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Afghanistan: Is this what we are fighting for?

With elections coming up in Afghanistan next week - and the corrupt Pres. Karzai probably going to win re-election - it will be recalled that one of the reasons the US and its allies are fighting in the already war-torn country is to enshrine democratic values, etc. etc.

One does have to wonder! Is this the sort of country worthy of pouring untold billions of dollars into aside from the human cost in lives and injury?

The Guardian reports in "Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights":

"Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said."

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