I am not against those folks – university professors, highly educated professionals, sundry intellectuals, media busybodies and all the others – who seek to enhance their careers by championing the cause of female liberation and education in Afghanistan.

In fact, if I had any voice or influence, and if I had any resources of my own at all, I would have been right up there in the forefront of this battle, fighting this noble fight, side by side with these high-minded people, only harder and even more passionately than them, because while to many of them it may be a smart career gambit, to me it is a personal passion and what President Bush would have called a “crusade,” even though I am only a Muslim and not a Christian.

But how I wish – and how dearly I hope – all these worthies, as they used to say at one time, would add to their career enhancement strategy a new or additional plank, namely, that of liberating and educating not only the women but also the men – and not just in Afghanistan, but also in Egypt and in Pakistan and in practically every other Muslim society in the world.

Now that would be a real crusade, I should think. And what a day and what a crusade that would be: to liberate and educate Muslim men all over the world!