I don't know who you are, Guest, but I have to agree with you. I am appalled by the brutal and systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan (as well as some other countries). If the target of the Taliban's extreme oppression was a racial group rather than a gender, I think the world would recognize it as an abomination of the highest order, akin to slavery. Somehow, because the victims of this are women, and because it's based in their distorted conception of "religion," it is tolerated as a cultural difference, rather than being recognized for the evil that it is.

Little Hawk, I appreciate the sentiments you are expressing in this and other threads. But it all sounds pretty unrealistically utopian to me. It's fine to envision a world where nobody is poor or hungry, nobody lives in fear, and we all beat our swords into plowshares and study war no more. If I could snap my fingers and make it so, I would. But when you offer your "vision" as an alternative to the actions that the US government is currently taking (in concert with other governments), it's realistic to ask you for a more specific plan. Do you have one?