What should we do?

[Goofball]

Just read this story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...ghanistan/home

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Clerics urge Kabul not to interfere with death sentence


AMIR SHAH
Associated Press
February 7, 2008 at 6:37 AM EST

KABUL — Conservative clerics and elders demanded Thursday that the Afghan government not interfere with a controversial death sentence handed down to a young journalist convicted of insulting Islam for distributing a report questioning polygamy.
Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, 23, was sentenced to death on Jan. 22 by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for handing out a report he printed off the Internet to fellow journalism students at Balkh University.
The article questioned why men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands.
Mr. Kaambakhsh has appealed his conviction.
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More than 100 tribal and religious leaders convened Wednesday in Gardez, the capital of the conservative eastern province of Paktia, and demanded that the government support the sentence.
“Kaambakhsh made the Afghan people very upset. It was against the clerics and Islam. He has humiliated Islam,” Khaliq Daad, head of the Islamic council of Paktia, said Thursday. “We want the Afghan president to support the court's decision.”
Mr. Kaambakhsh's case sparked a protest in Kabul last week and an international outcry, with a number of organizations demanding the case be annulled and Mr. Kaambakhsh set free.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to raise the case with President Hamid Karzai in talks here Thursday. Ms. Rice flew to the Afghan capital along with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to deliver a joint message of support and to prod Afghan officials as the United Sates continues a drive to recruit more NATO troops for Afghanistan.
A government spokesman said this week that Mr. Karzai was concerned about the death sentence, but would not intervene until the courts have their final say.
Mr. Daad criticized the government and various organizations that have come out in Mr. Kaambakhsh's defence, accusing them of interfering with the judicial process.
He said the clerics and elders worried that Mr. Kaambakhsh would be let off the hook like Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert imprisoned in 2006 on charges of apostasy who was whisked off to Italy, where he had been granted asylum.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reiterated its call for Mr. Karzai “to have the case transferred immediately to Kabul and expedited through the appeals process so that he can be officially exculpated.”
Reporters Without Borders, another press rights group, also pressed the Afghan government to transfer the case and the conviction “quashed.”

As sickening as I find their sense of "justice," it begs the question: should the west be interfering? Especially in Afghanistan, where we are already seen as occupiers, if not oppressors. Obviously, the sentence is brutal and stupid, handed down by a bunch of old men desperately trying to maintain their hold over people through religion.

But from what I understand, it's the law of the land, and our interferance could further destabilize the already fragile Afghan government if we force them through political pressure to intervene and overturn the sentence.

Thoughts?

[HoreTore]

Cover-up. The reporter was criticizing the regime(which we're supporting btw), and is taken care of, dictator-style.

EDIT: Why do you hate freedom, btw?

[Ice]

Foreign nations should put extreme pressure on Afghanistan's central government to get this penalty significantly reduced or dropped, as we should to any country that acts in this manner.

[Vladimir]

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Especially when the Taliban or a local warlord takes control of the area. Then we act.

[Fragony]

Whar are we doing there if we let this happen?

[Vladimir]

Whar are we doing there if we let this happen?

Nothing.

[LittleGrizzly]

Im struggling with this one as by interferring and saving the guy we could cause more deaths but should we leave this guy to die for using his freedom of speech and criticising religion ?

Firstly why is this against the law in Afghanastan and worthy of a death penalty not my idea of a free democracy by a long shot.

I think we should interfere as much as i dislike this i believe we should be trying to encourage this kind of freedom and save this guy from an unjust punishment.

[Spino]

Whar are we doing there if we let this happen?

We went there to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and dismantle Al Qaeda's presence in the region. Ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban and installing a democratic government was a secondary concern and to be brutally honest, nothing more than a fringe benefit of having the Northern Alliance toss their hat in the ring with us.

When you consider that Afghanistan has always been a hornet's nest of tribalism, unrest and civil strife then our presence and political interests there should always be considered temporary. Far better and brutal conquerers have claimed that region only to experience how enormously difficult and costly it is to keep and subdue. If we can effectively destroy Al Qaeda's viability in that region then it is in our best interest to get out of there as fast as we can and let the locals sort out their own territorial disputes and ancient hatreds.

[Tribesman]

The reporter was criticizing the regime(which we're supporting btw), and is taken care of, dictator-style.

No it wasn't him , it is his brother who has been writing about some of the nasty stuff the warlords from the Northern Alliance get up to .

[Fragony]

What is with all that you can't destroy this or that, it's about making something significantly insignificant.

[HoreTore]

No it wasn't him , it is his brother who has been writing about some of the nasty stuff the warlords from the Northern Alliance get up to .

Ah, might be it. Makes it even more like the standard dictatorial way of doing it, going after the family of a dissident...

[Adrian II]

Whar are we doing there if we let this happen?

The U.S. broke Afghanistan because they had to, now Nato owns it because no one else would have it. What we are trying to do is contain the damage and control the political fallout, and in particular the spread of the Taliban, since no one is able or willing to do that. It is neither a great success nor a pretty sight, but withdrawal would be a bigger failure and create a far uglier view.

Words like 'nation building' or 'democratization' are for too big for this mission.