I find it ironic that riots have just concluded in Afghanistan concerning the Prophet Muhammad cartoons and the West's apparent "intolerance" of Islam, only to have an Afghani Christian, Abdul Rahman, arrested there for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Even if the possibility of him facing the death penalty did not exist, such an egregious violation of one's human rights would still be appalling. It's scenarios such as these that give Islam its bad reputation.

Furthermore, it's somewhat difficult to reconcile the notion that Islam is a religion of peace when the persecution of converts in an Islamic country appears to not only have the backing of many of the religious elite, but many of the lay people as well.

The current harsh rule of Afghanistan by Islamic fundamentalism seems little different than the rule of the Taliban with one minor exception: The current rule is democratically elected.

If our occupation and export of ideals has done nothing but change the makeup of a government from unelected tyrants to democratically elected ones, what have we really accomplished?

Doug Atchison
2005 graduate