Dr. Sima Samar, chair of the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission, posed that rhetorical question to me during some small talk after a Canadian Journalism Foundation session on democracy, journalism and  the courts.

She thinks the Canadian government, along with risking the lives of its sons and daughters, should put money towards funding Afghan TV and radio along with military operations.

It should be noted she would like to see Canada continue a military presence in Afghanistan.

But to aid the security portion of the mission, she said pro-democracy forces of all stripes had to get step up getting the word out.

For example, the Taliban will make a claim of massive civilian deaths from a NATO military operation (the Taliban is much more sophisticated about propaganda now than it was when it was in power). The Afghan government does little to respond in a timely way, and it's often left to her commission, she said.

Many news outlets are owned by warlords, and nobody wants to watch the government-owned TV channel because it's so lousy, she said.

One manager who tried to make it into a public broadcaster instead of a state one got fired, Samar said.

One of my fears about the daunting challenge of making Afghanistan a better place is that is is a radically different culture than our own. I reminded her of the apostate case, and that there seemed to be wide support in Afghan society for condemning Abdul Rahman to death for converting from Islam to Christianity. I also mentioned one Muslim I met in Canada woul agreed with the position that democracy is incompatible with Islam, because God's laws should prevail over human-written ones.

I mentioned reading one U.S. military officer who said that when he was posted in Mosul, Iraq, there were 50,000 university graduates in the city. In eastern Afghanistan, where he is now, the illiteracy rate hovers around 90 per cent.

The people are deeply conservative and tribal, so I asked how receptive they would be to talk of a more human-rights-based approach.

"Yes, but they have minds," she said.

Samar suggested there is more support than I think for an Afghanistan based on what she sees as universal human values.

Not to be glib, but I suspect she would have to believe that to carry on. I wish her well.