If I really wanted to know whether things are better now in Afghanistan than they were under the Taliban, I’d ask an Afghan. So, let’s see what they think. I can’t find a 2007 poll, but a 2006 poll of Afghans showed that although optimism about the country’s future had dropped quite sharply after ABC news took a similar poll in 2005, substantial majorities were still optimistic about their own futures, preferred the current Afghanistan government to the Taliban, and believed that the country was headed in the right direction, that security was better than under the Taliban, and that the US-led invasion in 2001 was a good thing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6214298.stm

What about education? A record high of six million children were enrolled in primary schools in Afghanistan as of March, 2007, twice the number that were enrolled in 2002. Plans were in place to enroll 400,000 more girls in 2007. I can’t find statistics on the number of children in school under the Taliban, but the number of girls who were enrolled in formal education under their rule was, of course, zero. Even for boys, the Taliban forbade all schooling other than in the religious madrassas, and universities such as Kabul University were closed. Today, at least 14 universities are educating young Afghan men and women.

http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=5862&tx_ttnewspS=1175154504&tx_ttnewstt_news=121&tx_ttnewsbackPid=5861&cHash=3264a0cbe1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Afghanistan

Communication? In 2002, over 99% of the population of Afghanistan had no access at all to telecom services. By 2006, there were 2.16 million telephones in Afghanistan, all provinces were connected to a national telecommunications network, and mobile phone prices were dropping. Telecommunication is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the new Afghan economy.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21305078~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:223547,00.html

Women in government? In 2005, 68 out of 249 elected or appointed members of Afghanistan’s Lower House and 23 out of 102 members of its Upper House were women – roughly 25 %, a higher percentage than in the US Congress – 16%. Under the Taliban, of course, the percentage of women who participated in governing Afghanistan was exactly zero.
http://www.quotaproject.org/displayCountry.cfm?CountryCode=AF

Suffrage? In 2007, suffrage in Afghanistan was universal for men and women over the age of18. Under the Taliban? Well, I suppose you could say it was universal then, too: nobody could vote.

The economy? Despite enormous problems of poverty, security, and corruption, the Afghan economy grew by 14% in 2005 alone. While nobody expects that rate to continue forever, the World Bank’s Country Director for Afghanistan said in April of 2007 that he expected to see economic growth exceeding 8 percent for the next five years, translating into “real improvement in the lives of Afghans.”
http://www.worldbank.org.af/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/AFGHANISTANEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21314315~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:305985,00.html

I’ll stop now, especially since you’ve already said that you aren’t interested in continuing the discussion. I would just ask you, please, to remember that being a reporter is an important responsibility because people believe what they read in the paper. You can do a lot of damage – unintentional damage, perhaps, but still very real and serious – by putting things into print without checking first to make sure that they are true.

I’m not interested in moving to the forum for a discussion with “everyone,” because everyone did not make the astonishing statement that Afghanistan is far worse off than it was before the overthrow of the Taliban – you did. I wanted to see if, having made that statement, you would take responsibility for it by offering proof to support it. I don’t find any such proof in your response. I prefer to answer you here. You may not choose to allow the comment to appear on your blog – it’s your blog, so it’s up to you. But I do hope you’ll read it, and follow the links, and maybe think about the information you’ll find there a little bit.

You have shown, and I certainly acknowledge, that there are serious problems in Afghanistan today. However, what you didn’t acknowledge is that serious problems have existed in that war-torn, land-locked, poverty-stricken country for many, many decades, long before 2001. The existence of problems there today does nothing to prove that things are “far worse” now than they were under the Taliban – not unless you think there were no problems under the Taliban, which surely you don’t – right?

The importance of opium production to the Afghan economy is certainly a terrible problem, but it is not new and was not caused by the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Opium-growing has been an important part of Afghan agriculture for so long that Afghanistan has been the world’s leading opium producer since 1991. The Taliban encouraged opium production until the last year before the invasion, when they began imposing the death penalty for it. I doubt very much that you truly believe that either encouraging opium production or imposing the death penalty for it, as the Taliban did, was preferable to the measures being taken today by Afghanistan’s elected government, the United States, and the international community to move Afghanistan’s farmers toward the production of other crops.

http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/CEF/Quarterly/February_2006/Pierre-Arnaud_Chouvy.pdf

Yes, the Taliban has recently regained some strength in parts of the country, and violence has increased in those areas correspondingly – but do you really believe that this is worse than when no constitutional democracy existed anywhere in Afghanistan, and the Taliban had total control of the whole place? Tell that to the beautiful little girl pictured here, who recently started school in one of 50 new UNICEF-supported community-based schools in scattered settlements in rural Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_38434.html
I’d be interested to know how you’re going to persuade her that she would have been better off illiterate and locked up in her house under Taliban rule than she is now, learning to read and write with her father’s enthusiastic support, and making plans to grow up to be a teacher.

As for your comments about Afghanistan as an international project rather than a single-handed U.S. operation and its comparative influence on Middle Eastern politics, I can’t see what any of it has to do with whether things are worse now there than they were before. It happens that I agree with you that abandoning our ideology is no way to win a war of ideologies. But how on earth are we “abandoning” our ideology by leading a sustained international effort to replace a murderously repressive religious regime and suffocating poverty with a democratically-elected constitutional government and a growing economy?

“We have made the world a more dangerous place in our vain attempts to make it better.”

Please explain to me how the world was less dangerous in a world where 19 hijackers flew planes into buildings killing 3,000 Americans? Please explain how the world is more dangerous because the United States chose to defend itself?

The bottom line is that your post is disgusting.

I don’t even know what to say about this sophomoric statement:

“America itself barely abides by the laws it once held sacred. Imagine a dictator criticized for violating human rights only to have America explain to him, that when we do it, it’s different, or to an extremist group for that matter. We can no longer claim we lead by example like we once did.”

The United States of America provides more freedoms to more people than any other country on earth, period. This country has shed more blood for the freedom of others than any other country on earth, period. How dare you compare our nation to a dictatorship? You’re a sick individual if you can’t even open your eyes long enough to see the freedoms and opportunities this country affords you.

Furthermore, in response to this statement:

“I no longer just mourn the death of those killed on this day but rather in reflection I mourn the death of nearly everything we once stood for. Pride in our legacy, shame in our current state and contempt over the direction of our future.”

Don’t you want your country to succeed in Iraq? Don’t you want your country to succeed in Afghanistan? If you can’t emphatically answer “Yes” to both of those questions, then you are truly not patriotic in any way, shape, or form. Anyone can disagree with the war, but you seem to be rooting for our defeat because you disagree with the Bush administration.

Afghanistan’s drugs industry makes up around 60% of the economy. The trade has boomed since the fall of the Taleban and the country is the world’s leading producer of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin.
International bodies and governments say the drugs trade is helping to fuel the Taleban insurgency in the south, where much of the poppy crop is grown.” –BBC 8/2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/country_profiles/1162668.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/456999/html/default.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6756125.stm

There are signs of improvement in the economy (but remember more than half of it is drugs aiding the Taleban), and some human rights in the capital are better but have limited success in growing further. The infrastructure has been annihilated, much of the government inadequacy is due to the same factors as in Iraq, factional disagreement and conflict.

The Taleban has launched a rash of relatively successful attacks earlier this year and are nearly the rule of law in the far east and south. More afgans civilians died in fighting in 2006 than any year since 2001. Out of the three examples I gave Afghanistan is perhaps the least worst with more prospects of change, but remember it’s an international project and not just a U.S. Operation. It is also the least influential on the politics concerning the middle east. The fall out from Iraq and Palestine will be more focused on by the world at large. I disagree with the U.S.’s methods. I think there is more effective way of winning a war of ideologies apart from abandoning your own.

I would ask that if a debate ensues we not peck back an forth on the blog, could you please post a topic in the forum and let everyone offer their idea’s or criticisms. This will be my only reply here. Thank you for taking an interest even if your beliefs are opposite to mine.

I speak as someone who lost a loved family member on that day and who is nowhere near so ready to stop mourning that loss as you seem to want to be, nor anywhere near as frightened by the dangers we continue to face as you seem to imagine that anyone who disagrees with you must be.