Thanks for the reply Rapax.

The question is whose view of women's rights? It won't be (I imagine) yours or mine, but is that relevant? Afghanistan is dominated by Pashtuns (not pashtums) who have a very traditional tribal coda that gels well with fundamentalist Islam. Strict Sharia law (or even mild Sharia law, which is the law where I live) is not equitable to women. Afghanistan is never going to be a great place to live if you are a woman who wants equal rights with a man. But this Western mentality of cultural superiority is partly what is behind these kind of occupations - let the Americans come and save the people from their repression - they want Macdonalds and Nascar racing right?? Because who wouldn't?? Do you think Afghans are getting ready to send their army over to the West to solve our societal ills? The Western media pick a few of the small, urban middle class elite to justify the occupation while ordinary Afghans feel violated and humiliated at having foreign invaders in their country, on their streets, pointing guns at them - and they need only look to Iraq to see what these invaders are capable of doing. My blood ran cold in the streets of Jalalabad when the US Army came through in armoured vehicles.

I think it remains to be seen if the withdrawal of the occupying powers turns into a tragedy. Unfortunately I think there is a significant chance that it will, but we have not seen that yet. The issue in my opinion is not the Taliban we are seeing in news conferences, but the jihadists and extremists who are mixed among them.

FYI a person from Afghanistan in English (which I appreciate may not be your first language) is an Afghan. The Afghani is their currency.

Taliban attacks again? Who did the Taliban attack outside Afghanistan? The Pakistan - Afghanistan border is highly porous and I don't think anyone really knows who is Afghan and who is Pakistani Taliban, but I don't think the Afghan Taliban have been seriously implicated in attacks in Pakistan. In fact it's more the opposite; Pakistan has a murky but undeniable hand in arming the Afghan Taliban. If you think that the Taliban had much to do with the World Trade Centre attacks in 2001, that's way off. The Taliban harboured Al Qaeda (though I doubt that they were aware of plans to execute the hijacking and attack) and refused to hand over bin Laden to the Americans (who months earlier had paid the Taliban millions as a sweetener for a pipeline deal across Afghanistan...) and so in they went.

Great that Pakistan is on your list. I totally fell in love with the country and even lived there for a short time. Still my very favourite place to travel with so much to see, and much easier logistically to travel in (in the past) than Afghanistan. Sadly, I think Pakistan can have a very negative influence on how events unfold in the near future in Afghanistan.

EO

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.