sad and tragic thing. But it is more just than supporting a government that is morally insupportable.