I find I must agree with NJ's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.
To us, as liberal Westerners, the notion of equality and education for women is an admirable ambition, and we have achieved the second, and are doing better with the first.
Therefore it fills us with horror that there is a nation that subjugates its female population, and denies them access to education, a system that to our eyes is abhorrent, and should be changed, if necessary, by force.
But why should we be the arbiters of what is right and suitable for other nations?
Simply because we believe we possess the moral right and the military power to force our concepts of best practice onto other nations, does that make it right for us to do so?
As history has shown, the speed and ease with which the Taliban reclaim control when successive invaders (and that is what they are) finally give up and leave, must surely suggest that this is actually what the Afghan culture understands, and regards as stability.
It is utterly foreign and horrible to us, but clearly not to them, and again, do we have the right to force our ideas of suitability on them by military force, simply because we have decided to occupy the moral high ground?
Maybe it is time for the West to have a good hard look at its attitudes and its morality, and ponder whether we really do have the right to spend billions of pounds and sacrifice millions of lives in what continues to be an utterly fruitless dream - making everywhere in the world think and behave as we do.
It has never worked - perhaps we should just accept that other nations don't actually want to be like us - they don't think we are as wonderful as we think we are.
Food for thought.