President George W. Bush

President George Walker Bush felt the need to invade Afghanistan after a series of events that led to the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He felt that the people responsible for the death of thousands of innocent Americans should be brought to justice, however, this was made difficult by the lack of co-operation by the Afghanistan government. The Taliban, who ran the majority of the country, thought the accused (Osama bin Laden) was innocent and would not hand him over to the American authorities without sufficient evidence. Bush decided it was necessary to bring this man to America so he may be punished for his crimes, so he placed orders for American troops to enter Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban had little or no experience in running a government and it seemed as though they didn’t see this as a priority when they took power in 1996. They demonstrated extreme single-mindedness as they focused on the achievement of law and order under their interpretation of the Sharia law. Their only aim was to create the world’s purest Islamic state; we could see this through the way the Afghan people were treated, the strict laws imposed on women and the way “corrupting influences” (television, music and films) were banned.

While the Taliban was governing Afghanistan, many laws were created that controlled all aspects of women’s public and private lives and severely restricted their freedom. Their access to education, healthcare and employment were among some of the many basic necessities that were made difficult to obtain. The Taliban edicts formally ordered the segregation of women from men who were unrelated to them, this meant women could only appear in public if they were almost completely concealed in a garment called a burqa and only while accompanied by a close male relative. Life for