I am thinking about the women and girls of Afghanistan. Was this really the best the world could have done for them? These twenty years of corrupt and ineffectual Afghan governments seemed better than the terrible Taliban regime that proceeded them, and there was some hope that international assistance, not just guns and soldiers, could have led to a new system of government that looked after all of its people, men, women and children from all tribes and traditions without turning the assistance into a personal enrichment scheme for its leaders. The corruption may have been endemic in Afghanistan, but the ineffectuality was shared by the governments of the nations who were trying to help but allowed the corruption to continue. The pullout of American troops was, I’m sure inevitable and, maybe, sensible, but, I don’t believe that after the deaths of so many young soldiers and the suffering of so many Afghanis, that the best the world can do now is to leave these little girls to their fate under a regime that is saying it has changed. No-one should believe them.
