"In the current peace talks, the United States wants a Taliban promise not to shelter terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in exchange for a military withdrawal." Incredibly, this is what Mullah Omar offered the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, saying that he would turn over Osama bin Laden to an international tribunal for trial. Bush refused the offer, named the Taliban an enemy for harboring terrorists (part of the so-called Bush Doctrine), and went to war. Now it seems that America's longest war will end with something we could have had without nearly 2,400 U.S. military fatalities, 1,720 civilian contractor fatalities, over 20,000 U.S. military wounded, and trillions of dollars in costs. President Bush has an M.B.A. from Harvard yet couldn't do a cost-benefit analysis before saying "go git 'em." I still believe that Trump is the worst president of modern times, but Bush ranks as one of the most boneheaded.
"Today she wonders whether all the support she thought Afghan women had from America was just a fig leaf, a way to make military intervention more palatable to the American public via photographs of girls going to school."
YA THINK?!
It was obvious even back then. It began September 12.
2
Certainly no one thought that these women were are primary reason for going to and dying in Afghanistan? At best one might have hoped that once free of the Taliban the people would unite against them. Maybe even these women would arm themselves against them.
Sadly I see women here in Portland wearing the full burqa, I suppose for reasons other than support for being denied their rights, but it makes me wonder.
I wonder if the author would be willing to arm herself, and fight in die in Afghanistan for this cause? I would not.
We blew our chance to negotiate from a position of strength, and the author may be right about the framing of the war, but surely she does not suggest we keep fighting and dying for a losing cause with a corrupt government?
The sad irony is that before the American and Pakistani-supported mujahahdeen overthrew the Soviet supported government in Afghanistan for more than 30 years progressive rulers and progressive constitutional governments had made possible great advance for women's rights. Women served in government and the judiciary, graduated in great numbers from high schools and colleges, at least in urban areas could dress 'western' if they chose. By 1978 women made up 40% of the doctors and 60% of the teachers at Kabul University, 440,000 female students were enrolled in educational institutions, and 80,000 more in literacy programs. But the Soviet intervention to save this progressive movement succumbed to the backward-looking forces of the mujahahdeen and their American arms and support, leading to years of brutal civil war and, ultimately, to the Taliban rule.
Sadly, the lesson of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere is that defeating opponents like the Taliban requires killing a lot more people than the U.S. is willing to do or international law would tolerate. Destroying whole cities along with many of their inhabitants won the second world war and forced the utterly defeated survivors to cooperate. Although we could, our values don't allow us to wipe out whole Taliban communities, including non-combatant women, children, and the elderly, or to carry the war to their supporters in Pakistan. Without that level of force, the Taliban waited us out. This harsh reality of war gets overlooked by inexperienced or self-serving politicians, both conservative and liberal, again and again, leading to unfulfilled promises, like those made to Afghan women and to our own people. Some wars are worth fighting, but rightwing jingoistic boasting about how easy it will be, and leftwing calls for committees and constitutional guarantees on human rights just mislead us from the hard reality that success requires brutality. The alternatives are some form of stalemate, requiring lifetimes of armed presence against insurgency (S. Korea, Kosovo, Kashmir), or failure (Vietnam).
Regrettably, there are limits to what we can achieve in Afghanistan. After nearly two decades the US is completely discredited. At some point we'll have to make a reassessment of how we conducted ourselves in Afghanistan. Perhaps more teachers and less weapons would have been a start.
We can start here at home, we can vote our own misogynist president out of office. Do we really have any credibility with him in office.
11
Women’s rights should not be seen as purely tangential to the peace process. A country that empowers women is far more likely to develop a civil society that is resistant to extremism and violence. Women can sometimes become terrorists but they do so less often than men. I truly believe that when women’s voices are heard they have a moderating effect on the males around them. We need Afghan women to be heard if we ever hope to see the great potential of a peaceful Afghanistan realized.
7
I am very pessimistic. Even with the “advances” made during the last decade, when looking at TV reports about Afghanistan, I see most women hidden in that blue fabric cage. They are infantilized, treated as property, held down in order to make weak men feel important.
I certainly don’t want to diminish that a few women managed to enter politics, became lawyers, rights activists and I respect them tremendously. But I am afraid, that this only re-enforces the Talibans belief, that girls must be kept out of schools, except maybe Koran schools.
8
In the end, only Afghans can determine the fate of Afghanistan. We invaded the country to protect ours from terrorists based there. Imposing our moral standards on the Afghan people is not a good reason to stay. They have to decide for themselves. I can't ask American soldiers to die for this cause.
8
What did I glean from this article?
1. "All the support [some people] thought Afghan women had from America was just a fig leaf, a way to make military intervention more palatable to the American public."
2. "Dr. Rubin...argues for a gradual withdrawal to ensure the Taliban live up to their commitments." This is nonsense. A gradual withdrawal will not ensure the Taliban live up to their commitments; it will only delay the Taliban reneging on their commitments.
3. “Women were pawns in the game in 2001...and now they are again.” Duh.
The only hope for Afghan women is for them to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as they can...assuming they can at all.
2
The photo in this article makes me sad.
I’m still amazed how some women wear the Hijabi in this free country when it comes directly from the men oppressing women in other not free theocracies.
4
A few years ago I heard an interview with a female Iraqi who translated for American military. She started to choke up as she translated something to this effect; "The Americans treat us like tissue paper. Use us and throw us away."
Nothing has changed. Same story, different war.
1
In 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the global symbol of resistance towards Taliban sponsored Chauvinism and Misogyny- she won the Nobel Peace Price - yet only 5 years later US totally forgot about the women’s rights in Afghanistan. So tragic!
2
They ought to be. Western influence is leaving them behind.
1
Sometimes it takes countries thousands of years to really want to be free these words were from Pope John Paul who was recently made a Saint.
It's hard to keep everything on the front burner. This is an important problem that still needs more attention.....so let's turn up the heat a bit. Whatever it is that you do, do it. Talk it up, write it up, donate. Your senators and representatives are there, remind them in a big way there are things here still to be done. Your churches, your community groups....get them involved, again.
2
The US is concluding a deal with the Taliban that much to the Senate's and President Trump's disgrace will sell out the rights of Afghan women. Such a cruel outcome, a dishonour to all allied troops who were killed, and a permanent stain on America's reputation.
1
No matter what we do regarding Afghanistan, it would be good if we could at least admit that, generally speaking, religion harms women. I'm exhausted by so-called liberals championing the burka whether the women wearing it have a choice in the matter. I don't care what religion it is -- Catholicism, Mormonism, or any of the churches of the Religious Right here in the U.S.-- belief systems that strip women of choice over their lives deserve our condemnation. We may not be able to influence positive change in all parts of the world, but we can at least stop pretending that wholly male-led and male-created religious traditions have women's best interests in mind.
‘Women Here Are Very, Very Worried’
Yes, they justifiably are, as in Hebron, Cape Town and at R. Kelly's crib. We have much work to do to alleviate their collective suffering.
1
In the end, it's their country.
What? The US is not putting the rights of Afghani women in the forefront of the peace talks?
What a shock, not. Does anyone recall how we abandoned the non-militant, those not aligned to the soon-to-be al Qaeda after we helped push the USSR out? We just walked away then. Leaving many people to the mercy of the Taliban, and al Qaeda. Women a large number of them.
"Afghan women were never at the heart of American strategic interests..." They never are. No women anywhere are ever part of the US strategic - militarily or business - interests anywhere. Never.
They are however usually the direct or indirect victims. US Corp sets-up shop, they exploit the even cheaper then the male, female labor. Along with children. US Corp spews toxins, and its the women gathering water, growing crops nearby, who are often first exposed and then the very last to seek or get medical assistance.
Then there indirect effects. US Corp set up shop, or a mine, and its the local females who are pressed into prostitution for the male workers. Or its those male workers dalliances with prostitution who then infect their wives back home.
Lets face it folks, women 'round the world are not deemed important enough to be in the top 20 of US interests. Period.
And anyone who thinks US celebrities, female or male, but in this case female, are all that committed to the plight of foreign women...all I have is a string of LOL's for ya! They are fish chasing shiny objects when it comes to such matters.
1
Just the latest group of people to find out how unreliable, callous and stupid the United States government is under the Trump administration.
Except for Israel. If they indicated their support for our continued presence in Afghanistan these women's chances might be improved. Make it sound like their idea.
Because they get whatever they want from us. Right?
I feel bad for these women, I really do. But the problem is much bigger than just Afghanistan. The way women are treated in general under the auspices of Islam is degrading. To a large extent I blame these women themselves. They need to rise up against their oppressors. These are their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Men in these Muslin countries are more than happy to keep the status quo where they are basically in charge of every aspect of a woman’s life. These women simply need to band together and strike against their oppressors. No one gave women the right to vote in this country. They demanded it. And so should Muslim women.
1
Just tell me how to support them, how I can insure that they aren't handed over to the Taliban.
A lot of new classes of victims have been discovered right here in the U.S. since 2001. For example, the NYT was recently running stories about Federal employees victimized by getting 35 days of paid time off in exchange for a delayed paycheck (one of my friends is a senior FAA employee; he said that he enjoyed his vacation trips to Arizona and Europe during the shutdown). Human sympathy and attention are not unlimited. If paid-late-for-not-working Federal employees are front-and-center victims then Afghan women cannot be front-and-center victims.
Why should we care about Afghan women? We don't care about North Korean women or Congolese women or Saudi Arabian women, etc.
We invaded Afghanistan to find and kill Osama bin Laden. That's done, but we have been there nearly 8 years since. Time to come home. We can't police the whole world and we have no special relationship or debt to Afghanistan. They harbored our attackers; we took our revenge. Let's get out of there.
1
Why would Trump or his administration care? If anything they will do their best to make things worse.
Where are these American women? Good grief.
I seems to me that women in Afghanistan would have nothing to fear from the Taliban if their own fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons bothered to defend them. If women there cannot count on their closest relatives then no amount of US bombing and killing is going to liberate them. I’m disappointed that the author of this essay seems to think it’s my job as an American to save Afghan women from their own families.
1
The question is this:
Should American men risk their lives to protect Afghan women from Afghan men?
The answer is no. They're not our women.
2
The fate of Westernized Afghan women, scientists, journalists, lawyers, even car drivers, is dire indeed.
Once the Taliban takes over, and it is a matter of time, based on history, they are likely to be summarily killed. Unless they manage to escape to a safer place, like Pakistan. Or to the US.
There is a strong case for granting them asylum, especially since without the US around, they would not have been Westernized to start with.
Afghan women should be worried.
They live in patriarchal, misogynistic, highly repressive society, just like hundreds of millions of women, primarily in Islamic countries across the world.
After 17 years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and thousands of lives, the U.S. has belatedly discovered what the Russians and British learned long ago. We can’t change Afghan society, including its attitudes toward women.
The U.S. must finally adopt a true multicultural foreign policy, accepting and respecting the differences in culture across the world, even if they are inconsistent with our beliefs.
My feeling is utter sorrow. The enslavement of a gender is truly barbaric, and
the situation appears worse than ever, because of revengefulness, which
allegedly includes murder. There seems to me little that can be done. What is
interesting to me as I now recall was the female leader of Pakistan, though that was decades ago. I am confused by such a seeming contradiction. As a Jew, the history of the area has kind of fascinated me ever since I read
the anthropology article that speculates there is evidence of a lost tribe's
existence there. I wonder if the people are aware of this, and would it change
reality if they were aware of the Hebrew origin of the major Afghan tribe.
Such an important article.
To imagine that the Taliban can once again take over Afghanistan - for that is what it will be - is horrific. Even more so for the women of that country.
And once the Taliban fully regains control, women and girls will yet disappear behind closed doors and burqas; and any notion of education will be lost. Again.
Even DJT "applauded" the record number of women elected to the US Congress - and they all duly stood up in their lovely white outfits.
But it's really meaningless if women who are free, will not support those who are not.
It ain't easy, but you're my sister.
Indeed, the Afghan women have been forgotten. Who can forget the picture of that young woman on National Geographic cover??
However, I take issue with the proposition that America alone should lead this fight and it has failed miserably.
If not for our insistence, Saudi women would not be driving today - to offer one example of American influence.
All civilized countries need to do better.
In that instance, the prime minister of NZ set a poor example.
Sure, she was right to condemn the heinous attacks etc. And what she did with guns etc - is their business.
Photos and reports comingout of ISIS camps show many women are discarding those black veils and even burning them to declare "free, at last." These veils have come to represent oppression of women in Islamic countries and a total domination by men simply because they are women.
So, I was appalled by the Kiwi prime minister that for the Friday public prayers, she donned this very black veil - only to find that women worshippers were segregated, veiled and seated behind all men.
And this is in New Zealand.
Yet, she says nothing publicly. Heck, the imam even refused to shake her hand.
If there ever was a moment to champion rights of women in Islam - I can't think of a better one.
Sure, we in America can do better. But leaders the world over need to be sensitive at every instance.
2
Are Saudi women really driving? I thought MBS locked up the activists. And I find it amazing that you find that wonderful. Iranians have a thousand times the freedom of Saudis but they are our enemy. And if there is animosity it is only because Ike and the CIA destroyed their duly elected government in 1953.
If you have lived and worked in both Kabul, and then in Afghanistan's other provinces and cities over the last two decades, you know that the uneven distribution of education for boys and girls at the primary level has been extraordinary.
Kabul schools and teachers work two shifts, just trying to keep up with the demand for an education.
At the rural and province level, there are no teachers. Their illiterate children live in the 9th century. No wonder they join ISIS, or the Taliban.
From my perspective, plans to date to change this phenomenon between the cities and the provincial areas have been subverted by the ISI of Pakistan.
It's time to recognize that Pakistan is the source of almost every problem in Afghanistan.
1
There are many religious fundamentalists in the United States who would take women back if they could, and those fundamentalists are gaining ascendancy every day. So, the difference between American and Afghan women is one of degree.
3
The sad fact is that women in America are struggling for our own rights. We can't help Afghan women when we can't even maintain equal rights at home. I have empathy for all of us who have to fight misogyny in most places in the world.
4
At some point the responsibility shifts. Perhaps, the timing can be improved?
Of course Americans across the political spectrum were sincere in wanting expanded rights for Afghan women. We still want it. But that's not why the war started. After 17 years of war, we have to hope the Afghan people want those rights enough to protect them.
Those criticizing America for not ensuring that women retain those rights need to answer the question: are you willing to continue the war indefinitely in order to achieve that? If the answer is no (and for the vast majority of Americans, it is "no"), then the criticism is hollow.
3
The communist government in Afghanistan in the mid/ late 1970s first introduced major reforms expanding women's rights. In fact, the New York Times journalist who originally covered that period and the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan (not Judith Miller) noted that the mujahideen who opposed that government, and who were then armed and supported by the United States, were mostly rebelling against these new rights for women. So we have never been a real friend to the women there; nor to just about anyone. The civil wars that we instigated and supplied arms for destroyed an already impoverished country. I don't think it is possible for us to secure women's rights in Afghanistan by military action. We will have to find other ways.
1
"Ms. Safi and Dr. Rubin pointed out that Afghan women have been victims of 40 years of war — killed during Taliban attacks and American and Afghan troops’ night raids or bombings."
Afghan women weren't any better off forty years ago. They were beaten by their husband and their mother-in-law, forced to marry at 12 or 13, to die in childbirth at 14. They were not permitted to learn to read or write and in many parts of the country, still aren't.
There is no such thing as women's rights in Afghanistan.
7
September 11, 2001 happened in part because we turned our backs on Afghanistan after giving them arms and surface-to-air missiles to oust the Russians. Bin Laden hated us for not providing humanitarian aid to this war torn nation after the Russians left. Now after conducting war in that nation for even more years, we will again turn our backs on this nation. How should we conduct foreign policy? There must be a peaceful honorable way.
Also, if women do not have equality, then a nation wastes half its human resources, talent and potential.
4
The reality is that there's very little the US can do for these women. The war in Afghanistan has largely proved unwinnable and the only real way to defeat the Taliban due to their guerrilla tactics and infiltration of civilian populations would be mass slaughter of the regions they control, which in the end would only further inflame Afghan resistance to the US presence.
Furthermore even if we overthrew the Taliban, it would only improve the lives of these women somewhat. Look at Pakistan, nominally a democracy and American ally, where honor killings are still commonplace. Or how about Saudi Arabia where simply being an activist for women's right to drive can get you imprisoned and tortured.
13
When she returned on a humanitarian assignment to Afghanistan in 2006, I asked my friend about the plight of women under the regime of the Taliban, and her eyes looked somber and dark.
Some of us might wish to visit 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseni, published a decade ago, and ask yourself, if women are faring better now.
During the International Year of the Child in 1979, an Afghani colleague never spoke of his family, and I feared to ask. It is not too late, but the hour grows near where if we do not care, regardless of gender, nothing will change but only get worse in turning our back to the atrocities that are taking place in lands where the voice of women are buried in sand and the rubble of war-torn countries.
2
Much of the efforts at change seem to have come from without. Only when Afghan women themselves, in hordes, demand, expect and fight for change might they achieve it. I am not hopeful, however, as the shackles that constrain are from an extreme fundamental reading of their religious beliefs. Afghan mothers and daughters and sisters would sacrifice heavily for a glimmer of hope generations down the line...one that has slim chance amid the force of religious doctrine in a very pious society. And any change itself may not look like what America and other parts of the West decree as liberation.
4
As I see it,the real issue is if the US maintains a military presence in Afghanistan ,which the NYT has criticized for years ,women’s rights in Afghanistan will be protected. Alternatively,the US enters into an agreement with the Taliban materially reducing its presence in Afghanistan which has a significant probability of resulting in the Taliban taking over the Afghanistan government leading to a loss of these hard won women’s rights. For me the interesting question is where does the NYT come down on the issue.
2
Invading a country to change the minds of it's populace never works short of a scorched earth policy. That why with Germany, Italy and Japan it worked. And why all the others failed. Especially when the invaders value systems are extremely different than those of the invadees. As it is in this case. So cramming progressive ideals down their throats at the point of a sword will never work. That does not undo dozens of generations of social evolution.
7
The success of the Taliban in fighting off all comers, even superpowers like the US and the Soviet Union, tells them, as it should tell us, that their social organisation, while abhorrent to our modern western values, is in fact quite successful in ensuring the survival of Afghanistan as a distinct country and culture.
Expecting people still living in a feudal economy to adopt modern western values is naive. Their social organisation works for them.
It took losing major wars and a total restructuring of their economies for Japan, China, South Korea, etc. to become modern democracies with better (not perfect, but much better) conditions for women.
Just as the restructuring of the economies of western countries after WWII and WWII allowed women to gain economic independence and rights.
Until Pakistan and Afghanistan modernize their economies, women there will remain stuck in feudal conditions, but it's a vicious circle: they won't, because their organisation works well in protecting them from foreign influences.
3
@AG
Well said. I guess people are not the same all over the world.
"...they fear that the United States, like other great powers, sided with them only when convenient and is all too ready to abandon them when it is not."
So, after 17 years of a stalemated war costing billions of dollars and thousands of American service men and women's lives, are we mandated to eternal stewardship over a nation of people who cannot take care of themselves?
5
A few years ago I read James Michener’s short novel “Caravans” about Afghanistan. He wrote this in the 1940s after WWII. It is an authentic depiction of the country and it’s culture - then and now. I recommend it to anyone interested in the future of Afghanistan and it’s women.
2
Thank you for the recommendation.
Rachel MA,
We are the most progressive nation in the world when it comes to women's rights. We can be doctors, lawyers, politicians, businesswomen, etc. today. All doors are open to those who seek them. They just have to want it. I have never been held back by any man because of my sex.
The United States is not responsible for the actions of the Afghan men towards Afghan women. Their men are the ones who have treated them badly and we are in no way responsible. Stop blaming the US for the ills of other countries.
11
The US is not the most progressive nation for gender equity. That honor goes to Iceland, followed by Norway and Finland. The US isn’t even in the Top Twenty of 150 nations.
1
While it does seem impossible to defeat the Taliban militarily, negotiating with them with no regard to the rights of Afghans, women and girls very much included, is in my view wrong. The Afghan government is excluded from these negotiations and is expected to deal with the Taliban later. They should be there to speak for their citizens now with what one hopes would be our moral support. As it is we are just throwing the Afghans back to the wolves.
3
What evil befallen on Afghanistan since 1979 created by USSR and USA.
No whitewashing ,
Tribalism etc.
forget it .
USSR and USA destroyed this nation till the last piece and implanted the worst evil , Islamic Extremism.
The intermediated with the religious idea of Wahhabism and filthy oil money of Saudi Arabia.
Afghans were innocent people once , Sauron ( USSR and USA) convert them to orks.
Now you are spitting orks face and you are saying you are right.
Yeah sure.
4
@su
Like in Afghanistan for women prior to 1979 was horrific. That’s a fact.
The US should offer asylum to any Afghan woman who wants it before we surrender to the Taliban.
10
It is as troubling now as it was 14 years ago that Afghan women are given so little freedom, same with Saudi Arabia and some other countries. But American women are also attacked when they enter the military, and American women are given second place when reporting abuse by powerful men (Christine Blasey Ford, Anita Hill, Rob Ford's two former wives, and many others) and it is just a tad arrogant to assume that we hold the answers for Afghan women. We don't have to wear "lampshades," as Bill Maher call them, but we are not well protected here either. We can give the Afghan women and some measure of opportunity, but until their men reform themselves, in a unique Afghan way, not much will change. Same with America.
3
@annabellina. I assume you vote, have a job, went to school, drive a car.
Afghanistan is an Afghan problem to be solved with Afghans. We should've left the second we rounded up Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora (thank Dick Cheney and the rest of the Bush cabal for purposely dropping the ball in order to keep the pretext for the Iraq invasion).
If YOU believe so strongly, book a flight, buy a gun (buy one over there, they're much, much, much cheaper) and find some women to liberate and guard.
Or, better yet, send your children, but say your goodbyes first.
6
Ever since the left for example Rachel Mddow on MSNBC began the drumbeat for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan it has been obvious that the big losers will be the women of the country. Then the women of the left will demand to know how this can be allowed to happen.
3
@Daniel A. Greenbaum
The truth is if Afghanistan didn’t attack people around the world with terrorists, nobody really cares. I’m old enough to remember life before the Soviet invasion, nobody and I mean nobody cared about Afghanistan. I’d say about the same interest people have today in Madagascar or Mauritania.
"Afghanistan is doomed if women are barred once again from public life." -- Khaled Hosseini
4
@Zareen
It’s been doomed for 500 years. And the next 500 years.
The Daily Beast ran a column on 1/9/19 titled "Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Are Destroying the Stereotype of the Silent Muslim Woman” and today’s NYT has a column on these women titled ""The Outspoken Women of the House”.
Both of these women have had plenty to say on the Mid East, particularly on Israel. Have they said anything about the Taliban’s treatment of women?
14
They did criticize Saudi for their treatment of women, so I am sure they are equally critical of Taliban treatment as well.
No one wins wars in Afghanistan. Alexander the Great and every army after his failed. Permanent cultural change has to come from within. It can be nurtured and supported by external forces but unless there is a real fire and willingness to fight within the population external efforts won’t succeed. You cannot successfully impose foreign values on a population. Afghan men will need to fight for their mothers, wives and daughters as American men fought alongside our suffragettes for the right to vote.
The good news is that there are Afghan men in the fight. Many families have left the country in part so that their daughters have more opportunities. If law and order can be established in the larger urban and suburban areas some of these families will return home. Then perhaps change will start in the cities like Kabul and spread outward. Small isolated villages and wilder provinces will change more slowly.
Outsiders can watch and contribute as much as possible to nurture changes and provide opportunities for education etc but we cannot impose women’s rights through military action. It is a battle for hearts and minds and will be won by giving aid rather than weapons. Best thing is to help build things like schools (even if only for boys) and hospitals. That earns trust and if we are trusted only then is there any hope anyone will listen when we talk about human rights.
1
the core difficulty with women's rights is that (whatever "women's rights" means in fact) the men have to approve it.
in brief: the men take their rights, the women have to be given their rights.
especially in less westernized and traditionalist religious societies, where everything is colored by the rhetoric of religion, and religion -- as the most odious and insidious form of child abuse -- is not something you can argue away.
it's not simply an issue of power politics, but of a social system. tell the afghan women to stop wearing burkhas, for example, and most will protest as much as the men.
besides, if they try western makeup, the men will whip them.
interventionist western women, meanwhile, appear to your typical afghan male as a kind of chicken dressed up as a rooster. they don't know whether to laugh or eat you for dinner.
those western women you bemoan the lack of saw that, realized their ineffectuality, and turned elsewhere.
it's crazy, but there is this real thing, this ineffable but important thing, we call "power". and if the women want the power, they have no recourse but to take it.
you say you don't have the power to take it? well then ... here's your burkha.
4
“How angry I am.” “Where are these American women?”
Warren, Harris, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, joined their male presidential candidates in refusing to rebuke the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.....
Well, I wanted to hear more about all the candidates’ foreign policy views. Now I have. Extreme Sharia law, with full length burqas, ok. Women as property, ok. Women as pawns, ok.
Oh right. We’re tired of war. It was 9/11, not women’s issues that prompted The invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban will not be like Al Quaeda; they (and their parent company, Pakistan), want only...peace.
Platform countries used for extremism, further attacks, threats of attacks; North Korea, Lebanon, (not The Golan Heights, after today). But not to worry, Afghanistan is soooo far away.
How angry I am, too. And ashamed. Especially ashamed of these Democrat candidates. What a mockery of METOO. Rename it, JUSTUS.
4
Yeah except the “liberation of the Afghan women” was first and always a bad-faith casus belli and neo-conservative fig leaf for whatever it was they really wanted to do, which inevitably changed and faded over time as the political winds blew this way and that. “We must save the Afghan women!” they’d periodically cry out from the war room. Or to any critics: “what? You don’t want to save the Afghan women?” Left unsaid of course was what we were supposed to be “saving” them from — or better yet, whom? As their sons and fathers and uncles and neighbors went missing or were killed or kidnapped, flown off to some secret site for “enhanced interrogation”...
1
How easy it is to bully women. It's the fall back position for small men with even smaller minds.
3
"I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time." -- Khaled Hosseini
3
Thank you for publicly reminding everyone that a settlement with the Taliban is absolutely not good for women. I cannot imagine being forbidden to go to the doctor or to the store without a male relative with me. The Taliban view of women's mobility and rights takes the extreme guardianship rules seen in a Saudi Arabia and makes them look very liberal and bland. It is understandable that people want peace and don't care what happens to those under the control of the side with whom one wants to end hostilities. Some of England's leaders would have settled with the Nazis and but for Churchille, the Jews living there and possibly here as well might have also gone up in the smoke chimneys of the Nazis. Here, its just women, whom some think must have their rights regulated as they are not capable of acting and deciding on their own. They must be totally covered to be modest, as men are not capable of controlling themselves and, frankly, shouldn't have to try, if they hear a woman's voice or see an elbow, an ankle, or a face or worse hair blowing in the wind. So, there is no concern about what happens to women, some of whom managed to have leadership roles, be educated, become doctors when the USSR controlled the country. There also seems to be little concern for those we have propped up as leaders for years. I guess the motto - too bad, so sad - the same motto we apply to other allies when it is time for us to move on.
1
Afghan women have always been victims of male dominance, and it is incumbent upon us to support legislation in the now to ensure that they have some autonomy in the future. It is a challenge to go against the dominant religion which has enshrined male dominance over women, but we ought to make the effort.
Over population around the world is reaching a point of no return, and we need to support any national actions that would empower women to limit their own pregnancies.
5
The search for Osama in Afghanistan was not the only reason for Bush administration set US on the path to America's longest regime change war. It was also the unjust plight of women under the Taliban, the brain child of the ISI of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Unfortunately, after trillions spent, thousands civilians dead, loss of brave American men (yes mostly men) we are back to square one. This time around we better not scuttle the peace process by making outrageous demands. At best what we have is a stalemate and not a big bargaining position. If we can stop the violence and blood shed we can live for another day to revisit the plight of the women.
Any rash knee jerk reaction will back fire. As Imran Khan, prime minister of Pakistan rightly pointed out recently that in any war there are miscalculations and the Afghan war was one he referred to as an example the lessons from which we should never forget. When Bush evicted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, he miscalculated the aftermath of eviction.. The Taliban were after all fierce fighting Afghans. The same people who brought the British army to its knees and threw out the mighty Soviets. They were going nowhere but there to stay in their homelands as long as it was going to take them.
Peace,comprehensive political solution and end of America's longest war should remain the top priority, that does not mean the plight of the women should stay the same as when it all began around the turn of the century.
1
The US doesn't care about Afghan women any more than it cares about Saudi women. I still remember Bush the second putting his arm around a Saudi prince and describing that prince's appalling country as "our closest ally in the middle east." And yet, women in that country are owned, lock, stock and barrel, by men. (Can't get a job, go to school, leave the house, see a doctor, etc., without their male owners' permission.)
Wait, what's that you say? We like the Saudis' oil too much to ever breathe a word of criticism against them for enslaving half of their population? Oh yes, that's right. Silly me for imagining the US (or, for that matter, the European countries) actually care about principle and human rights.
Good luck, women of Afghanistan. Sorry we ever got your hopes up. As noted in this column, it was all only ever a ruse to justify a corrupt war, one fought so that Cheney could enrich his military contractor buddies and Republicans could live their dream of opening up new consumer markets.
10
@EB
"And yet, women in that country are owned, lock, stock and barrel, by men. (Can't get a job, go to school, leave the house, see a doctor, etc., without their male owners' permission.)"
You are assuming the women want to be liberated, because you would, but the problem is, most agree with this. They consider it good that women are under the "protection" of a wiser male relative. The few women fighting back are not representative.
1
I’d like to know on what information you base these comments. My encounters with Saudi women have suggested just the opposite.
4
@1 Woman
I watch lot of PBS and CBC documentaries and read a lot. :-)
Have you considered that the women you meet may not be representative?
1
The US intervention in Afganistan has not improved the lives of Afgani women. We have just increased death destruction of both men women and infrastructure. The Afghani people have to solve this problem without our bombs and destruction. TULSI GABBARD is right on this point. The military industrial complex keeps feeding this falsehood that more death and destruction will improve the lives of the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria
Ms. Gross predicted an expansion of Taliban control and a return to past atrocities, like stonings and whippings. “Where are these American women?”
My question--life is so hard for women, everywhere around the globe, because men make it so. Yes, women should fight for the human rights of women everywhere. At the same time, men should STOP enslaving and oppressing women, and men should fight for women's rights as if they were human rights.
Men--do you care about women? Then show it. Insist that women are human beings that should not be forced to bear physical, sexual and psychological violence at the hands of men. We can't do it alone. But you know that, don't you?
So awful. And yet infuriating when I think of so many stories complaining of human rights “issues” in places like Israel or the US.
Some folks have their moral compasse broken
And some folks practice the prejudice of low expectations of certain foreign countries while holding others to very high standards
May rights of women be upheld everywhere, including Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran!
Any American talk about 'human rights' violations justifying its myriad military misadventure is pure hogwash. Uncle Sam cares about two things. Protecting its financial interests and blocking the 'Red tide'. The US has created the current landscape in the ME. Our country has done these people, and the world, a disservice.
The Taliban needs to "promise" to behave themselves. Right, because people willing to tear out fingernails for wearing nail polish will honor a "signed letter." It's difficult to make progress on this issue; the slightest criticism leads to accusations of Islamophobia. Or the equally nauseating cultural relativism. Who are we to judge someone else's culture? If you want to fix something, you have to acknowledge that it's broken.
4
For many years, the women of Iran enjoyed most of the freedoms of Western societies, including access to education and professions.
The revolution swept most of it away. There has been some erosion of the mullah’s grip, but it has been slow. It is disappointing that they have not risen up amd rejected it.
It would have been a great model for the rest of the Islamic world, where women are treated as cattle.
@Bongo
An Iranian-Canadian friend says all the cosmopolitan, urban, liberal Iranians have fled already, those who are left are fine with the regime...
The current leadership in the US government, federal and state, is working hard to oppress American women just as much. The “heartbeat” bills being passed around the country is a sign that women are under attack and most women are either ignoring it or abetting it. Fundamental Christian law is on its way unless we wake up. It may not be the loss of fingernails, but Rights like property ownership, etc., because is isn’t that far in the past that women in this country had to have a man’s approval to get loans, and that is what these people see as the good ol’ days.
1
Abheek notes that one confounding issue is the persistence of the Wahabi/Salafist influence.
Secondly, the Pakistani ISI (intelligence unit) which supports the Taliban to resist Western, and infidel Indian, influence.
Thirdly, the opium/heroin trade is much more profitable than growing wheat.
All these prevented the disempowerment of the Taliban from gaining momentum. Frankly, as a non-muslim invader, we presented as aliens with impractical notions.
2
I don't understand how the Afghan people and its government are not at the table during these talks. Why does the U.S. have so much power in deciding their fate? Shouldn't we be helping to facilitate talks between the people who will be mostly affected by the decisions made? Flip this around and consider if the U.S. had been invaded, and we were forced to allow a foreign nation to negotiate with right wing extremists about our fate. I am disgusted with what I am reading and hearing regarding these, "peace negotiations".
1
As it has done so many times in the past, Afghanistan has defeated a foreign invader simply because the conditions are harsh, the people obdurate, and there is nothing there the invader is willing to pay the price for.
We went in to capture Bin Laden; he fled to Pakistan, we stayed and tried to "win hearts and minds" while the majority of our forces decamped to fight in Iraq.
Most Americans never understood that Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq, harshly mountainous, with comparable population but one that is much more spread out and less urbanized. It is also culturally more fragmented, and the dominant ethnic group, the Pashtun, largely control the northern parts of Pakistan, giving them a safe haven for continued war. Almost all the Taliban are Pashtun, and the headquarters of the Taliban are in Quetta, Pakistan.
It is past time for us to get out -- there is no prospect for anything other than a continuing stalemate propped up by American money and blood.
The honorable thing to do is to offer generous asylum or immigration to those who fought with us, and those it's obvious the Taliban will oppress. This would include the women who do not want to return to the 1100s.
I doubt Trump will have any mercy or honor toward Islamic allies; he has none to anybody else.
2
"Afghan women" are deployed like this in support of Forever War.
In 16 years, we have not made any changes to help them that would survive an end to the War. In fact, the changes we have made are quite inadequate to any true human rights purpose. That suggests that even Forever War won't "save" them, just use them.
2
It can't be that only presence of American troops guarantees rights for women in Afghanistan. To guarantee minimum rights for Afghan women, we need a lot of social and political activism that would ultimately compel the Taliban or any other rulers of Afghanistan to respect women's rights like allowing girls to go to school, etc.
Why are the women's organizations in the US and other parts of the world not engaging in that type of activism?
4
@ram sagar True, but where's the Afghan government?
1
@Froxgirl
Afghan government is not strong enough to do anything. This is a country which suffered 40 years of terrible violence and prolonged occupation by foreign troops, etc. It may be quite a while until we see something that can be credibly called Afghan government.
@ram sagar It's also a country, like the U.S. now, that has little or no interest in the rights of women.
Its sad to say I'm not in the least bit surprised. That the afghans wouldn't treat women as equal stakeholders or that the American's and their allies wouldn't either. I'm terribly sorry though. Truly. All evidence points to real improvements in economic and human development when women are treated if not equal, than better. Just ask the Gates foundation.
5
Of one of many hypocrisies on the right and left, this is always maddening: that people on the left will not fight for what is right and/or desperately needed.
1
Afghan women were, for the Bush administration, a very convenient additional justification for war. As long as the US was interested in war there, this guaranteed extra attention from our government.
I would like us to pay more attention to women's issues because they are inherently important, not as an excuse for a destabilizing war.
6
I was in London recently and I was very surprised at how many young Muslim women covered up their hair with scarves and others wore full length clothing from head to foot. These women chose this style of dress and was not forced to do so. I found this puzzling and I think they wanted to stand out as being different. And they certainly did.
In Afghanistan, it appears to be the opposite. The women there are forced to cover up and have no choice. Their lives are not their own and they are told what to do by the men in their country. This is a terrible way in which to have to live.
This article makes me truly appreciate the liberties I have as a woman in the United States. And they say we are oppressed. We have choices that others can only dream about. This makes me proud to be an American woman.
23
@WPLMMT: I would suggest that the women you saw in London were forced to cover themselves, by their families and their culture. After all, they have to go home at night and face their people. They have probably been told since they could talk that to dress otherwise is unacceptable, and they know that they will be shunned or worse by their families if they change.
Being "free" requires the will and wherewithal to leave your support group when it becomes odious. I doubt many immigrant women have that freedom, and if they do, you might not notice them because they won't be wearing hijab.
4
I have a good friend who explained to me that young women adopt the hijab as a way of participating in a pan-Islamic identity that is deliberately non-Western/American/European. It drives her crazy that these young, western educated women are so willing to throw away the freedoms their mothers and grandmothers fought for in a symbolic political gesture. Back in the 1960’s women in Afghanistan, Iran etc did not all go veiled.
4
@mlbex
Lots of women in Canada and Europe wear hijab voluntarily because they buy the notion their religion requires it, or at least that it pleases Allah, or in rebellion against their secular parents, or as an identity politics statement, etc.
2
The United States was sincere in its desire to see women's rights restored in Afghanistan, but there is only so much we can do if Afghan men cannot fight off the Talliban. It's been twenty years, people. I feel terrible for those poor women. The U.S. should grant them asylum in the U.S. like we did after Vietnam.
4
Not enough, the reasons for leaving are much more compelling. We can’t make Afghanistan into California in a thousand years.
4
Is it possible that the only way to help the women is to help them leave? It seems there are areas/countries that simply cannot be helped from the outside.
9
The Trump Administration has exhibited little concern for women generally, no surprise there. I haven't seen all interviews of all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, but I don't recall hearing any of them, including the female candidates, expressing concern about Afghan women. They could use the platform of their campaigns to raise awareness of the plight of Afghan women, even if it is a difficult problem to solve.
5
@CH
There are many things you cannot talk about during a campaign, for political reasons. Obama, for instance, pretended to oppose gay marriage to get elected. This is, unfortunately, the reality.
Some problems just do not have a solution. We can't stay there forever and tribalism is their default position as it has always been. How many more bodies will it take?
7
Tribalism is something no one has ever really come up with a great solution for other than dictatorship and suppression. Look at the problems with Northern Ireland and the real fear that the Troubles will start up again after Brexit. And that is really just a fight over which fairly pleasant and civilized country to belong to, yet people will kill over the issue. Same thing with Sarajevo, the Basques and so many other groups in what is the more livable part of the world.
Dick Cheney never cared a hoot about women's rights. Any talk about "women's rights" was just an excuse for interfering in Afghanistan and the Middle East in general.
If you want this cause is to have any legitimacy, keep his name out of it.
98
@WPLMMT
Women's rights are still used as bargaining chips here in the US, it's no surprise that the US is doing the same to women elsewhere.
14
@WPLMMT are you sure about the women having more rights in America than any place on earth? What about the extended maternity/parental leave benefits in many European countries? For example, Austria? You still haven't passed the ERA, as well.
22
@WPLMMT Shouldn't we count on the women's freedoms in every one of the industrialized countries---France, Canada, Japan, the Nordic countries?
8
Earlier this week there was a column about the “myth” of violence in Islam. So what is this widespread relentless oppression of women?
Is this a myth?
38
We do not occupy the moral high ground here.. The past few years have exposed our own kind of purdah, with apparently rampant assaults on women at work, admitted sexual abusers occupying the highest offices in the land, and religious fundamentalists waging a determined war against the rights of women... We have a lot to do at home...
26
@sue denim One could say the same thing about a lot of issues- medical care, hunger, poverty...
5
@sue denim
Oh, please. There is just no comparison.
This is like saying a cold is equivalent to lung cancer because they both involve problems with the respiratory system.
9
@sue denim
Oh, and it's funny to see someone use the terms >our own kind of purdah" to describe sexual harassment at work, when the whole point of purdah is to prevent women from having any kind of social contact with men, to prevent any sexual contact. "Better safe than sorry!"
The Christian view has been that women have important roles in social and religious life, and even if premarital sex and adultery are morally wrong, there was never any question of trying to prevent them by keeping women in purdah.
That is a huge difference in basic principles.
2
It will be very difficult to change Islam’s outlook on women because it is locked up in religion, and religion is like an oil tanker, turn the wheel today and you might get a course correction next week.
One of the great changers of religion however is popular culture and the arts. I found a great book on Amazon called ‘Akbar’s Jihad’ about an Iraqi Taliban family and their personal battle with the CIA.
What stands out about this story is not just the plot, but that most of the driving characters of the story are women. In this way, women’s status is elevated through popular culture. These characters also serve as role models for a sex that has long been downtrodden. Highly recommend.
8
Christianity has historically been pretty hard on women as well. The Catholic Church is still of the opinion that women are unequal to men in religious matters.
Women in America are very worried too!!!
Vote.
25
Their life seems bad. Alas, the US has tried and failed.
Bring all of our people home.
31
I feel sorry for Afghanistan, they have not known peace for decades. Between the US and Russia we have made sure they can never truly go forward. We beat them down with promise to build them up, then leave at the worst time. I think if we are just going to pick up and leave then we should have talks with Iran to help fill in the void. They are light years ahead of Afghanistan and could help keep the Taliban under control. Make a seat at the UN for women from these countries and give them a voice with protection.
7
@Missy
Agreed, but you can’t let the indigenous Islamic culture, which represses women terribly, off the hook. The Taliban, with their disgusting violence toward women, have substantial support in Afghanistan.
Completely agree! Iran is so much more progressive than our Saudi and Gulf friends. Iran’s hard line religious leaders and nuclear ambitions make them dangerous but their cultural and civil society is much more reasonable and progressive than the puritanical wahabi teachings coming out of Saudi Arabia. We will probably never be friends with Iran but it is crazy to demonize them and not the Saudis as well.
1
Thing is the country is a neighbor of Iran, they speak pretty much the same language and the customs are similar. Afghanistan needs a friend. The women need a voice. As soon as we leave the Taliban will come out of hiding, they are already there, and it will be worse than ever. I don't have any hope at all that the current administration will do anything, I hope Iran will take the initiative to help these people and the UN steps in to give women there a voice.
The Bottomline is , in 1970's Afgahnistan was a nation is developing right direction , go and look at it.
Their fate sealed when coldwar two superpower invaded their country. Russia and USA one after other wreck this nation adn left behind an dust and that dust is as worse as Asbest which is Islamic extremism.
If I may state that Afghanistan is the world most unfateful , unlucky country.
11
The only long term solution, as it happens, involve a world-wide effort to reform ultra-orthodox Wahhabism, by putting pressure on the chief propagandists of this creed, the House of Saud. The Taliban didn't get indoctrinated by magic. They are a direct result of multiple decades of oil money funded propaganda; and we all know who paid for it. For Afghanistan to become (relatively) safe for women and minorities, we will also require global pressure on their neighbours, the Pakistanis stop using orthodoxy to keep control on the Afghans. However, I will be surprised if this happens. Europe lacks both the appetite and the attention-span and America won't mess with their best buddies in the Middle East. China could do something like this, but they don't have all that leverage on the chief players.
107
@Abheek, good luck with that. As far back as the 1880s, people have been complaining about the disruption and puritanism of Wahhabism. And quite frankly, a strong and well governed Afghanistan isn't in the interests of the Chinese, any more than a strong and well governed Sudan, DRC, or Pakistan. They depend on corrupt governments that need or want money the way drug cartels depend on weak governments and terror networks depend on failed states.
6
@Abheek
Good for you to point out the source of the anti-women is from the Saudis and their creed, Wahhabism, an ultra-orthodox view about women. In this, the USA stumbled once again into a country where it is all but impossible to change these views, apparently, or move the country toward a more civilized view of women. After all, women here can paint their fingernails, put as many false eyelashes on as we wish, have plastic surgery performed on us, and vote for a Trump. But a burka in the heat o'Texas? Not drive? And still let's not forget our rape and domestic violence statistics.
4
@Abheek
I heard the other day that you can't mail a package to a woman in Saudi Arabia, you have to send it to a male relative. Saudi Arabia would be laughably silly if it wasn't sick. The House of Saud needs to get over it, and stop spreading their backwardness and nonsense around the world.
16
The Afghans should be ashamed. We should be very ashamed. We will once again abandon the powerless when they need us most after relying on years of promises and platitudes from our government.
I remember growing up and shockingly learning of the US abandonment of the Montagnard people when we abandoned Saigon after tearing South Vietnam apart.
This feels eerily similar.
7
The photograph accompanying the article says it all. The blue taut cables, many burka wearing but unknown women, and a young girl - with the eyes and face of interest and uncertainty reminiscent of the green eyed girl (Sharbat Gula) 30 years ago. What is their fate? With the recent 42nd International Women's Day recently, huge progress in representation for women in last Falls election, and now we mark the 100th celebration of the 19th Amendment - why are we silent and appearing to not recognize the plight of Afghanistan Women and Girls at the hands of this illegitimate "peace" process?
9
Many times the questionable origins of old customs, like the masking of women and circumcision of baby boys, become stylized and then ossified over the centuries and eventually reach a point of mindless acceptance by large populations.
Academia, now fully entrenched in government financed ivory towers, protect their grants by studying trivia, for the most part. How many scientists and logicians have spoken up against our current political crisis, much less archaic customs.
4
Many progressives are confounded with a conflict between what they expouse - namely that every culture is legitimate, and the reality that some cultures devalue and exploit women. I come down on the side that all humans deserved to be treated equally and that cultures that fail to pursue this outcome are deficient. So I guess in my own way I am intolerant.
37
Maybe the United States needs to deal with TRUE equality for women, and once that has been accomplished we can stick our noses into how other countries treat women. Let’s start with getting our government out of women’s bodies, OK?
13
@Delcie
Comparing the situation of women in the US to that of women in Afghanistan is disgraceful. They are worlds apart.
Which one would you prefer to live in?
3
Your heart goes out to the brave spirit of Afghan women for wanting equality and safety. It’s a shame Afghan men aren’t all up to the task of defending their homeland and protecting their wives and daughters.
6
Outside countries can apply pressure and supply funds, but in the end change for Afghan women must come from within. Until Afghan men can see their mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters as intellectual and emotional equals and reject the misogynist interpretations of the Koran as preached by power hungry religious leaders, women will continue to be relegated to the status of barely human chattel.
65
@Susan Girod, this isn't an "in the end" it's a tautology. And as such, it doesn't argue for any preferred behavior. So sad to see it used as an excuse for doing nothing.
5
@Susan Girod
"Intellectual and emotional equals" is a meaningless sentiment to people still living under feudalistic economic conditions.
5
@Susan Girod But really HOW can Afghan women make their own change, when they live in such circumstances?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/afghanistan-taliban-women-abuse-refugee-1.4586628
This is their reality.
1
“It was once a prominent and bipartisan cause: the liberation of Afghan women from the tyranny of the Taliban.”
It was once a ploy in one hegemonic country to gain domestic political support for a war by playing to one identity politics audience with the promise to impose American identity politics hegemony on a foreign people in a foreign land. Eridicating opium in that land was another of the knee slappers.
Foolish. But it met the narcisstic needs of the identity politic cult in the hegemonic country. Still does. Continue confabulating.
And in the injustice market a lot of low caste Indian women and men and children could use some first world hegemonic identity politic patrons. My guess at the largest population living under the worst injustices. India Dalit population alone around 300 million. Get to it!
7
No one should be surprised that, once again, Afghan women have been pushed aside as an issue of concern. Women never have been and never will be the deal breaker. Just look at how Republicans are throwing women under the bus when it comes to control of our own bodies. It's disgusting, and totally predictable.
12
The fact that women’s rights are not an issue at the Taliban-US talks reflects the Trump attitude towards human rights - not a concern. Trump rolled over to N Korea on the death of the young American student, he ignores human rights abuses around the world - and at home. Horrific murder by Saudia Arabia, imprisonments and extortion of their wealthiest citizens, torture of women activists. Aided by Pompeo and Bolton. Women in Afghanistan are the victims of a indifferent White House. Melania Trump and Ivanka clearly have no interest in being anything but clothes horses.
10
Religion is what keeps women down. All 3 monotheistic religions have this issue. The version of Islam practiced in the area is extremely arcane and sexist. I know Trump is the new boogeyman, but he didn’t invent religion. All religions need to be reformed.
22
Let me correct that...women everywhere are very, very worried.
15
Speaking as a white progressive, I do not feel it is right to get involved.
My duty is to stand for the rights of Western women and trans-men, and against the Islamophobes and white supremacists.
Because the Islamophobes use womens rights in the Middle East as their weapon of choice, I have to ignore it.
It is a tough choice, but the point of being woke is that it IS hard. And you kind of have to be hard to be woke.
So I’m sorry, but the women of Afghanistan, Iran, and other Muslim lands are on their own here. This is their fight, not mine. Trump is the greater evil. Resist!
10
@Cane So because "Islamaphobes use women rights ..." you will ignore the plight of women in some Islamic countries. This sound like a parody of a 'woke' person.
27
"You're on your own" is the antithesis of being progressive.
40
@Cane, I'm really glad I'm not part of a generation that considers the goal of "woke" above the goals of humanity and equality. I'm quite frankly ashamed of politicians who believe that abandonment and finishing up are the same things, and of a citizenry that is so concerned with ideological fabrications and polemics that it can't distinguish "being hard" from being inhuman. If being "woke" inherently implies caring only about Islamophobia and therefore decides to ignore injustices done in the name of Islam, it is a foul and evil ethic.
29
What is really going on in Afghanistan is an ethnic sectarian civil war. Centered upon the quest for ethnic Pashtuns to have a nation state where they are a majority.
This conflict preceded the Soviet Union, al Qaeda and the American interventions. Turning against the heathen atheist Soviets concealed and subordinated that conflict behind Afghan nationalism.
While the Pashtun are a plurality of Afghans a majority of them.live in Pakistan where they are only 15% of Pakistanis. And while the Taliban is all ethnic Pashtun not all Pashtun are Taliban. Conflict with Afghans ethnic Tajiks, Hazzaras Uzbeks etc is an issue. Pashtuns are very closely etnnically related to Persians.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest least literate educated unhealthy nations on Earth. Afghanistan would thus benefit greatly from humanitarian aid.
All of Afghanistan's ethnic groups are rife with misogyny and patriarchy. But the nations with the most Muslims- Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh - have/had female heads of state/government. While women in Iran and Turkey are among the freest in any Islamic Muslim majority country on Earth.
7
I think everyone still cares very much about the Afghan women, it is just that we have discovered some needs of our own that need addressing, the the Nazification/Fascistic takeover of our government, the degradation of our environment and the bankrupting of our country. Never mind our crumbling infrastructure and the very destruction of our nation's breadbasket that are deserving of a bit more than 45 seconds of attention on the evening news.
15
Afghanistan is no longer worth American blood or treasure.
2
those burkas just make women invisible and indistinguishable as individuals. it is the starkest indication of the subservient and unimportant role too many countries impose on their women...when men dress like that, too, i may think differently.
23
Yesterday’s NYT ran a story about a wealthy philanthropist who takes delight in sexually harassing women who work for charities he supports. This article drew many comments, too many of which blamed the women for allowing themselves to be harassed. If NYT readers in the 21st century have not fully evolved enough to understand that this kind of behavior towards women is rotten, it seems unlikely that the afghans and taliban will give up their deadly oppression of women anytime soon.
16
Women were one, not the only, excuse for going to war in Afghanistan. They will not, however, be a reason for the United States to stay. Afghan women will have to find a strategy for their own liberation that does not require the American military.
36
@Valerie Elverton Dixon Is arming the women to defend themselves or giving those who wish to leave safe passage out and asylum before they are abandoned to the wolves under consideration?
2
If a tiny fraction of those trillions we've squandered on "wars of liberation" since 2001 could have been diverted to aid and education, we would be seeing a positive advance for women in Afghanistan and all those other countries. And as all studies and histories demonstrate, when women do better their societies as a large do too.
17
Consider supporting Rumi Spice, a Saffron company started by a female US military veteran. They are supposedly the largest private employer of women in Afghanistan. The right for Afghan Women to earn money and get an education is critical. In this small way perhaps Americans have succeeded in helping Afghan Women, even though it was never the military goal.
15
American women should be more concerned about this than is visible. Their attention should be focused in this direction. I always wonder when I hear feminists speak why this is never mentioned. These issues are egregious, but American women seem hardly concerned.
15
@rich williams Why should American women be concerned?
3
Because you shouldn’t pull the ladder up after you! American women, having won the rights we have, are well situated to lend an ear and a helping hand to other women around the globe who seek help.
4
Yesterday, Tim Wu published a column about difficulties that arise in explaining complex political policies to the public. Every once in a while, however, I read something in the NYT that is both elegant and true. The following by Dr. Rubin is such a statement:
“The best fight for women’s rights is not to wage wars that cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s not like war is good for women.”
Both public and policy makers should take this to heart.
19
@JamesEric
War was good for Japanese women, and Chinese women.
Without it, their countries would never have been dragged into modernity, and better conditions for women.
But they had original cultures which allowed them to adopt the features of western culture that were adaptive to the modern world, not a religion that prevented them from doing that.
17
@AG
We can not emphasize enough the singular fact that religion in today’s modern world is the bane of our existence. Whatever slight or incremental good it may have done in the grand scheme of history just can not justify its continued outsized place and power in the modern world.
What Islam in Afganistan does to women is obvious (and yes, I am aware of the role of local tribal patriarchal customs beyond what’s written in the Koran) but examples of Christianity’s destructive retrograde influence abound here. One hundred years of women’s progress are being systemically attacked by the persistent and pernicious dominionist and evangelical Christian attack on education, science, and the self-determination of women.
Education is key both here and in Afghanistan. The higher the level of education, the likelier the educated are secular and forward-thinking. Granted, lack of religion is not always a guarantee. China, a secularized society with Confucian Buddhist foundations, is as repressive, especially toward dissent and minority cultures (Tibet and the Uyghurs), as Saudi Arabia; different methods and philosophy but repressive just the same.
Still, any intervention in the repressive course of a society both here and abroad must make secular, science-based, and, especially, humanistic education the top priority. Imagine if an army of such educators followed the US invasion of Afghanistan. It would have had a far better chance of success for its women.
3
@left coast finch
China my use repression, but it uses it against regressive religious forces, not in support of them.
And yes, education is important, but that is precisely why fundamentalists of all stripes are so dead set against allowing it, those American educators would be seen as cultural imperialists and resisted.
But mostly, what gives women better social conditions is the right economic conditions.
Feudal economic conditions leads to feudal social structures in which family and clan solidarity are essential to economic survival.
A modern economy allows women the freedom to escape from those family and clan networks and gain independence.
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Remember, one of the Trump Administration's orders was to reissue the Global Gag rule that stipulates that nongovernmental organizations receiving US family planning funding cannot inform the public or educate their government on the need to make safe abortion available, provide legal abortion services, or provide advice on where to get an abortion.
Then the Trump Administration defund the UN Population Fund that helps poor women around the world get basic contraception.
The world has critical environmental and mass migration problems due to to human overpopulation.
The Trump Administration's antediluvian female policies make the situation WORSE; their policies help create and exacerbate global instability in poor countries such as Afghanistan.
The only way out of our current environmental, demographic and political quagmire is to liberate women, not impregnate them like it's 999.
D to go forward; R for reverse...over the cliff.
Remember in 2020.
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@Socrates. It is interesting that I have never met a man, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat , communist or any other political persuasion, who was opposed to birth control. What make you think that men want to impregnate women? The greatest boon to males was the development of oral contraceptives which allowed the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
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So now Trump is responsible for the world’s over population? Can’t wait for the next person to blame him for puppy mills!
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@Socrates
So, in your opinion, Afghan women's fear of Taliban repression would be assuaged by contraception and abortion?
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Women’s minority status is a function of their lack of power. They make up half the population in Afghanistan (and everywhere else), yet they lack a commensurate share of political, economic, educational, and religious power. In Afghan society, they are reminded of this status at home and in public by their expected and even imposed dress and behavior around men.
(I once attended a meeting in Kabul on public health financing where the women were the intellectual leaders in the room, but their ideas were dismissed out of hand by the uniformly male members of Parliament attending.)
Achieving power, however, is not enough. We have seen in the US where minorities gaining or aspiring to high political office unleash the worst sort of prejudice. Barack Obama’s election and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign featured an American backlash from white men who decided that these two were out of their customary places.
Even if Afghan women secure positions in the game, we can expect a similar response from those who will perceive they have been displaced. These are issues facing all Afghans, not just because of the Taliban.
Under the Taliban, however, Afghan women are not even pawns. Those chess pieces at least are in the game. If the Taliban assume power, they will try to move them off the board.
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@David Potenziani
“women were the intellectual leaders in the room, but their ideas were dismissed out of hand by the uniformly male members of Parliament”
This behavior occurs in business meetings, social groups, and families everywhere, and ranges on a continuum from extreme suppression of women to more subtle manifestations.
This will change when good education and culture support men in ways so their male identity and “manhood” aren’t dependent on keeping women inferior.
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Women are entitled to full participation in the life of communities and governments. But there may be a hierarchy of rights? Firstly, women have a right to sleep at night without fear of being ripped apart by Western missiles. When a Western woman fears for painted finger nails, that's laudable, but if that woman sleeps with a man for whom war is a game of power and oil, there's a disconnect. It was a gigantic mistake to make the Taliban the enemy instead of Al Q. I recall that, before 9/11, some oilmen hosted a party of Afghan Taliban in Texas to talk business. We were not attacked by the Taliban. We did not go to war for nail polish. We have a serious propensity to miss the core of our problems.
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@Des Johnson, at the time of September 11th, al Qaeda had been delegated control over the defense forces -- the military -- of Afghanistan by the Taliban government. One year before, al Qaeda had deployed a force of 14,000 in Western Afghanistan causing the Iranians to deploy 250,000 to their border. I know on the internet it is popular to think al Qaeda has never been anything but a couple of guys in a cave, that that impression is totally untrue. So is your belief in the relationship, or lack thereof, between the Taliban and al Qaeda.
It should be clear by now that trying to impose modern western social models on societies with very primitive economies does not work.
How come smart, intellectual "experts" are so oblivious to the connection between social structures and economic conditions?
The geography and history of Afghanistan, like that of many other countries, makes a modern, urban, industrial or post-industrial economy, extremely difficult if not impossible.
A few large cities may allow the formation of a small urban liberal middle-class, but those will always be a tiny minority out of touch with the vast majority of the religiously conservative urban poor and the rural poor.
People's social way of life cannot change until their economic conditions change.
What makes women's social conditions better is modern economic conditions, trying to force the former on people without the latter is useless.
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@AG, "The geography and history of Afghanistan, like that of many other countries, makes a modern, urban, industrial or post-industrial economy, extremely difficult if not impossible." Seriously? I didn't know this canard was still around, but I do remember in the 1980s and before hearing people talk about countries that weren't ready for _________ (fill in the blank, "democracy", "equality", "women's rights", and on and on).
It's a pretty sad thing when people the people you thought would care turn out to be still believing 19th century colonialist views as a reason for not doing anything.
@ondelette
There is a huge difference between a Marxist view that understands the crucial role of economic structure in determining social structures, and the simplistic view that "some countries "aren't ready".
Culture is the way societies adapt to their environments, their social norms are adapted to their economic realities. Expecting modern social norms from people still living feudal economic lives is naive.
Trying to change cultures and social structures without changing the structure of the economy is useless.
@AG, the "economic structure" of a country at long term war is not something that only requires more Marxism. It is almost by definition not working well. Efforts towards improving the economy in Afghanistan counteract the interests of the Pakistan, the chief support for the Taliban. So ending the war and ending the threat of the Taliban are far more fundamental to any changes in social structure in Afghanistan than anything that could be done by changing the economy there.
Of course Afghan women were pawns in 2001.
That the Bush administration invaded and occupied Iraq to free the country's women was laughable at the time they said it, and it is even more laughable now given the current administration and its treatment of women here at home.
It's time for the US to rethink its foreign policy, and commit to the good this country can do in promoting basic human rights, women's rights, workers' rights, environmental rights -- not oil company and munitions-makers' rights.
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Strange how "God" and discrimination against women are linked.
May American women accelerate their efforts to get elected to local and national electoral office, and once there, make human rights including the rights of girls to get an education and attain equal rights with men, worldwide, their highest priority.
If those who want to expand the internet to the entire world succeed with their satellite programs, then girls will be able to hear and see for themselves what freedom and independence look like.
They can see a woman lead New Zealand, for instance.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
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@Hugh Massengill, Folks should go back and read the Da Vinci Code again, if they want to see how "God" and women are linked.
It IS certainly time for women to take the government away from almost all those old, white men. Just make sure none of them look like Ann Coulter, Kelly Anne Conway, or Sarah Huckabee Sanders
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@Hugh Massengill: No, it's not that 'God' and human rights violations against women are linked; it's the islamic interpretation of 'God' that has created these womens' problems.
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Afghanistan will forever be tribal if it doesn't elevate its women to equal status as men. This means education--in terms of both academic and societal-- and the infrastructure that allows women and girls to thrive and take leadership roles. American values do not embrace those principles of basic human rights at this moment in time.
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@Beachi, Afghanistan was not tribal in the sense you are using it before 1978. Forever is a very long time.
Where is Ivanka? She was touted & touted herself as a great champion for women's rights. This is a perfect spot for her to speak up, get involved on this end (certainly not advocating that she join the negotiation), demand that Trump gives attention to this.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop It would mean educating her father which she is apparently loathe to do. Perhaps the way to Ivanka's heart (assuming that she has one) is to point out that liberated Afghan women would be a great outlet for her fashion products.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop you make me smile, wouldn't that be something if she actually contributed to the world instead of take.
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Anne-Marie Hislop
Ivanka is out there fighting hard for all women.....named Ivanka Trump.
Never has there been such an impressive fake feminist.
The fraudulent and phony apples don't fall far from the Trump tree.
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What do you want us to do Ms. Chira, station 1/2 million American troops there forever like we almost did in Vietnam to impose a system they don't want.
We tried that in Vietnam to impose a capitalistic system there and thus gain a banana republic type ally like we did in Central and South America.
If the Taliban want to live in the Middle Ages re women there is nothing we can do about it.
The only thing we can do is if agreed upon atrocities are committed that the rest of the world can agree upon like killings, torture, starvation etc. intervene and preferably in a multi lateral way.
Not educating women or forcing them to wear burkas does not fit the above.
Also, establish a fair immigration policy to let women who want to leave, leave the county and come to America.
Anytime we try to socially engineer a country other than for atrocities we make the situation worse.
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@Paul, repeat after me:
Afghanistan is Afghanistan, Vietnam is Vietnam.
Generals are often faulted for fighting the last war. Anti-war protesters should be held to the same standards.
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@ondelette-thank you for your reply, although I frankly don't understand it.
I go by what Lincoln taught us....only go to war is somebody has attacked you or is about to attack you otherwise stay out of it.
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@Paul, I'm saying that your references to Vietnam are inappropriate, we weren't there for the same reasons, and it doesn't merit the same solutions.
As for what Lincoln said, somebody did attack us, or have you forgotten?
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Now that all American women are considered as equal, the US may help Afghanistan women with some autonomy. No, I'm not serious.
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The maxim still applies: If you do not have a seat at the table, you will be on the menu.
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What leverage exists besides the military to ensure that women’s rights under the Afghan constitution are maintained? Afghanistan will need aid for a long time and international investment. These are the levers that may help along with a much longer withdrawal. If the US had a functional state department we would be working with Russia, Iran and Pakistan to implement such a package. This approach would honor the Americans who have sacrificed blood and treasure for our nations security and values.
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Unfortunately the following is true on a global scale: "Yet very conservative attitudes prevail in many areas... women who enter men’s worlds like law enforcement have often been attacked or threatened." including the US: Military. Law enforcement. Tech. Hollywood. Sports. Manufacturing. Construction. Politics.
Certainly not all women all the time, and usually not as systematically as what is suffered under ISIS and the Taliban but all the areas mentioned have seen no shortage of news stories about women being attacked or threatened for their presence, for their audacity to take a "man's job."
Another Renaissance is needed, globally, that includes women.
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@Marie: Yes, a new Enlightenment.
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It's obvious that Afghan women cannot rely upon anyone for decisive support. I admire the courage and determination of the women in western Kurdistan who have organized themselves into an effective military force. Might this be an inspiring model for Afghan women, as well as women everywhere?
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Many of the human tragedies of the world cannot be corrected by U.S. military might, and the plight of women in Afghanistan seems to be one of them.
Culture does not respond well to forced change from the outside unless the outsiders create a nearly permanent occupation which requires huge expenditure in blood and treasure.
America's military forays into Iraq and Afghanistan begun by GW have been a terrible disaster for all countries involved including the U.S. and ultimately many nearby countries in the middle east, including Syria.
Our economy may be recovering, but what we are leaving behind is the greater disaster and may take decades to sort out.
It is up to the Afghan people to create a better and more just society, as painful as the process may be. We can use soft influence to help, but that is all.
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@alan haigh: The sentiment that the West created the multitude of problems and human rights violations in islamic theocracies is absurd. These violations have been in place since the dawn of islam and are supported by the holy koran.
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The world is facing incredible, perhaps existential challenges, in the coming decades. Humanity cannot succeed with less than half the capacity we have. Women bring unique intelligence and strengths to the table. It is critical for our future that they be full partners in the struggle to build a different, better future.
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@Steve, Decades? If you haven't noticed, we are in the midst of existential challenges right now.
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All our attempts to export our values to other countries and cultures have failed. Our Afghan “allies” made their support conditional on receiving regular sacks of cash, literally.
If the people of that country can summon the will to move into the 19th Century (I’ll spot them the next two), and liberate themselves from their backwardness, great. If not, it’s not an American problem, not because we shouldn’t help, but because it’s impossible.
"Afghan women were never at the heart of American strategic interests"
And this is at the heart of the issue, the heart of the failure of US foreign policy (and that of many other countries). Without addressing the complete inadequacy of women's rights, Afghanistan and most other Middle East Countries will ever become peaceful. Investing into women's rights could be the single most important thing the US could do. This issue is at least as important as working toward economic development (partly a women's issue) or addressing water access rights (which is an economic issue which is a women's issue).
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i agree Watertown but look who's president. Trump and Republicans simple don't like women and only want to reduce our rights here in the U.S.
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@TT: Look at the photo accompanying this article. most of the women are concealed by state-mandated religious garb. The one woman visible is partially concealed under a hijab. These garments are both tools for and symbols of the oppression of women by islamic strictures. But they're worn and accepted without question by many, including one or two members of our Congress.
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