Decide: Sanctimonious drivel or progressive feminism. (You can't have it both ways).

For a study in stark contrasts, read this gibberish (or this) and then compare with this, or this, from our dear comrade Lauryn Oates:

It will be a windy road, but along which some seeds have been planted -- and they must be allowed to grow. As Nick Grono of the International Crisis Group stated, "we shouldn't give up on our strategy of institution building -- the fact is that it's not so much that it has failed, but that we have hardly tried."

Canada's presence in Afghanistan enabled us to send a clear signal to the Afghan government that laws which discriminate against women have no place in our shared goals of justice, human rights and peace. This stands in stark contrast to the Taliban's days of power, when there was nothing but silence coming from the West in response to the regime of gender apartheid under which Afghan women lived. This time, the Afghan government was forced to listen.

A decade ago the Afghan women's movement was in no place to mobilize against the threat of such discrimination. Today, they are doing that -- with ferocity. I was in Kabul at the time the new law was publicly announced and witnessed the flurry of activity which immediately began as women's organizations, parliamentarians, intellectuals, writers and Afghan civil society mobilized. They started a petition, issued statements, made recommendations for repealing the law, met together to plan action, held a press conference, and organized a demonstration against the law. . .

That's Lauryn in the photograph, not really punching a stoppist, but rather hamming it up with her sweetie, Brad, with a piece of (how shall I describe it?) 'found art' that came into my possession by means that are none of your business. Let's just say no innocent animals were harmed in the production of this photograph. Speaking of photographs, the 'how the heck is a guy supposed to get any work done around here' snapshot that appears in the upper right corner of this blog was taken at the very place Lauryn mentions in the op-ed quoted above - the Omid-e-mirmun Orphanage in Kabul.

Also, while cowards flinch and traitors sneer, Brian Platt persists in his honesty, here.