The recent wave of demonstrations are not something new. Actually in the past one year many Afghan cities witnessed such huge demonstrations mainly organized by people who oppose the policies of Mr. Karzai and want to show their opposition to his pro-warlord actions.

In Kabul, one of the first places we visited were the sites of the U.S. bombing. This was very important for me. I thought it was so important for me to witness the destruction wrought by our tax dollars in Afghanistan on the ground, what it looked like, and what were the places affected. This, of course, was done several years ago: the bombing began on October 7th, 2001. I liked to look at this scene as our tax dollars at work. It was very cold when we were there in February; it was snowing. This was near the airport in Kabul, but there were a lot of residential areas that had been bombed as well, like this house.

Visions of Afghan women throwing off their burqas in the name of freedom helped fuel the Bush administration’s case for war against Afghanistan. Just how free are women in today’s Afghanistan? Was removing their burqas ever really the issue?