Sir, – Happily for your reader Mike Harding (Letters, August 30th), that as "a lone European", he could enjoy the adventures of trekking in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.
It is unlikely that his lone female counterpart – European or no – could ever have enjoyed the same freedom, without putting herself in extreme danger.
We will never know if Afghanistan’s “own version of modernity” might have emerged to include basic human rights for women, but we do know that Blair and Bush’s blundering resulted in an unprecedented ability for half of its inhabitants to live with some dignity, for two decades.
I would be willing to bet that this half of the population is happy that the country wasn’t “left to itself”.
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– Yours, etc,
EMER FANNING,
Athenry,
Co Galway.