Somewhere in the middle of Afghanistan, there are the ruins of two demolished Buddha statues... [View all]

[derby378]

...that serve as a grim reminder of what is going to happen to the Afghan people - and especially Afghan women - if the Taliban is, as President Obama just hinted, ever allowed to take part in the rebuilding of Afghanistan as part of the new joint venture that Obama just presented in tonight's address.

Those statues were located in a valley called Bamyan in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan. Built in the 6th century, they were the largest standing Buddha statues on the planet until Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban, ordered them dynamited in 2001.

And I don't know about you, but I've got a nephew who's currently stationed in Afghanistan as a Marine sniper. I'm sure he's heard plenty of stories about IEDs planted all over Afghanistan by the Taliban, not just the few incidents that reached American audiences by way of Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan.

And do I even need to start on the abysmal treatment that Afghan women have suffered at the hands of the Taliban, who for the most part weren't even born in Afghanistan, but came from the Pashtun tribe in neighboring Pakistan?

One of these days, America must pull out of Afghanistan completely - but we cannot allow the Taliban to fill the void we leave behind. To do so would be, in the light of history and the eyes of the world's children, inexcusable.