WTF?!?!?!?!?!

From the Globe and Mail 3/12/09:

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The Afghanistan Supreme Court has secretly upheld a 20-year sentence imposed on a young journalism student who allegedly questioned Muslims' treatment of women.

The lawyer for Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh said he was stunned to find that the ruling had been made without his knowledge.

"On Saturday, I went to the Supreme Court asking for the date of the hearing and also to submit my defence," said Mohammad Afzal Nooristani, who has acted for Mr. Kambakhsh in the case that has drawn international attention.

"They told me they already decided about the case a month ago behind closed doors."

This is really disturbing. One of the rationales for this war is that it was supposed to end religious extremism.

It gets worse. Here's the "blasphemy."

In late 2007, Mr. Kambakhsh, 24, was charged with blasphemy after he allegedly disrupted classes with questions about women's rights in Islamic society. He was also said to have illegally distributed an article he printed from the Internet, asking why Islam does not give women equal rights, and to have added three paragraphs to the article himself, one of which read: "This is the real face of Islam. ... The prophet Mohammed wrote verses of the holy [Koran] just for his own benefit."

Another rationale for the war in Afghanistan was improving the situation for women. From what I've read, that only has happened in Kabul.

This is absolutely offensive. It is morally reprehensible to make a victimless action like blasphemy into a "crime."

What are we doing in Afghanistan? What are the goals for the expanded number of US troops being sent there? What will be done about the corruption and religious extremism in Afghanistan? Is there going to be any serious effort to rebuild Afghanistan after decades of war? (There hasn't been any real rebuilding in Iraq in spite of all the money being sent to war profiteers for "rebuilding projects.")