No-one, or no-one I would rate, would deny that the Taliban are very wrong to deny females a proper education or jobs in the professions. But a few thoughts. There's no war going on within Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. The education issue affects only a tiny proportion of women there. The fact that they come from the most privileged sections of society means that the Western Media, themselves bastions of privilege, identify with them and give their plight a lot of coverage. The vast majority of Afghan girls were, and are, never going to become doctors, airline pilots or lawyers and they are being hurt by Western sanctions. And I'm pretty sure the war against the Soviet Union and their Afghan Communist clients was in a large part inspired by their insistence on educational opportunity regardless of sex. The Red Army was fighting as much for girls' education as the US and NATO troops who propped up the corrupt Afghan government until recently. But we in the West supported the Mujahedin back then. What changed when it comes to the West's attitude to female education?