More progress in Afghanistan:

Democratic institutions are flourishing in Kabul and a newly elected parliament of warlords is getting down to the business of reinstating Shariah law. Everything there is going so well --- except for the resurgent Taliban and the opium growing ---and now there comes this case of Abdul Rahman, who is under the threat of being put to death by an Afghan court for converting to Christianity. President Bush is very upset about this latest embarrassment and has sic'd Condi on Hamid Karzai. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says Condi called Karzai and discussed this issue with him "in the strongest possible terms." McCormack says that Condi, "urged president Karzai to seek a favorable resolution to this case at the earliest possible moment."

The problem, according to Barnett R. Rubin, and expert on Afghanistan, is that the West, with their money and military presence, is putting a lot of public pressure on Karzai to quash this, which makes matters worse. The religious types are questioning his credentials as the leader of an Islamic country and in the current atmosphere of religious hurt feelings over the Mohammed cartoons he can't be seen to be backing down to infidels. [Hear Rubin on the World for more on this]

W.s right-wing Christian fanatic constituents here at home are also equally exorcized about this story and are demanding Bush do something about it. The only supporters W. has left at this point are his radical end timers, so when they say jump he says how high. This is the problem you run into when your foreign policy is based on the teachings of the Bible. A book written by a bunch of stinky sun-stroked lunatics 2000 years ago is probably not the best guide to conducting your foreign affairs in the age of instantaneous communications and nuclear weapons.

But, this isn't about religion, parish the thought, it's about democracy. We're all about democracy. Scott McClellan says that this prosecution "clearly violates the universal freedoms that democracies around the world hold dear." W. said on Wednesday that he expects Afghanistan to "honor the universal principle of freedom." What he didn't explain was why Afghanistan is being held up to this standard but Pakistan isn't.

In any case, this puts the Afghan government is a bit of a pickle and everyone concerned wants this story to go away. Supposedly, there is a chance that Rahman will be declared mentally unfit to stand trial and he'll be deported. That doesn't really do much for him or his child custody case, the reason he got into this mess in the first place, but at least he'll get out of Afghanistan with his head still intact.

With all this going on some are starting to wonder what difference getting rid of the Taliban really made. For a long time we were perfectly fine with them being in power so what happened? Oh right, the pipeline deal. Hamid Karzai, being a former adviser to Unocal, understands the value of a pipeline to his country. I guess, as long as the oil flows, we can put up with a little warlordism and Sahriah law.