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Nov 6, 2003 Afghanistan has just finished its draft constitution, and already people are screaming, from both sides. The debate is between religion and secuarlism. Fanatcism is a two way street. Secuarlism of the Ataturk kind is just as bad as the taliban, both deny people a choice. Saying that Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic is like saying that the Vatican is Catholic. Of course Afghanistan is going to base their constitution around Islam, almost everyone practices the religion and it may be the only unifying factor they have. What is important is not whether they acknowledge Islam, but whether people get to vote in free and fair elections and whether religious minorites can worship in peace. (I think the latter will happen and the former will take some time) I personally see no harm in Afghanistan basing its laws on Islam, whether we want to admit it or not our laws are based, in part, on Judeo Christian values. Hey don't get me wrong, I don't want a theocracy, I just don't think a public mention of religion, no matter the country, is automattically a bad thing. Only when it is taken to extremes. OK, enough about the religion fight. Other problems exsist. Militias still exsist, only about 1,000 fighters have been disarmed, that is far too few. Also, there is fear that the elections will be disrupted by regional warlords, that is very likely. The UN may actually be useful here, let them send observers into the country to assure elections actually take place. Why should we care about Afghanistan when all the action is in the sunni triangle? Simple, if we fail in Afghanistan we send a signal to the jihadists that we are not serious about fighting them we can't afford to let that happen. We must succeed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. An aside. In my last cloumn I wrote (I paraphrase here) "it used to be there were no republican senators, now there are only 9. Obviously this is not true. I meant to say there are only 9 democratic senators in the south. ------------ Email Craig Chamberlain: craig_chamberlain@hotmail.com Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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