Virtue and Vice

A setback for freedom has occured in Afghanistan, a country liberated from the Taliban regime by the U.S. in 2001. The current government has decided to reinstitute the Department for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue. Under the Taliban, the organization was known for imprisoning and torturing Afghans based on infractions of Islamic law involving things as trivial as the length of one's beard. The group was particularly harsh to women, who were punished for not wearing their burqa veils, for exposing an ankle or for wearing high-heel shoes.

The U.S.-backed administration in Afghanistan vows that the new Department of Vice and Virtue will not resort to the forcible measures of its Taliban cousin. We'll wait and see.

When will the Muslims learn that morality is a matter of the heart, not of the fist?