It had to send chills down the spine of any woman in America this weekend who read the following: “Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education said in a letter, leaked to the media on Wednesday, that female students over the age of 12 would no longer be allowed to sing in public ceremonies unless the event in question was all-female. It also said that the female students would not be taught by male music teachers.”
I probably overexaggerate when I apply this to “any woman in America.” I realize that it was in December 2001 that America invaded Afghanistan and drove the group then running it, the Taliban, out of control. It has been almost twenty years since that happened. That would limit the number of women in America who would have had ongoing knowledge of the brutality of the Taliban toward women. I assume a number who studied history of Afghanistan would have that knowledge but that would probably be very few. I figure also that those who studied something about Afghanistan and America’s involvement may very well come away with the idea the the United States invaded it only because it sheltered the Wahhabi terrorist group Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden and refused our demands for their surrender and learn little about the Taliban treatment of women.
The Taliban banned women from going to school or studying, from working, from leaving the house without a male chaperone, from showing their skin in public. from accessing healthcare delivered by men (with women forbidden from working, healthcare was virtually inaccessible) and from being involved in politics or speaking publicly. Flogging was the punishment for violations. One woman with fingernail polish had the tip of her finger cut off and her father shot. Music was banned.
Ghazi Stadium a football (soccer) was used for public executions of women usually over adultery. Crowds filled the stadium as the Taliban carried out the executions. Recently a video of Taliban justice showed a woman, sitting on the ground in a burqa, is shot in the back of the head. Last year, a young woman was stoned to death in Ghor province in central Afghanistan after being accused of adultery. In August 2011, a woman and a man she had eloped with were stoned to death in the district of Dashte Archi in Kunduz province.
When the ban on girls singing was announced one woman wrote: “I feel the Taliban are making a comeback”. It was noted: “During the Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001, singing and listening to music and writing poems or songs were strictly banned by the armed group. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in an invasion by US-led forces, Afghan women have gained a number of rights that they are worried will now be eroded as the Afghan government tries to negotiate a peace agreement with the armed group, which has fought the government and foreign forces for 20 years.”
The idea that peace can be made with the Taliban is foolhardy. I agree with former Afghanistan ambassador Ryan Crocker who equates any deal with the Taliban to the deal we made to end the Vietnam war which was in effect a total surrender. Crocker notes: “The Taliban will offer any number of commitments, knowing that when we are gone and the Taliban is back, we will have no means of enforcing any of them.”
Why are we giving up? Why are we cutting and running by allowing the Taliban back into the government. It will not protect our national security interests (Al Qaeda still operates there) nor will we be “defending core values, such as women’s rights, that we have fostered there since 2001.”
The United States must ensure that a generation of women are not thrown back into the Taliban prison. Leaving Afghanistan because the prior administration with its “America First” philosophy which cared less about women in Afghanistan and which sought to diminish America’s footprint for good in the world is foolhardy.
America’s male leadership is intent on surrendering and running. Women of America and throughout the free world must not let that happen. They must recognize they are the only ones who can save generations of women in Afghanistan.
Nawal Sadawi passed on yesterday. Over the course of five decades, she crusaded for women’s rights in Egypt. The Shaykh of al-Azhar called her the “White Witch of Cairo.” We dined together back in 2003. She had came through UW Madtown on a lecture circuit. Nawal was quite a human being. Physically, she was diminutive, her head crowned by a shock of snow-white hair. Intellectually, she was a giant. A prodigious writer, her ouvre includes over fifty titles.
I’m saddened at her passing. Rahim Allah.
Why does the US feel obliged to enter every political vacuum (Russia leaves) and impose a military force to support corrupt regimes? There is a reason this place is referred to as the graveyard of armies.
Hutch:
I just feel bad for the women in Afghanistan. But I do recognize our involvement has to come to an end. After twenty years with billions upon billions spent trying to put the country on its feet and hoping it would be able to defend itself I think it won’t change with another twenty years. Yes, it is the graveyard of armies, the Brits marched merrily into there and one soldier was allowed to leave after he was carved up a bit to bring back to his folks the idea that strangers are not welcome.
Why do people in Boston think they should interfere with what people in other countries hold as religious belief?
“Why are we giving up? Why are we cutting and running by allowing the Taliban back into the government. It will not protect our national security interests (Al Qaeda still operates there) nor will we be “defending core values, such as women’s rights, that we have fostered there since 2001.””
Possibly for similar reasons we did nothing regarding Germany in the 1930s or regarding Myanmar/Burma today.
ED:
Probably right – I just despair at the fate of so many women. I am aware we spent 20 years in Afghanistan and with the billions we spent and the corruption we encountered it has been a long and tough slog. After that time if the Afghans cannot stand up for themselves and protect their women I suppose it should not fall upon us to do it endlessly.
As for Germany in the 1930s there was little thought of going back to Europe after WWI. We were well into the idea of an isolationist America. Myanmar (could not think of the name talking with my grandkid last week)/Burma is a sad case. Good point.
Matt
AKA the “Sufragette from Southie”
WOW!
Let us know when you plan to tackle the CIA pipeline
of Heroin from Afghanistan into USA communities
in the Operation Opiumization Plans of the Deep State.
Yes the drug money is laundered on Wall Street
artificially propping up stock prices.
What is your next rally around the blog post guys going
to be
Stop Female Genital Mutilation
In other news from Elbows Wychulis….
https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en.html
Journal for independent thought, ethical standards and moral responsibility
For the promotion and respect of public international law,
human rights and humanitarian law
https://www.rt.com/uk/518075-sas-afghanistan-video-missing/
Video evidence of ‘massacre’ by UK special forces in Afghanistan mysteriously VANISHES – report
14 Mar, 2021 15:22
https://www.amazon.com/American-War-Machine-Connection-Afghanistan/dp/0742555941
American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan