At least in the US, the "women's rights" issue in Afghanistan was part of the propaganda drumbeat to prepare the population for war. It is not a serious issue for the political administration, witnessed by the refusal to endorse the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The only countries that have signed but not ratified are the US, Afghanistan, Sao Tome and Principe.

What the US population does not understand, and conservatives should, is that countries like Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, etc., are a confederation of tribes which retain local control.

That's the part the conservatives should understand. The "warlords" retain local control, thinking they know best how to handle local issues, and ain't giving in to a centralized government. Even if conservatives in the US think they should.

It takes a fairly repressive regime to hold it together or it blows apart. Witness the former USSR, Yugoslavia and the other areas of Central Europe, and "Afghanistan", which is effectively several nations. Effectively gone to pieces when the harsh central authority is gone.

Or a central "authority" which is not really an authority, but a government in name only, a seat at the UN, one which will not expect or try to exert control in the countryside.

What the Arabian nations know is that if the entire Saddam regime is displaced, the tribes will take over, and there will be factional problems everywhere.

Or, the US will have to install a very repressive regime, again, but with lucrative Western Oil contracts.

As far as women's rights in Afghanistan, that doesn't seem to be an issue in much of the US or with the political administration. They have the attention span of a flea in a frying pan. Lip service, tut-tuts, gee-whiz, how do you think the Raiders will do?

Women's rights were just part of the drumbeat.

Arf