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Time Magazine Once Again Trots Out The Tired And Inexcusable ‘We’re In Afghanistan (And Have To Stay) To Protect Women’ Mantra

Jul 292010

Why we can’t leave Afghanistan–yeah sure, we’ve achieved absolutely nothing, trashed the country and possibly put ourselves in more danger and lost too many of our own in the process as well, but don’t be so selfish as to believe that we can just leave, oh no, we have to stay and protect the poor, pitiful Afghan women (and yes that is the sound of sarcasm you hear dripping off those words). The new issue of Time has a but we must protect the Afghan women piece (complete with heart rending graphics) that begins with,

The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband’s house. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn’t run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Aisha’s brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose.

This didn’t happen 10 years ago, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It happened last year.

Exactly, it happened years after we went into Afghanistan claiming we were going to protect Afghan women, which has worked out not so much. But that doesn’t stop the Time piece from concluding,

For Afghanistan’s women, an early withdrawal of international forces could be disastrous. An Afghan refugee who grew up in Canada, Mozhdah Jamalzadah recently returned home to launch an Oprah-style talk show in which she has been able to subtly introduce questions of women’s rights without provoking the ire of religious conservatives. On a recent episode, a male guest told a joke about a foreign human rights team in Afghanistan. In the cities, the team noticed that women walked six paces behind their husbands. But in rural Helmand, where the Taliban is strongest, they saw a woman six steps ahead. The foreigners rushed to congratulate the husband on his enlightenment — only to be told that he stuck his wife in front because they were walking through a minefield. As the audience roared with laughter, Jamalzadah reflected that it may take about 10 to 15 years before Afghan women can truly walk alongside men.

So there you have it, we’ll have to stay another ten or fifteen years so that women can achieve equality. Imagine instead of contributing to the violence in Afghanistan that further harms women, we were to provide humanitarian aid that improved the lives of Afghan women. Imagine if we had taken the billions of ‘reconstruction’ funds that are unaccounted for in Iraq and given that money to responsible organizations to actually rebuild and strengthen the social infrastructure of both countries. Oh wait, then we couldn’t use the women excuse to continue to fund the military industrial complex. Enough already, women are not an excuse for militarism and war.

Afghanistan–Murdering Pregnant Women In The Name Of Democracy

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Apr 052010

According to the New York Times,

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

In fact, it is worse than that, much worse. As we pointed out on this blog last week, according to Kathy Kelly,

…the NATO report insisted that the two pregnant women at the party had been found bound and gagged, murdered by the male victims in an honor killing. A March 16, 2010 U.N. report, following on further reporting by Starkey, exposed the deception, to meager American press attention.

So we tried to make this look like something done by what we frame as the enemy, but at the risk of being repetitive, wait, it gets even worse, via the NYT:

NATO military officials had already admitted killing two innocent civilians — a district prosecutor and local police chief — during the raid, on a home near Gardez in southeastern Afghanistan. The two men were shot to death when they came out of their home, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, to investigate.

Three women also died that night at the same home: One was a pregnant mother of 10 and another was a pregnant mother of six. NATO military officials had suggested that the women were actually stabbed to death — or had died by some other means — hours before the raid, an explanation that implied that family members or others at the home might have killed them.

Survivors of the raid called that explanation a cover-up and insisted that American forces killed the women. Relatives and family friends said the bloody raid followed a party in honor of the birth of a grandson of the owner of the house.

On Sunday night the American-led military command in Kabul issued a statement admitting that “international forces” were responsible for the deaths of the women. Officials have previously stated that American Special Operations forces and Afghan forces conducted the operation.

“International forces”? Do they seriously not know who conducted the raid? Not highly likely. But wait, yes you guessed it, it gets worse:

And in what would be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

In other words, cut to the chase, not only did these maybe American or maybe mysterious international forces commit an atrocity, they clearly knew that was exactly what they had done and they tried to cover it up by falsely implying the barbarity of innocent civilians. This is an horrific crime, a clear violation of international law and it needs to be investigated and prosecuted fully.

In this country, since late 2001 we have been subjected to a steady drumbeat from our government and media telling us how important it is to fight terrorism, beat Al Quaeda, find Bin Laden, beat the Taliban, defend the homeland and on and on. Oh yeah and while we are at it, we will liberate the women of Afghanistan. And the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians, 2 of them pregnant, one the mother of 10 beautiful children who are now motherless accomplishes this how?

What we’ve been told are lies, bloody, bloody lies. Later this week, I’ll be lecturing on the impact that militarism has on on women’s lives and I will be dedicating that talk to the women who were murdered in this raid. Safety and liberation is not achieved by such atrocities, they only serve to make the world a far more dangerous place, especially for women if we allow them to happen with impunity.

Afghanistan–Lying About Lies

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Mar 312010

Prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, we were told by President Bush that one reason it was important to send troops was to liberate Afghan women from the the Taliban. We know now that was only a shameful excuse to justify an unjustifiable war. But unfathomably, we continue to use women as pawns of war in Afghanistan. Kathy Kelly reports that on February 12, 2010,

U.S. and Afghan forces raided a home during a party and killed five people, including a local district attorney, a local police commander two pregnant mothers and a teen-aged girl engaged to be married. Neither Commander Dawood, shot in the doorway of his home while pleading for calm waving his badge, nor the teen-aged Gulalai, died immediately, but the gunmen refused to allow relatives to take them to the hospital. Instead, they forced them to wait for hours barefoot in the winter cold outside.

Despite crowds of witnesses on the scene, the NATO report insisted that the two pregnant women at the party had been found bound and gagged, murdered by the male victims in an honor killing. A March 16, 2010 U.N. report, following on further reporting by Starkey, exposed the deception, to meager American press attention.

It was a lie in 2001 that ‘liberating’ women was a priority, and not only is it still a lie now, but we are also lying shamefully about our own guilt in the barbaric murder of innocent, pregnant women with the shameful complicity of our media.

At the same time, the New York Times reports that the CIA is proposing that Afghan women should be sent to European countries to explain why expected steep French and German casualties this summer are acceptable,

French voters could be made to feel guilty about abandoning civilians and refugees, while both nations’ electorates are reluctant to “disappoint” Barack Obama, it concludes.

Afghan women are “ideal messengers in humanizing the [international coalition] role” and should be put in front of European media for their “ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory.”

Afghan women are not only losing their lives and human rights because of U.S. military actions but now we are asking them to support these ‘humanizing’ atrocities. Kelly also points to a Save The Children report that came out in early March reporting that,

“The world is ignoring the daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan children from treatable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia, focusing on fighting the insurgency rather than providing humanitarian aid.” The report notes that a quarter of all children born in the country die before the age of five, while nearly 60 percent of children are malnourished and suffer physical or mental problems. The UN Human Development Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, second only to Niger in sub-Saharan Africa.

The proposed US defense budget will cost the U.S. public two billion dollars per day. President Obama’s administration is seeking a 33 billion dollar supplemental to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile in this country we dither on how to afford healthcare and what to do about the economy. And we liberate Afghans by killing them with our bombs and standing by while their children die, unnecessarily, before the age of five.

We call that fighting terrorism and defending the homeland. But we are not safer, and Afghani women and their children are not liberated. They are dead, wounded, and malnourished. To echo the words of Cindy Sheehan, what noble cause?

Our actions are an expensive, damaging lie and have become the embodiment of failed democracy.

Liberation NOT–Misogynist Violence Run Amok In Afghanistan

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Mar 102010

While we continue to pour billions down the drain fighting ‘terrorism’ and the ‘enemy’, we continue to harm the women of Afghanistan by fomenting a continuing state of militarism with only lip service and a pittance of funding given to help them to fight the very real terrorism of violence against women. Via RAWA:

As the world marks International Women’s Day, ambivalence, impunity, weak law enforcement and corruption continue to undermine women’s rights in Afghanistan, despite a July 2009 law banning violence against women, rights activists say.

(WARNING–VERY Disturbing film)

A recent case of the public beating of a woman for alleged elopement – also shown on private TV stations in Kabul – highlights the issue.

In January domestic violence forced two young women to flee their homes in Oshaan village, Dolaina District, Ghor Province, southwestern Afghanistan. A week later they were arrested in neighbouring Herat Province and sent back to Oshaan, according to the governor of Ghor, Mohammad Iqbal Munib.

“One woman was beaten in public for the elopement and the second was reportedly confined in a sack with a cat,” Munib told IRIN.

According to the governor, the illegal capture of the women was orchestrated by Fazul Ahad who leads an illegal armed militia group in Dolaina District. Locals say Ahad, a powerful figure who backed President Hamid Karzai in the August 2009 elections, has been running Oshaan as his personal fiefdom.

“When the roads reopen to Dolaina [closed by snow] we will send a team to investigate,” said the governor, adding that he was concerned that arresting Ahad could cause instability. “We have asked the authorities in Kabul for support and guidance.”

IRIN was unable to contact Fazul Ahad and verify the charges.

Self-immolation in Afghanistan

Domestic violence, forced marriage and lack of access to justice force some Afghan women to commit self-immolation and suicide.

“I poured fuel over my body and set myself ablaze because I was regularly beaten up and insulted by my husband and in-laws,” Zarmina, 28, told IRIN. She, along with over a dozen other women with self-inflicted burns, is in Herat’s burns hospital.

Over 90 self-immolation cases have been registered at the hospital in the past 11 months; 55 women had died, doctors said.

“People call it the `hospital of cries’ as patients here cry out loudly in pain,” Arif Jalali, head of the hospital, told IRIN.

Beneath the cries lie cases of domestic violence and/or disappointment with the justice system.

“Self-immolation proves that the justice system for female victims is failing,” said Movidul-Haq Mowidi, a human rights activist in Herat.

Barriers to justice

Despite laws prohibiting gender violence and upholding women’s rights, widespread gender discrimination, fear of abuse, corruption and other challenges are undermining the judicial system, experts say.

“Women are denied their most fundamental human rights and risk further violence in the course of seeking justice for crimes perpetrated against them,” stated a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on the situation of Afghan women in July 2009.

Orzala Ashraf, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, blames the government: “Laws are clear about crimes but we see big criminals thriving and being nurtured by the state for illicit political gains,” she told IRIN, pointing to the government’s alleged failure to address human rights violations committed over the past three decades of conflict.

“Because no one is put on trial for his crimes, a criminal culture is being promoted: violators have no fear of the law, prosecution and a meaningful penalty,” said Ashraf.

Deep-seated ambivalence to women’s rights is evident from a law signed off by President Hamid Karzai in early 2009: The Shia Personal Status Law, dubbed a ‘rape legalizing law’, was amended after strong domestic and international pressure.

“The first version [of the law] was totally intolerable,” said Najia Zewari, a women’s rights expert with the UN Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “Despite positive changes in the final version, there are articles that still need to be discussed and reviewed further,” she said.

Another example of this ambivalence is the case of the men who threw acid in the faces of 15 female students in Kandahar city in November 2008: Karzai publicly vowed they would be “severely punished” but court officials in Kandahar and Kabul have said they are unaware of the case and do not know where the alleged perpetrators are.

“Judges say the men were wrongly accused and forced to confess,” Ranna Tarina, head of Kandahar women’s affairs department, told IRIN.

Violence database

Over the past two years more than 1,900 cases of violence against women in 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces – from verbal abuse to physical violence – have been recorded in a database run by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and UNIFEM.

One recorded case is the murder, by her in-laws in Parwan Province north of Kabul, of a young woman who had refused to live with her abusive husband. Another is the regular physical and mental torture meted out to a woman by her husband and mother in-law in Kabul.

“The database does not give a perfect picture but it helps to highlight some of the common miseries of Afghan women,” UNIFEM’s Najia Zewari told IRIN.

UNIFEM is keen to make the database publicly available on the internet.

“Violence against women is not a new phenomenon in Afghanistan but it is good to see crimes do not remain confined to a home and a village,” said activist Orzala Ashraf.

‘Saving’ Afghan Women Not An Acceptable Justification For Continued U.S. Presence In Afghanistan

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Nov 112009

While Obama continues to practice his leadership style of taking a really, really long time to decide pretty much anything, it appears likely that he will ultimately approve a significant increase in troop levels in Afghanistan. As Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission writes,

There’s no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war.

Regardless of why we went into Afghanistan in the first place, the justifications given for our continued presence are bizarrely vague and the results have been devastating. As Kolhatkar points out,

Our actions in Afghanistan have caused a perfect storm of untold numbers of civilian deaths, fundamentalist resurgence, and women’s oppression. We’re protecting a corrupt government with a puppet president and criminal warlords, and our deadly bombing raids have led to a devastated and rightly bitter population and a stronger Taliban. There’s no promising indication that our military operations can improve the situation, no matter how many troops are added. If ever the Afghanistan war ever had any legitimacy, it’s irreversibly gone.

She goes on to point to the way in which Afghan women’s lives are now being used as a justification for remaining in Afghanistan, despite the deep flaws in that logic.

One of the original justifications for the war in 2001 that seemed to resonate most with liberal Americans was the liberation of Afghan women from a misogynist regime. This is now being resurrected as the following: If the U.S. forces withdraw, any gains made by Afghan women will be reversed and they’ll be at the mercy of fundamentalist forces. In fact, the fear of abandoning Afghan women seems to have caused the greatest confusion and paralysis in the antiwar movement.

What this logic misses is that the United States chose right from the start to sell out Afghan women to its misogynist fundamentalist allies on the ground. The U.S. armed the Mujahadeen leaders in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation, opening the door to successive fundamentalist governments including the Taliban. In 2001, the United States then armed the same men, now called the Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban and then welcomed them into the newly formed government as a reward. The American puppet president Hamid Karzai, in concert with a cabinet and parliament of thugs and criminals, passed one misogynist law after another, appointed one fundamentalist zealot after another to the judiciary, and literally enabled the downfall of Afghan women’s rights over eight long years.

Any token gains have been countered by setbacks. For example, while women are considered equal to men in Afghanistan’s constitution, there have been vicious and deadly attacks against women’s rights activists, the legalization of rape within marriage in the Shia community, and a shockingly high rate of women’s imprisonment for so-called honor crimes — all under the watch of the U.S. occupation and the government we are protecting against the Taliban. Add to this the unacceptably high number of innocent women and children killed in U.S. bombing raids, which has also increased the Taliban’s numbers and clout, and it makes the case that for eight years the United States has enabled the oppression of Afghan women and only added to their miseries.

This is why grassroots political and feminist activists have called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from their country. After eight years of American-enabled oppression, they would rather fight for their liberation without our help. The anti-fundamentalist progressive organization, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has called for an immediate end to the war. Echoing their call is independent dissident member of Parliament Malalai Joya, who tells her story in her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. The members of RAWA and women like Joya are openly targeted by the U.S.-backed Afghan government for their feminism and political activism. RAWA and Joya have worked on the ground, risking their lives for political change and echo the vast majority of poor and ordinary Afghan women. It’s they whom we ought to listen to and express solidarity with. If American progressives think they know better than Afghanistan’s brave feminist activists on how liberation can be achieved, we’re just as guilty as the U.S. government for subjecting them to the mercy of women-hating criminals.

The time has come for the U.S. to quit using the lives of Afghan women to justify its presence in Afghanistan. That is not the reason we went in and certainly not the reason we should stay.

For more on the impact of the U.S. military’s presence in Afghanistan, please see Malalai Joya’s recent Op Ed which begins poignantly,

Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.

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Feminist Peace Network

Time Magazine Once Again Trots Out The Tired And Inexcusable ‘We’re In Afghanistan (And Have To Stay) To Protect Women’ Mantra

Afghanistan–Murdering Pregnant Women In The Name Of Democracy

Afghanistan–Lying About Lies

Liberation NOT–Misogynist Violence Run Amok In Afghanistan

‘Saving’ Afghan Women Not An Acceptable Justification For Continued U.S. Presence In Afghanistan

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