Timetable encouraging Taliban?

Our military leaders speculate in public whether or not the timetable withdrawal from Afghanistan give “sustenance” to the Taliban, like Marine General James Conway in this BBC report.

Meanwhile reports are coming out of Afghanistan this morning that 40 (MSNBC‘s Number) and 59 (CNN‘s number) schoolgirls and their teachers were the target of some sort of noxious gas this morning in Afghanistan;

Ultra-conservative elements in Afghan society oppose female education and have a history of setting fire to girls’ schools, threatening teachers and attacking students. Some even earn money for doing so. Although these extremists aim to terrify girls back into isolation and ignorance, many young women refuse be intimidated.

In 2001, only 1 million Afghans were enrolled in school, all of them boys, The New York Times reported. Today, approximately 7 million Afghan children attend school, of which 2.6 million are girls. However, schools for girls still remain closed in Taliban strongholds, particularly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Attacks like this one are on the rise because it’s easier to terrorize schoolchildren than it is to terrorize US military forces and the timetable withdrawal is tantalizingly close.

Category: Terror War