Wow, President Bush sure did a heckuva job in Afghanistan, didn't he?  We ran the Taliban out (well, sort of, since they are making a come back all over the countryside now that most of our troops are bogged down in Iraq instead...way to finish the job) -- and they enacted a lovely Constitution based on sharia law.

And now they've arrested a man simply for being a Christian [NOTE:  In the interest of accuracy, as pointed out in the comments by reader Gridlock, I shorthanded this a bit too much -- the man's crime was renouncing Islam.], and refusing to convert back to Islam because of his faith.  And for that, he could receive the death penalty.  That's not gonna play well to the fundie base, now is it? 

Ooops.

President Bush said in a speech in Wheeling, WV earlier this week that "We have got influence in Afghanistan, and we are going to use it." 

Are we going to use that influence on a case by case basis -- each and every time a Christian gets arrested in Afghanistan?  Because the sharia law the Afghanis put in place isn't all that tolerant of religions other than Islam. 

Call me crazy, but shouldn't all that "influence" have been used before the religious intolerance was written into the Constitution and the laws in Afghanistan?  And for that matter, oughtn't we have used all that influence to be certain that women's rights were also protected?  I'm just saying.

Heckuva job, Bushie.  Again.  Nothing like half-assing your way across the Middle East and Asia.

Republic of T has a whole lot more -- definitely worth a read.

Is it me, or isn't this something that Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell ought to be hopping mad over -- if for no other reason than all their missionaries aren't exactly safe over there under these laws either, are they?  For every fundamentalist that thought George Bush was one of them...well, so much for protecting your own, eh?