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Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned

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unhappycamper Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 06:37 AM
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Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned
Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned
by Ann Jones
Published on Saturday, August 14, 2010 by The Nation

I know Bibi Aisha, the young Afghan woman pictured on the August 9 cover of Time, and I rejoice that her mutilated nose and ears are going to be surgically repaired. But the logic of those who use Aisha's story to convince us that the US military must stay in Afghanistan escapes me. Even Aisha has already left for America.

I realize that last remark has no logical basis, but then neither does the Time cover line "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan" beside a shocking photo depicting what happened (to this woman) after we had already stayed for eight years. I heard Aisha's story from her a few weeks before the image of her face was displayed all over the world. She told me that her father-in-law caught up with her after she ran away, and took a knife to her on his own; village elders later approved, but the Taliban didn't figure at all in this account. The Time story, however, attributes Aisha's mutilation to a husband under orders of a Talib commander, thereby transforming a personal story, similar to those of countless women in Afghanistan today, into a portent of things to come for all women if the Taliban return to power. Profoundly traumatized, Aisha might well muddle her story, but what excuses reporters who seem to inflate the role of the Taliban with every repetition of the case? Some reports have Aisha "sentenced" by a whole Taliban "jirga."

The Taliban do terrible things. Yet the problem with demonizing them is that it diverts attention away from other, equally unpleasant and threatening facts. Let's not make the common mistake of thinking that the devil we see is the only one.

Consider the creeping Talibanization of Afghan life under the Karzai government. Restrictions on women's freedom of movement, access to work and rights within the family have steadily tightened as the result of a confluence of factors, including the neglect of legal and judicial reform and the obligations of international human rights conventions; legislation typified by the infamous Shia Personal Status Law (SPSL), gazetted in 2009 by President Karzai himself despite women's protests and international furor; intimidation; and violence. Women legislators told the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) last year that they have come to fear the fundamentalist warlords who control the Parliament. One said, "Most of the time women don't dare even say a word about sensitive Islamic issues, because they are afraid of being labeled as blasphemous." (Blasphemy is a capital offense.) Women journalists also told UNAMA that they "refrain from criticizing warlords and other power brokers, or covering topics that are deemed contentious such as women's rights." A series of assassinations of prominent women, beginning in 2005, have driven many women from work and public life. Women working in women's organizations in Kabul regularly receive threatening letters and, recently, high-tech videos on their mobile phones showing women being raped.

The Taliban claim responsibility for some, but not all, of the assassinations and threats, while most members of the Karzai government maintain a complicit silence. These developments have sent into reverse what little progress women in the cities had made since 2001, while most women in the countryside have seen no progress at all, and untold thousands have been harmed and displaced by warfare. All this has taken place on Karzai's watch and much of it with his connivance. Our government complains that the Karzai administration is corrupt, but the greater problem-never mentioned-is that it is fundamentalist. The cabinet, courts and Parliament are all largely controlled by men who differ from the Taliban chiefly in their choice of turbans.
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Violet_Crumble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 06:53 AM
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1. K&R n/t
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TheKentuckian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 07:04 AM
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2. K&R
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KG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 07:23 AM
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3. foreign military intervention is part of the problem. it will never be the solution.
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no_hypocrisy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 07:28 AM
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4. Our presence will not influence "Honor Killings" and attempts.
It's ingrained in their culture.
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immune Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 09:01 AM
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5. Women in burquas
never had any part in the war planning, unless you're speaking about killing women to get them out of their burquas.

The invasion was all about a pipe line and gaining control of the heroin trade (which Bin Laden had almost eradicated prior to the invasion) as a kicker. But the war mongers knew that throwing the canard of women being brutalized into the argument would capture the attention of a certain percentage of Americans and they'd forget all about pipelines and heroin. It worked, too. They know us so well.
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philly_bob Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 09:38 AM
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6. Major relevation: Unlike mag story, it was family, not Taliban, that mutilated her
Looking at Ann Jones website, it's quite believe that she was in Afghanistan and talked to victim before Time Magazine did.
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bigtree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 09:50 AM
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7. important article
thanks for posting :hi:
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Wilms Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 10:03 PM
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8. k&r n/t
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-10 10:06 PM
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9. Why are we still in this barbaric shithole?
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