Re: Taliban no more terrorists?
Although female education is no doubt more widely available than under the Taliban, my understanding is that the judicial system has deteriorated considerably compared to the Taliban era. The Afghan National Police (ANP) have a reputation for being massively corrupt, with judges little better.
Access to fast and fair judgement is critical to gaining the loyalty of people and is one of the major factors in how they perceive their own quality of life.. It is a shame that ISAF did not learn from the lesson of the Swat in Pakistan, where one of the factors that made the local people invite the Pakistani Taliban was a disillusionment with the perceived slowness of Pakistan’s legal system.
The single most effective thing that ISAF could have done in Afghanistan to improve life for Afghans would have been to create a well-paid, honest police force and a fair and corruption-free judicial system. Instead Afghans have been left with a situation where those trusted to protect them are the ones who take advantage of them, and this cannot end well for the interests of all foreign stakeholders in Afghanistan, both in its direct neighbourhood and further afield.