I don’t like to talk about Afghanistan, mostly because as a Canadian, my government has armed forces over there being killed for a country that sentences journalists to death for speaking out against the Qur’an. Pervez Kambaksh is a student journalist who wrote an essay condemning some of the more sexist verses of the Qur’an, and was trying to speak on women’s rights. The 23 year old was sentenced to death, and is now rotting in jail while his lawyers try in vain to appeal this decision in what is essentially a corrupt ‘Supreme Court’.

It’s time we got the fuck out of this country. If it is impossible to inculcate our values, than we have no business being there in the first place. If they want to run their country into the ground with their Sharia law, then so be it. There are some places in the world that are not ready to consider women as equals, or religious freedom as paramount.

The truth is the Taliban has never truly left. They are still there, disguised as moderates, secretly bleeding us dry while biding their time before raising the fundamentalist flag again. What can be done in a place like this? I’m not sure. So far we haven’t figured it out. Perhaps there is nothing we can do. One thing I can tell you for sure is our continued presence will do nothing to change the minds of the people in power. Afghanistan is messed up, and it won’t get better anytime soon.