Do you feel that the crisis in Afghanistan, and the attention that is being paid to the women's situation there, has helped your mission to eradicate the oppression of women? Will this foment radical change?

I hope so. I think everything remains to be seen right now. The situation is so volatile in Afghanistan, and so unexamined in the deepest sense. I am shocked to see how profoundly we have not thought any of this through -- not surprised, but shocked.

What was your reaction when you heard that the Northern Alliance had marched into Kabul, and women were shedding their burqas?

I was so confused. It's exactly how I feel all the time these days: I feel like we live in a state of total ambiguity. Part of me was weeping to think of women and men being freed, that men could shave their beards, listen to music and dance in the street; and then I also felt utter terror about what was coming down the road.

The Salon Interviews index -- links to all the interviews related to the Sept. 11 attacks and the events that have followed.

Do you think the Northern Alliance will behave themselves because the world's eyes are on them?

Wouldn't it be ideal if the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul and Kandahar and all these different groups lived peacefully? But I think we're on the verge of a civil war.

The fact is that we, as a country, have no foreign policy. What's our policy? If you don't have a policy that you believe in, with a mandate, you are always shifting. Ten years ago we thought the exact opposite: We supported the Taliban, we created Osama bin Laden, we built those bunkers! So what do we believe?

To me the most disturbing thing going on right now, second to the bombing of all the children and women and tortured people of Afghanistan, is that we haven't had a discussion about foreign policy. There's not a discussion in sight, anywhere, about what we're learning from this.

We have, however, had lots of discussions about eradicating evil from the world.

I have problems with this "evil" thing. Evil is a really problematic word. I run a writing group in a woman's prison, and most of the women are murderers who are called evil people, and they are not. They have done something terrible, and that's an absolute fact. They are complicated, multifaceted, mind-blowing, unusual, original, disturbing angry people. So is the Taliban. That is my feeling about the Taliban.

Evil is reductionist. It destroys ambiguity and takes away duality and complexity; it says that they are dark and we are light, they are evil and we are good. That's all a lie. We all have the capacity for great goodness and love, and we all have the capacity for terrible deeds. I've seen the best people behave terribly in the worst situations, and the worst people behave well. Who knows why? There are a lot of things that govern us. But I'm not going to accuse anyone of evil.

Why aren't we creating hope and goodness in the world [instead of eradicating evil]? There's poverty, inequity and justice: How are we as a country going to rid the world of these? How are we as a country going to be bigger than we've ever been? [We need to] expand our generosity, and see ourselves as people who have responsibilities to those who are poor, or who don't have education or access to opportunities. I have heard no word of that.

Instead, [our approach] feels very arbitrary. We have targets, perhaps; we are bombing, and we are working with a completely brainless operation [the Northern Alliance]. And we are banking the future of Afghanistan on this? No -- because we aren't thinking of the future of Afghanistan. I would not be surprised if we were to find Osama bin Laden and then get out of Afghanistan, the way we have time and time and time again. That's what made this problem.

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