I'll do my best.
I want to thank each of you for coming and for your presentations today. I found them very interesting and quite helpful.
As my colleague said, we just returned on Sunday from Afghanistan. One thing that struck me when we did go outside--although we weren't able to go too far, to a village or a city--was that I never saw one Afghani woman. I watched very carefully, to see if I could see a woman, and I did not. I confirmed that we hadn't been able to see a woman with other people on the trip.
I want to thank you, Ms. Niazi, for the recommendations. I think it's very helpful to the committee that you came with specific recommendations.
Each of you talked a lot about the different factions in the country, the complexity. The more I become aware of the situation there, and the more I read, the more I understand how incredibly complex each and every step forward is in terms of the tribal culture and the difficulty in bringing peace to Afghanistan.
I want to ask you to elaborate on what you really think an actual peace-building process would entail. If you could have a blueprint that would bring the people of Afghanistan to real peace and security and an opportunity to live their lives with some sense of a future of peace, what would that entail? I think we also need to keep in mind the whole situation in Pakistan, where we know that people are moving back and forth across the border with some sort of impunity, and how that factors into a peace process.
The final comment I want to make is to ask what is going on with the ministry of vice and virtue? I think all of us were surprised to see a ministry called “vice and virtue”. I understand what Ms. Amiri was saying about the balancing act that President Karzai has to work with in the conservative factions of the country, to try to make his government work. I do understand that. However, for most of us, just the title of it brings the hair on your arms up. You get very apprehensive about it.
You said there has been a decline in security--all of this with so many international soldiers and the big NATO operation there. It doesn't fill me with hope when you tell me that.
So could you talk about the peace process and what you think may work? I think each of you talked about the peace process, so if Ms. Brunet could start.... I would like to hear from Ms. Niazi, too, because she obviously has something to say that she hasn't been able to get through.