The West must accept its share of the blame for Afghanistan's problems, and must not be found wanting again, argues Dari Taylor, MP for Stockton South.

FOR many of us, Afghanistan is a little known country. At school we may remember history lessons of conflicts on the North West frontier with much talk of the Hindu Kush, a mountain range that extends for many miles and cuts Afghanistan in two, with sheer cliff drops thousands of feet deep.

Afghanistan is a land-locked country in a very sensitive and strategic location. To the west lies Iran, a country we have no diplomatic relations with. To the east lie Pakistan and China, two regional rivals of the West, and to the north lie Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, still recovering from years of Soviet occupation. The common denominator is that they all have high levels of poverty.

Although Afghanistan is little known to us, it has witnessed many defining moments of history. Earlier in its past it was a seat of learning that influenced medieval thought and theology. In the 19th C it was on the main east/west trades routes. In modern times, its most profound and defining moment came in 1989 when, after a bitter war, the Soviet Union withdrew after failing to defeat the Mujahadeen. As the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, so did the Western powers that had done so much to support the rebels against the Soviets.

Today, the world faces a deadly threat. Al Qaida led by one of the world's wealthiest, and possibly most charismatic of leaders - Osama bin Laden - represents the most serious terrorist threat ever faced by the world. As a cause of these problems, the fact that Western powers deserted a war-torn, devastated country, with no support to rebuild the towns and villages that had been levelled by the Russians, must rank of one of the highest.

My argument is clear, the Western powers left a country and a people with nothing to fight for, but much to fight against. This is the food of terrorism. It is difficult for us to understand the complete devastation of this country. Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979. A long war of attrition ensued over ten years with Soviet losses mounting steadily in spite of repeated efforts to crush the Mujahadeen through the use of terrible weapons of destruction, including the widespread deployment of mines, carpet-bombing of rebel areas and the use of scorched earth tactics. By the time of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the country had been flattened and an astonishing 1.3 million Afghans had been killed.

It is not only the land itself that is breathtaking in its beauty, but awful in the destruction it has faced. The diversity of its people is more startling still, but this also represents an even greater challenge to those seeking peace in the land. The population is made up of several tribes that mirror the terrain. To the north live the Tajik, the Hazara, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Baloch. These tribes speak Dari, for obvious reasons a language close to my heart.

The Taliban, however, draws most of its support from the south, which is occupied by a variety of Pashtun tribes that speak Pashtu. These are proud tribes with a long history. They are territorial and independent, united only by a foreign aggressor or the weariness of war. With the withdrawal of allied support in 1989, only the Taliban seemed to offer hope at the end of years of conflict.

However, for a country with a proud tradition of learning and culture, the Taliban has wrought havoc. It has persecuted Afghan Sufi and Shia Muslims. It has destroyed ancient statues and artefacts and pagan idols, and its treatment of women is appalling. Within three months of the capture of Kabul, the Taliban had closed 63 schools in the city, throwing 103,000 girls out of school. More than 7,800 women were banned from teaching, thrown out of their schools and ordered to wear the burka and serve their families in their homes. Perversely, this left 148,000 boys without any teachers at all. I am meeting members of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan next week, and I am looking forward to hearing first hand their experience of the Taliban. I am sure we will all be interested to hear their stories. In this war-torn and divided country, the UN is seeking to bring all of the tribes together and build a government that includes them all.

Everyone wants the efforts of Ambassador Brahimi to succeed and to that end the Government has given £1m. Our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is also calling on the allies not to repeat the mistakes of the past, but instead to rebuild the land of Afghanistan after the war in the same way the Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany and Japan after the Second World War.

It is so important for the West to respond to the poverty and injustice facing Afghanistan and its people. If we are not part of the solution, we remain part of the problem. Following September 11, tackling poverty and injustice is no longer only a matter of fairness, it is also a matter of security for us all.