Occasionally I become incredibly depressed with the quality of political debate here. I have, anyway, reached a point of thinking that there is no way the political class can resolve the important issues (poverty, unemployment, debt etc.), and in any case are not unduly concerned about doing so.
Public attention being what it is they can get away with it most of the time - particularly in straight choice situations when if you don't like how bad the policies of one side are, so you pick the other side who are probably even worse (try the US as an example, the Democrats are next to useless, the Republicans a sight worse!).
And when you get tired of a difficult situation, you give up on it and just let it go.
It is perhaps a curiosity given my tendency to pacifism and my opposition to the war in Iraq and any future conflict with Iran, that I remain in the minority in thinking that the war in Afghanistan must be seen through to a successful conclusion, if only for one issue above all others - the rights of women.
During the last general election campaign the German political party, Die Linke - a party whose economic platform I could on my most pessimistic days be drawn to support - had two placards on either side of the same lamp-post.
On one side was the slogan "equal pay for equal work" (meaning the situation where women are paid on average 86% of what men get for doing the same job) must end. Agreed! 100%, especially given the margin by which girls are outscoring boys in schools these days.
On the other side read "German troops out of Afghanistan". OK in many ways it is a lost cause bringing that country even into the 20th, never mind the 21st, century. But consider for the moment - what chance do women there even now have the chance of equal pay for equal work? In fact what chance would they have of working if the Taliban came back? Zero, zilch, none whatsoever!
And if foreign troops leave, does anyone not seriously believe that the Taliban (with their large number of religious mercenaries from neighbouring Pakistan) would not be back in power in no time?
Women in Afghanistan have remarkably few rights compared with their German counterparts, even with the current relatively moderate (if highly corrupt) government in power. There should be no question of the international community leaving until the rights that they have now are guaranteed, and the promise of further improvement in the future is also guaranteed.
For that poor backward country the importance of this should not be underestimated. As a result of constant wars over a 30 year period, the population balance has altered so that women make up a disproportionately high percentage of the population. The women of Afghanistan need to be enabled and empowered if the intense poverty under which many live is to be combatted.
Abandoning them to their fate on the "it is not our business" principle is simply not an option - and we know all too well what that fate would be if the Taliban are allowed to return!
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