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Silence Meets Despair of Afghan Women

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Posted on Apr 2, 2009

By Marie Cocco

    Afghanistan’s women are no longer in vogue.

    It was only a few years ago that Laura Bush, who normally shied from causes that could be considered controversial, took up their banner. “The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists,” the first lady said in a radio address shortly after President Bush launched the U.S-led invasion to overthrow the Taliban following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.”

    That was then. This is now: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just signed a law that forces women to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, keeps women from leaving the house—even for work or school—without a husband’s permission, automatically grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers, and favors men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. In short, the law again consigns Afghan women to lives of brutal repression.

    “This is really, really dangerous for everybody in Afghanistan,” Soraya Sobhrang of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said in a telephone interview from Kabul. Noting that violence against women already is rampant, Sobhrang said the new law effectively “legalizes all violence against women in Afghanistan.”

    The legislation zoomed through Afghanistan’s parliament. Karzai, who faces elections in August, signed it in an apparent effort to placate conservative religious forces that are said to hold the balance of power in his re-election bid. The United Nations Development Fund for Women is still analyzing a final version of the legislation but says it is “seriously concerned.” The law appears to contradict both the Afghan constitution, which guarantees equal rights for men and women, and international conventions on human rights.

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    The U.S. State Department has had no comment.

    Afghanistan’s women are, apparently, the latest casualty of the Obama administration’s tilt toward realpolitik: ignore human rights violations—whether they’re in China or Russia or in the quiet misery of an Afghan villager’s home—in pursuit of larger foreign policy goals.

    This contradiction between political rhetoric and policy reality has often been the American way. But now we have Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. When she was first lady, she championed the rights of women oppressed by the Taliban long before most Americans had ever heard of that radical regime. Clinton took the helm of the State Department vowing to elevate the cause of human and economic rights for women and girls—a pledge she made again in The Hague this week at the end of a major conference on Afghanistan that was aimed at securing greater international cooperation on the desperate and disparate crises there.

    “My message is very clear. Women’s rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal, they are not an add-on or an afterthought,” Clinton said in response to a general question about the situation confronting women in Afghan society. “You cannot expect a country to develop if half its population [is] underfed, undereducated, under-cared-for, oppressed, and left on the sidelines.”

    The secretary was not asked specifically about the new law. Among its other provisions, it guarantees that married men can have sex once every four nights and wives must submit. In effect, it legalizes marital rape. Sobhrang worries there may be worse to come. “They are talking about child marriage,” she says.

    Without pressure from the foreign powers that hold so much sway in Afghanistan, there was little that even the women in the country’s parliament could do. Sobhrang faults those who were quiet in the face of the clear effort by a religious faction to reimpose medieval mores on a country that is in many ways a ward of the contemporary international community.

    The ugly truth is that Afghanistan has long been sliding back into the violent chaos that is friendly political ground for the Taliban and other extremist groups. Women have, as usual, been among the chief victims.

    There is indeed a lengthy and urgent to-do list for the Obama administration, which says it is determined to abandon a failing course. But that does not mean the United States should again fail Afghanistan’s women.

    To consign them to what Laura Bush correctly called “deliberate human cruelty” is cruelty itself.

Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.

© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group


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By G.H, June 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Gulam in one of your post you say “what business do Americans have directing the course of the pipeline or women’ “liberation” on the other side of the world?”  If asked you what business did the Arab invaders had when they invaded Afghanistan and enforced the law of sharia 1400 years ago, what would you say? I take it that you know that Persia and Afghanistan had it’s own religions, cultures and way of life prior to the Arab invasion? There was no segregation the way Islam segregates female. I know you point to the West and their historical, cultural and social mishaps of the past and present but their wrong doesn’t make your stance right either.

If anything, those who have a soft spot for Islam should be proud of those cultures that decorated Islam and put it in a nice gift box and presented it to the rest of the world today. The original version of Islam that carried the Bedouin Arab tradition went through generational changes and refinement by the Persians, Afghans, Turks, and Arabs from Baghdad and Syrians. It went through various processes of cultural and social refinement, albeit keeping some of its repressive features with it such as segregation, the marriage of 4 wives or minor girls to old men because that was the tradition practiced by the prophet. Today most people in Muslim countries try to put up with all that and with the advancement of technology and science, they’re hoping that society will restructure and the gaps will be filled by humanism or other peaceful faiths. When you point to the hey days of Islam or how good things were when you visited the region, related to politics and control of the scares economic resources. From this point Islam becomes as a useful tool by those wielding real political power to exploit poor nations.

Any sensible person should see this conflict in light of what happened when and how and separate facts from fictions and emotions. In reality Afghan women are the victim of today’s invasion but they have been conditioned to a repressive way of life that was forced upon them and institutionalized in the psyche of the masses. The solution is freedom which needs sacrifice. Freedom and true democracy can only come to Afghan women by promoting education and stopping those countries that destabilize Afghanistan such as the Pakistan or Iranian secrete.

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 8, 2009 at 9:54 pm #

GULAM and BROOKS

Keep it up I am learning and that is good for me and I am sure many more. The real truth in all matters based on facts is what we need to do all the time. I have grandsons that could go over there and whatever I can do for them to persuaded them not to is better yet.

Dwight Baker

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By Brooks, April 8, 2009 at 8:54 pm #

Gulam - I went back and reread my comments and realize more is missing. I must have not copied it completely, since I went over in characters.

Afghanistan had a GDP of $148 per person living in 1970. In 2006 that jumped to an outstanding $322 per person. I am sure they were living the Miller High Life back then. Looks more like, again you were on the nice tour of Afghanistan. Totally missing the poverty. Those numbers are per year. Figure the average person living in the city, made more. How happy were the people in the country living on $7 or less/month?

Poets in Herat out number american cities poets? That is your flawed estimation. A lot of Americans write poetry. As a hobby or something to exercise the mind. My brother and daughter write poems. Just a crazy statement.

Friday Mosque in Herat teaches? How to think? No! Science? no! Quran? Yes. Knowledge? No! Debate? No! Gave women the right to their children in a divorce? Hmmm I suspect women do not have permission to divorce. Isnt that true? The man can, and only if he doesnt lie about her fidelity, would she live.

You think the towers were a conspiracy? That we blew up our buildings, killing our people? This proves your an idiot. Seek help.

You deny that Islam, Alla and the prophet Mohammed says it is OK to kill any non-believer? Infidel? I mean really, that is the reason why the plague of Islam is so strong in the middle east. The people have to believe or die. Disagree…be killed.

Remember any boy can beat a woman. A real man knows it is wrong.

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By Brooks, April 8, 2009 at 5:55 pm #

Gulam - Part 1

You are no expert. In fact if you traveled there in the 70’s and during the Taliban. I would say you saw a tourists version of Afghanistan. You see only what you want. I did not take me 5 sec. to find this.

Elizabeth Rubin wrote in an October 22, 2006, New York Times article titled In the land of the Taliban:

  To find out how the opium trade works and how it’s related to the Taliban’s rise, I spent the afternoon with an Afghan who told me his name was Razzaq. He is a medium-level smuggler in his late 20’s… He moved and spoke with the confident ease of a well-protected man. “The whole country is in our services”, he told me, “all the way to Turkey.” This wasn’t bravado. From Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, he brings opium in the form of a gooey paste, packaged in bricks. From Badakhshan in the northeast, he brings crystal - a sugary substance made from heroin. And from Jalalabad, in the east on the road to Peshawar, he brings pure heroin. All of this goes through Baramcha, an unmanned border town in Helmand near Pakistan. Sometimes he pays off the national soldiers to use their vehicles, he said. Sometimes the national policemen. Or he hides it well, and if there is a tough checkpoint, he calls ahead and pays them off. “The soldiers get 2,000 afghanis a month, and I give them 100,000”, he explained with an angelic smile. “So even if I had a human head in my car, they’d let me go.” It’s not hard to see why Razzaq is so successful. He has a certain charm and looks like the modest tailor he once was, not a man steeped in illegal business. . . . . . . Should he ever run into a problem in Afghanistan, he told me, “I simply make a phone call. And my voice is known to ministers, of course. They are in my network. Every network has a big man supporting them in the government.” The Interior Ministry’s director of counter narcotics in Kabul had told me the same thing. Anyway, if the smugglers have problems on the ground, they say, they just pay the Taliban to destroy the enemy commanders.

Here is the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

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By Brooks, April 8, 2009 at 5:53 pm #

Gulam - Part 2

Since you did not state 70’s I was not assuming you were going to go back almost 4 decades. Just looking at above, you can see you know very little of what was really happening in Afghanistan on your visits all over Afghanistan. Which obviously brings into question anything you state about it too. So the whole drug dealing follows the American Army is false.

It was determined we were not there to fight drugs. Yes they burned some poppy fields, but their main mission was Al-Qaeda.

Your whole thing about whorehouses wife swapping sounds like propaganda. Prostitution has been on this planet in all corners since the beginnings of civilization. Not just for Americans.

I am no red neck, but calling me one is preferred to being a Muslim or any other religious nut job. Aa a Muslim is 1000x worse than a red neck. Red necks drink beer and watch nascar. Muslims want to kill, or will kill to promote their false beliefs. Muslims beat their female property like an abused dog. Muslims have no will to learn anything other than their precious quran. Anything else would be blasphemy and subject to a good stoning.

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By Gulam, April 8, 2009 at 3:28 pm #

Brooks, no you are not an expert. That is obvious. All the experts got sent packing as soon as the invasion came. I saw no large opium plots in Afghanistan in the 1970s, and I was traveling widely in the countryside then, right up to three days before the coup. Aside from US government spies whose words cannot be trusted, I never met anyone who though that opium production was a factor on the world market before the Russian invasion in 1978. I saw none there under the Taliban, and I traveled widely and alone with the Afghans all over the South.  You are probably too young to know that we were told constantly during the Vietnam War that this was one of the wicked things from which the Southeast Asians had to be liberated, one of the weapons against the world of nice people that the Communists were using. Drug dealing follows the US armed forces around the world like a lap dog, just a whore houses are always close by.  The great American experts on Afghanistan in the second half of the twenty-first century were the Duprees, and they outraged the Afghans with their hard drinking and wife swapping. Louis could hardly put together an English sentence thirty years ago with out using the expression “motherfucker,” and Nancy’s first husband was CIA Chief of Station. Most of the American academics who claim an expertise, guys like Barney Rubin, are CIA operatives.

Your attitude toward is typical red-neck American fare, but there are more good poets in Herat today than in any comparable American city. When the great Friday Mosque in Herat was built the city had great universities and libraries and public baths and a population five times that of any city in Europe.  Islam preserved civilization during centuries when Europe was practically illiterate, and its laws gave women property rights and rights to children after divorce that were destroyed when Europeans like Napoleon came in with their laws. You my friend are an ignorant barbarian who has turned his world over to his women and his Jewish bankers; your entire world is crumbling and will soon be lying flat when the dollar collapses. The Afghans then will have had the honor of bringing down the Great Satin. Like the Mongols you have destroyed much and built little that will last. Yes, the Mongols brought the printing press, but they also brought the plague. For an American to talk about Muslim domination is a hoot, given the doomed antics that the Americans are up to now with their empire.

You are against religion you say, a real scientist now doubt. Well, believing that three major skyscrapers fell perfectly into their footprint after two were hit by airplanes, accepting that kind of myth, that requires a leap of faith far greater than any religion demands. Walking on water is easier to explain, and few sensible Christians have taken that literally for generations anyway. You my friend are an ignorant bafoon blowing off steam about people you do not understand, but you are in good company. A democracy gets exactly the government that it deserves, and yours is stealing you blind and acting the murderous monster all around the world.

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By Brooks, April 7, 2009 at 9:26 pm #

Gulam - While I am not an expert, how far back are you going to say this was a great country. It seems economically opium was main export. After that you have rugs. Illegal drug trade for a country doing so well? I would disagree they were doing anything positive. The comment of beautiful is stretching it too. Unless you like desert,rock, with gray and brown for colors. Anything worth seeing the Taliban blew up. Peaceful? Hmmm…what religion dominates Afghanistan? Islam is not peaceful any where. It is a cult bent on death or dominance of any non believer. Where were the camps to train the terrorists? In peaceful Islamic Afghanistan.

Those fine women textile workers…did you talk to them? The fact that you use Joy with Afghanistan is humorous. Islam lets women have joy? Women are property in Islam, not allowed to wander the streets alone, covered head to toe in black cloth(I bet they love the choice in color too), unable to get properly educated(that affects the ability to earn a living), pawned off at an early age into marriage(I am sure those girls at 9 or earlier appreciate getting raped)(Islam has legalized pedophilia). Sharia Law is another winner for the women. Nothing like getting raped by a stranger then getting stoned for causing it. Those are not aberrations or extremes to Islam, those are main stream Muslims. If you do believe me, there are plenty of videos out there where Muslims from all over the world say death to any non believer. Just like the Swat Valley 17 yr old girl, did she get a vote for Sharia law? Is she happy with it now? So maybe you should rethink the whole happy little country thing. Women are slaves there, pretty plain and simple. Give them a taste of freedom and ask them what they want.

While I am against all religions, I feel Islam is evil. All religions are bad, they bring nothing but the acceptance of ignorance. Islam is the worst.

I wish we didnt go in there. It is obvious the backwards middle ages religion of Islam will always hold this crust rock of a country back.

While the US has some problems, they are in the open. Minor compared to there. People try to change things to make life better. You think Afghans happy, but when most abuse is considered normal, and not reported, how would any one know how bad it really is? Even the abused is twisted into thinking it is ok. That still does not excuse the abuse.

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By Leefeller, April 7, 2009 at 3:54 pm #

My little knowledge of the area is the Sufi believe in love and I would hope less of hate as seems to be the prerequisite for some others Muslims? My first insight was reading “The Gift” poems by Hafiz and a little history of his life. 

The ugly side we see may have always been, but it is nice to know their is a peaceful side also. Insightful actions by others may have added to the problems already going on in the Mideast, our government does have a disgusting way of intervening in others affairs.

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By Gulam, April 7, 2009 at 2:15 pm #

Yes Dwightbaker, I have no objection to your using my words posted here. I assume that nothing posted here is copyrighted anyway and that everything here is up for grabs. For more information and photographs on Afghanistan I would suggest you go to http://www.lukepowell.com and contact the owner of that site. He know more about Afghanistan than I do, and has more experience with the people.

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By Jim C, April 7, 2009 at 12:13 pm #

PSmith , I was simply stating a fact , I don’t believe I recommended anything . Gulam , while Afghanistan was without doubt far better off before being invaded by Russia and then us it has never been a bastian of civility . Which period are you refering to , when Afghanistan was run by Zahir or his cousin Daoud ? PSmith , I do have a basic understanding of both Afghanistan and islam ; I have read the Koran and studied the supporting texts , the Hadith and the Bukhari suri , I have long been interested in religion . If you want a peaceful islamic sect it would be the Sufi . My childrens live in nanny from the early ninties until they were grown and still close family friend was a young Afgan woman named Nelifar ( we called her Nilo ) who was at the time pregnant and seperated from her Samali husband . Nilo , her family ( and most Afgans ) supported the insurgent Masoud who was assasinated early on . Oh , one more point , if you remember early in the Karsi administration a plane crashed in the mountains killing three of his cabinet ministers , one was Nilos brother , he had quit his engineering job and went back to help rebuild his country , he was one of Karsi’s finance advisers , I do have an understanding of the subject thank you .

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By Leefeller, April 7, 2009 at 11:25 am #

Unequal rights for men, none for women, that will all change when the Pope becomes a women; I am sure of it! Well maybe not so sure, how about when the Pope becomes a women and if the resurrection happens at the same time?

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 7, 2009 at 1:42 am #

GULAM,

Would you allow me to use your words as stated but not use your name as the source to put into a message to be published to many in Administration, Congress, Senate, Press, Advocates, and others here and abroad?

Dwight

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By Sepharad, April 7, 2009 at 1:30 am #

Jim Yell, your April 6 post contains truths not welcomed by many commenters on TD, but it’s good to restate them anyway. If it’s any comfort to you, the UN’s cosponsored Arab Society Reform reports (‘02 & ‘03), written by 40 Arab scholars, repeatedly cited as a problem their societies’ waste of 50% of their people, women. Though Afghanistan’s people are not Arabs, the basis for its women’s problems (apart from living in a warzone) also are rooted in Islamic law. Outsiders can’t change these problems, the change has to come from inside, and as women have little say over these matters it’s up to the Moslem males. The real reform issues are separating religious doctrine from the rest of the society so that education and modernization and development of liberal institutions that foster equality under the law have a chance to take root and flourish. (Look how long it took for women to get the vote in Western societies.) Meanwhile, there’s not much we can do except to help Moslem women who ask for it, however and wherever we can.

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By Gulam, April 7, 2009 at 12:55 am #

Before the two monsters materialistic modernism, Communism and Capitalism, invaded Afghanistan this was a beautiful, peaceful nation that exported food and extremely high quality textiles made by the women of the country. Their finest artists were women, and the place was full of joy. There were smiling people and playing children everywhere. The United States uses the rhetoric of liberation as an excuse to invade country after country. All of the UN people with extensive experience were driven out in the early months of the occupation, and ever since all of the news is drastically censored to paint this ludicrous picture of abused Afghan women and angelic American soldiers and aid workers. Ask the American women soldiers; they have been raped in recent years in record numbers by their own “buddies.” Ask about the bars and whore houses, and the hookers brought in from China; these are new to Kabul, after the US occupation. The streets of Jerusalem and Kabul were wonderfully innocent neighborhoods compared the the urban decadence of Tel Aviv and New York. More American and European women are abused and forced in to prostitution than Afghans.

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By Julia, April 6, 2009 at 5:47 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Maria Cocco’s article on Afghan women is a piece of political propaganda. Laura Bush’s address on Afghan women right before Bush’s invasion was a piece of propaganda to get U.S. women to support the invasion. In the seven years of U.S./NATO invasion Afghan women have the 2nd worse infant mortality rate in the world (Sierra Leone has the worse) and 20% of pregnant and lactating women are malnourished. The Bush regime,  promised aid to the devastated Afghan, but the socalled “aid” wound up to be military spending (soldiers/bases) and “development” by U.S. contractors while Afghans were given no development money. Also what little aid money went to Afghans was siphoned off by Northern Alliance warlords already infamous for their corruption and their tolerance for rape.

The U.S.‘s invasions impact on Afghan women was hunger,death of their children, putting Northern
Alliance in force who ok rape, domestic violence. Afghan women even before this law was passed were killing themelves in record numbers. Obama’s escalation will only worsen the situation as Obama plans to spend over $1 billion in news basses, soldiers, private contractors while the struggle for Afghan women will get tougher plus many might flee as refugees.

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 6, 2009 at 1:11 pm #

JIM YELL

We must leave Afghanistan and Iraq now.  The people issue is as has been said. But we must take care of our own before be go out and about taking care of others.

Like you said we must clean the plows getting rid of all the misfits, derelicts internal terrorist that have got us slammed down real hard right now——but we must fight back with our words and strength in numbers.

One thing we must remember and well is when we have occupied places people get used to spending our money. So when it looks like we need to leave all hell breaks loose again.

Got to get street smart and stay that way.

Dwight

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By Jim Yell, April 6, 2009 at 9:02 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Every time some points out the humanitarian abuse that is common and aggresive in Moslem countries many start to point to our less than admirable behaviors.

I have already pointed out that the difference is the abuses in liberal countries are not government policy and are not intrinsically built into our social system, which is the case in Moslem countries.

The difference is American and European woman can earn honest wages doing honest work, can expect that the law enforcement has some compulsion to defend their status as fully endowed human beings. Countries who do not do this should be isolated and refused entry or business in our countries. They need us less than we need them.

And, too our horrible record in War, just how do you think almost all of the land that is now considered Moslem got that way? They did it by the sword, by murder and death and other abuses. We have a long way to go to stop this entrenched brutality in our world, but at lest we frequently try, not withstanding the past 8 years in which war criminals were allowed to abuse our system. One more reason not to forget that the past administration should be on trial for their crimes. Another reason to question why our candidate, who won the election is so set upon repeating the Bush/Cheney Crimes.

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By PSmith, April 5, 2009 at 12:42 pm #

@ Jim C, April 3 at 2:19 pm #

> Islam is an extremely restrictive , sexually repressed religion that uses brutality to enforce its edicts.

> Islam is simply another backward Abrahamic religion.

> The ” rights ” allowed by Islam for women are the right to be second class citizens , the right to be repressed by men and the right to do what they’re told by repressive clerics enforced by the threat of violence .

And your point is?

Want to bomb them to more open minded point of view? Want to ban them until they change? Want to break up their countries if they don’t change _now_ to your idea of a better way of life?

Which country just caused the deaths of 1.4 million Iraqis? Plus 1 million by sanctions. Plus 400k in GW1? Because it was a country following a ‘backward Abrahamic’ religion. But not Islam.

Had you read Rory Stewart The Places in Between you would not fail to be stunned by the hospitality shown to a defenceless stranger in Afghanistan—before they spent eight years being bombed to hell. They might not be quite so hospitable today.

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By ThatDeborahGirl, April 5, 2009 at 11:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Yes we should intervene as well as should other countries.

How can we be so callous as to say that women should be raped or killed at the will of men, regardless of why? No religion or law should allow that and yes, people who value humanity at all have the right to say killing and raping in the name of god or law or whatever is at best wrong and worst evil.

There are no shades of gray here. There is only action and inaction.

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By expat in germany, April 5, 2009 at 6:59 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I think Sepharad is right that we can’t invade countries whose values we don’t agree with. This presents some very difficult ethical dilemmas. Most people would cross the street to help a woman who was being assaulted, but what can we do when a woman is assaulted in another country? Or, as in this case, assaulted with government-sanctioned laws?

Boycotting was eventually successful with regard to apartheid South Africa, and the speed with which videos now circulate the globe could also be helpful, assuming one were ashamed of one’s actions. But when people hold fast to beliefs that are unreasonable or oppressive to others, what recourse do we have but to wait for them to wake up? As a parent, I can only model the behaviors I hope my children to acquire, not force them down their throat.

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By Gulam, April 5, 2009 at 4:13 am #

If American women had not doubled the work force, had stayed home where they had been for as long as anyone can remember, then we would not be involved with any of these wars, because America’s own oil supplies would still be sufficient for several decades. When women went to work, America needed elder care, child care, and fast food. The new top jobs went to the wives of white men already on top, not to black men, so the disparity between rich and poor grew greater, and these white couples could afford second homes, boats, and endless airline flights, an orgy of material excesses. Wars abroad were essential to keep ahead of exponentially rising oil demand. It was Bill and Hillary who betrayed the Afghans, turned on an ally that Americans had installed when the Afghans would not accept the American pipeline deal, and they started damning the Taliban over women’s issues. Women voting coincides with the century of the great mass murders and mass defection from the discipline of religion. It is decadence, pure and simple.

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By Sepharad, April 5, 2009 at 3:18 am #

sophie, Brooks, JimC, Ozark Michael, mmadden, expat in germany—You all make the major points. Sharia is what it is, and obviously the sympathy for oppressed people is highly selective on this site—all eyes on Palestinians, forget Darfur, forget the women oppressed by Islamic law, etc. As I’m a Jew, I appreciate the reference to Judaism as also being a tribal Arbrahamic culture. The difference is that only a small fraction of Jews adhere to the orthodox practices that make women second-class citizens whereas wherever Moslem communities flourish—even those not in Moslem countries—there continues to be the pressure to keep women down. (Perhaps the fact that the Jewish culture is matrilineal has something to do with the fact that most Jewish women are considered equal to Jewish men and free minds and souls and bodies in their own right; perhaps the diversity of Jewish beliefs; perhaps the Jewish adaptation to more modern conventions ... perhaps all these leave Jewish women in a much freer condition than women under Sharia.)

It’s stupid for a culture to hold down 50% of its population for gender reasons.

But the rub is, what can we or should we do about it? We can’t go into people’s countries and cultures and demand that they change to mirror our cultural bulwarks. We can try to help women in need in those Islamic cultures we encounter, but if we want the Islamic males who run the culture to be on “our side” or “useful on demand” we will continue to be sorely disappointed. We can provide teachers and aid workers in Islamic countries and help local women start the projects and the programs they deem useful, and back them up to the extent of our power when their own people reject them.

Heard Salman Rushdie speak a few weeks ago about what it was like living in hiding, under a fatwa, in constant fear of his life. Moslem women are not all under fatwas but many of them might as well be, as they must carefully guard their behavior at all times, not pursue their ambitions, submit to being married off at ridiculously young ages, etc. But what to do?  Do-gooder “Human shields?” (Now THAT would be a feminist cause, one of the most relevant in years.)

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By Brooks, April 4, 2009 at 11:51 pm #

Gulam - Well have only women vote to have rights. If they vote to be beaten, be oppressed, stoned, flogged, raped and left uneducated. I will side with you for the whole world to stay out of your criminal affairs. I have a small<smirk> inkling that the women want to be educated, have freedom to walk around unescorted, never get beat, never stoned, never flogged, never be told anything from a back woods Muslim Male.

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By P. T., April 4, 2009 at 11:46 am #

There are brave women, as well as men, in Afghanistan fighting for their rights to education and not have acid thrown in their faces by misogynists.  It is they whom we should support.

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By tshirt-doctor, April 4, 2009 at 11:01 am #

Anarcho, i did speak about islam, but i got called a HITLER for doing so.  can you believe that?  most americans (with the blessing of the govt) don’t know sh*t about islam.  i’ll continue to speak out.

your absolutely right— media coverage favors the interest not of the women there but of the pipeline to be built.

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By Gulam, April 3, 2009 at 8:57 pm #

The news is full of how we are going in and saving Afghan women, but the reality is that whore houses now operate in Kabul servicing the Western servicemen with imported prostitutes. These were not there before the American invasion. I know, I was there in 2000. Reporters have covered these new brothels, and every Afghan knows about them, and still American women rant on about the burka, a tradition centuries old that the Muslims got from the Christian Byzantines. I traveled all over southern Afghanistan under Taliban rule with the UN, and most Afghans I met were pleased as punch with the Taliban regime, whose members they rarely saw. It was the only period of safety and peace that many Afghans can remember. In the areas of the north not yet under Taliban rule in 2000, just as many women wore the burka.

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 3, 2009 at 7:18 pm #

Bboy this is a concept coming to life RIGHT NOW

THE NEED TO DEFINE AMERICAS COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE ONCE AGAIN

The BUSH BUNCH OF THUGS put us into Iraq and Afghanistan for only one reason to get land to build pipelines for oil and gas to flow from the GIANT TENGIZ north in the Caspian Sea.  Now that is fact not fiction and is not as some say a conspiracy theory just google all you want using those few talking points and the web will teach you what you need to know.  The GIANT TENGIZ is land locked and the field has trillions of dollars of reserves for Chevron, BP and a few others.  Then google new military bases built or being built in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Then you like me will know we have been coned by the NEO-CONS again.  And it should come as no surprises to any that there remains the NEO CON fallen few yet known 5 to 7 thousands buried deep and wide in the military and political arena in DC. Now how is President Obama going to clean up that mess? 

We must look at family and social impoverishment of our many Americans from ages 13 to 28 that have had profound negatives impounded on them while young.  Scarring of ones goodness found in their innate conscience is a problem that we have as a nation that must be solved. Long arduous tear filled years living with lies upon lies being told to Americans to disguise the robbery from all of US in our people, jobs, benefits and the plundering of our communed treasury has left those mentioned in a state of debate——not knowing the good for that was robbed from them when young.

So what should we do?——Those of us 5 million strong and not inane to the political games should JOIN IN and form our own advocate group to lobby for us in Washington DC. To bring a real and long lasting change that will give all HOPE again to right the many wrongs that have laid in wait to destroy our younger generation to govern our nation soon.

So what are we to do?——A good idea is for us to form our own lobbying efforts.  The concept is not new——the Grange did a similar thing and changed the way our federal Government worked—-years ago and they remain today in Washington DC. http://www.nationalgrange.org/

In some foreign countries advocates for the people are doing likewise, in America today many advocates to help those with disabilities are do the same.

Now FOLKS we are 5 million strong, simply saying that we must mount a front to confront the ones who use money thrown at lobbyist to get what they want that most times is against the populous NEEDS, WANTS and WISHES.

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 3, 2009 at 7:17 pm #

Bboy this is a concept coming to life RIGHT NOW # TWO


We the People in Unity
Declare

We believe that our United States of America has grown in population such that our voices in representation in our federal government has diminished to a degree that we must in solidarity form our own We the People Advocacy to lobby in Washington DC. To make our voices heard once again. 
When we were a young nation of less that five million the size of our Congress and Senate had an ear to the grass roots needs of our people. Our population now is over three hundred million and the size of our Congress and Senate has not keep up with our growth. Therefore We the People in Unity declare that our city, counties states and Federal Governments have grown too centralized, too intrusive, too exclusive and too expensive.
We believe in Constitutional oversight by the people, smaller governments, Rights to Life for everyone in civil liberties, federalism, and taxes that span the great gulf of all our contributing members and resources and be assessed with equity for all.
We the People in Unity want to make a stern call to all elected and charged to govern us to end laws and programs that don’t work, eradicate the laws, programs and agencies that cause harm, and cause a call from our Department of Justice to summons those that have clearly violated the basic tenets of our Laws in our Constitution to be held to account. 
      We the People in Unity want the power to restore the full force of ALL the amendments, in our Constitution which will bring back the power to us to govern ourselves in all needed sane sanguine and society social functions and end NOW our needless and warrant less wars——and in the future——deny the use of all preemptive aggressive wars that have robbed from us our people and our communed treasury.
DWIGHT BAKER
WE NEED YOU
TO JOIN IN TODAY to have your VOICE and VOTE heard once again JOIN IN
We the People Advocacy WTPA
Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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By Bboy57, April 3, 2009 at 7:11 pm #

Gulam, unfortunately our not understanding or wanting to understand other parts of the world 9or our own) has never stopped the West or the prevailing western secular intellect, in interfering and running the gamut of cultural imperialism on the culturally different who already realise that certain boundaries are already in place to combat abuses. But the enlightened US and EU would like to have their say in everything that is no business of theirs. Middle Eastern culture has flourished for millenia.

Who are the upstarts to be preaching reform. We need more than anything to get our own house in order or watch it collapse. It is collapsing, but being propped up fraudulantly until an even bigger worldwide collapse can be put in place.  Judging from the level of intellectual arrogance on all fronts, worse things could pass than pointing fingers at supposed oppressive Afghan males or laws. We don’t have much even close to right here to dictate much of anything. In human terms, absolute power corrupts…..absolutely. It’s what we are passing through and witnessing at this moment. Where mankind trys to Lord over others with supposed supperior intellect while being corrupt in the core. May God continue to have pity on us.

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By Zhu Bajie, April 3, 2009 at 7:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I have a suspicion the biggest problems of Afghan women is finding enough to eat and avoiding being killed by US bombs/soldiers.

Zhu Bajie

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 3, 2009 at 5:56 pm #

GULAM

Your last comment almost brought me to tears.  Yours is the heart from one who cares. GULAM the need for greed is the principle tenet for those that indulge in tyranny. 

President OBAMA should use all the tools at his disposal to end us occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in record time.  Then use retired Generals to go to all the other 700 military sites around the globe and write reports of what they are there for.

The women in Afghanistan can if they want change—- change many things for the better.  And that is where change must come from——bottoms up. Those old tribal leaders with their tribal customs will change over time but it is a Generational thing that must be done.

Now the last thought is this.  When the USA occupies places money comes in by the bucketfuls.  And if any one has any good insight to keeping us there for a long time they will raise any front, need or demand to get our sympathy.

We must be street smart and look at each angle then study study study to try to prove our theory wrong.

DWIGHT BAKER Chairman of the Grass Roots Actions needed to form our own truth filled lobby in Washington DC.
Co Founder of Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries working in the DR Congo

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By Gulam, April 3, 2009 at 5:17 pm #

What business is it of the industrialized nations to blunder in everywhere telling others what to do? What business do Americans have directing the course of the pipeline or women’ “liberation” on the other side of the world. Who are the Americans to say that their public opinion can determine the life and laws of other people whom they obviously do not understand.

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By Jim C, April 3, 2009 at 2:19 pm #

Gulam , nice try . Islam is an extremely restrictive , sexually repressed religion that uses brutality to enforce its edicts . Blaming the ” jews ” doesn’t change that . Islam is simply another backward Abrahamic religion . I know , you’re going to protest I don’t understand the ” beauty ” of Islam , wrong , I’ve read the Quran , the sahih bukhari , the hadith along with the bible , the Gita , Upanishads and the Vedas so I do get it . The ” rights ” allowed by Islam for women are the right to be second class citizens , the right to be repressed by men and the right to do what they’re told by repressive clerics enforced by the threat of violence .

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By OzarkMichael, April 3, 2009 at 2:13 pm #

So here we are faced with a strange reversion to cruelty in Afghanistan. It seems inexplicable. What do the Truthdiggers come up with? Do they study where the ideas came from? No. They pretend to study. What do they come up with? the Vietnam war! the CIA! Bush! Cavemen! Decadence! and best of all, the Middle Ages!

One person finally mentions Sharia, but that is evaluated by a truthdigger as ‘balony’. yeah, ‘baloney’... I knew balony or worse was coming.
Mention Sharia again and it will be more than balony next time. So you just keep safe and quiet, mmadden.

Most interesting to me is the feminist response. The feminists can rage all they want, yes. But they will have to decide if they want to take on the real problem, which would involve risking themselves to charges of ‘eurocentrism’, ‘islamophobia’, ‘racism’, and my personal favorite… ‘fascism’. Worse than ‘baloney’ i assure you. But I doubt the liberal feminist has the stomach for being excommunicated from the temple of multiculturalism. No. Its warm and comfortable there, why would anyone risk being expelled from it?

Better for feminists to yell about how unfair cavemen are. and the CIA. oh, dont forget the Middle Ages! Rave about it all you want. For all the good it will do, which is none. For all the insight it will bring, which is even less than none.

I hope Obama is a bit smarter than you guys, but he is probably just as clueless. I heard Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia this week. Like a serf.

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By Anarcho, April 3, 2009 at 1:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Well tshirt the movement that happened in the 1980s surrounding apartheid happened with media and international support and resistance from the global… And barely any government regulation against the South African government came from North America. It wasn’t because there were black men involved it was because of an international under ground movement. The problem in mobalizing against Afghanistan abuse of Human Rights is that media coverage favors the interest not of the women there but of the pipeline to be built. They are promoting Haliburton interests not human. And as to why there isn’t large action against the humans rights for women and children is because you aren’t being active in looking for local organizations that have something to say and promote awareness to combat these issues at hand. So do like you did in the 1980s and get up, stand up and use your fucking voice in public not some internet forum, or are you another armchair hippy?

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 3, 2009 at 11:22 am #

GULAM

I think you might want to read the first five books of the Old Testament there you will find the laws that GOD gave to MOSES Leviticus would be a good read for you it is all about purity.  Then the Rabbis continued their liturgy for thousands of years defining the rights of women.

So I give pause to your comments and have concern for your learning.

DWIGHT BAKER

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By Gulam, April 3, 2009 at 11:14 am #

Asserting that over-all women fare more poorly under Islam is baloney. Mohammad of all the world’s major religious teachers did more than any of the others to advance the legal position of women. When Napoleonic law came to Egypt women lost legal rights that they had had under Islamic law. There are more women forced into prostitution in the West, by far. Look at AIDS in Africa north and south. Women are far less likely to be infected in Muslim North Africa that in the South where Christianity came in such a late watered-down form that it offers the people no protection from sexually transmitted diseases.

In the USA you get to hear Jewish NPR moderators interview Jewish scholars explain why things are so bad for women in Muslim countries and why we should bomb Islamic nations. The Jews who control your press and academia have filled your heads with lies regarding Islam. The streets of the Arab Old City had old men and children moving about innocently in the evening in their pajamas, while in Tel Aviv one found flashing lights, honking cars, bars and prostitutes.

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By rachick, April 3, 2009 at 10:37 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

This philosophical discussion is all very interesting but the immediate question that comes to my mind remains unanswered.  Assuming we believe that standing up for women or any oppressed person is simply something we want to do, what is it we can do on an individual level to become the squeaky wheel that drives increased attention to this tragic situation? If we could somehow identify a set of action steps that might collectively make a difference, it seems to me that many people would feel empowered to take them.

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By tshirt-doctor, April 3, 2009 at 8:47 am #

i remember in the 1980’s we had a situation in south africa.  it was apartheid.  the separation of blacks and whites.  of course the black got the pointy end of the bayonets. of course our citizens didn’t think it was right.  and we organized against it, and it was defeated.

where’s is the indignation over whats happening to women under islam?  where;s the NOW group?

you know what i think?  the action against apartheid was because it happened to men.  the lack of action against the regimes of afghanistan and saudi abaria, and iran, is the only victims are female.

if its not, then why don’t people care?

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By DWIGHTBAKER, April 3, 2009 at 6:42 am #

MARIE,

Our troops were sent to Afghanistan to hunt down and kill Osama.  That didn’t work but we hung around.  WHAT FOR?  To get that ground secured so a natural gas pipelines could be built from the Caspian Sea to China.  That was all in the works before the 2000 elections, Dick Cheney was the man behind that plan but GW was the one to pull the trigger and he did.  Look at a globe that is the best path.

Now check and see how many permanent military posts are being constructed now—-along the path where the pipeline will be built.

Then explore why the tribal leaders in Afghanistan use guns to communicate?

Next explore how much the poppy industry has grown since we have been in Afghanistan?

Then get the real numbers of the Genocide that has been going on in the DR CONGO?  In that number identify how many women have been raped and murdered, and how many children have been slain.

Then YOU appraise where is our presence needed more to take care of humanitarian efforts—- in taking care of women and children in Afghanistan or the DR CONGO?

Chevron who owns most of that Giant reserve of oil and natural gas in the TENGIZ located in the north region of the Caspian Sea would want you to print that more need exist in Afghanistan.

DWIGHT BAKER Chairman for the Grass Roots Actions needed to form our own truth filled lobby We the Peoples Advocacy WTPA
Co Founder of Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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By mmadden, April 3, 2009 at 6:13 am #

This has nothing to do with president Obama. This is Sharia law. Women are supposed to be slaves to men in the Muslim world. We really have no right to interfere with the internal affairs of a country no matter how repulsive the laws seem to be to us. I am sure in the eyes of the Muslims our tolerance of gays could be repulsive to them as well.

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By expat in germany, April 3, 2009 at 5:08 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Gulam,
Respectfully, though you don’t deserve it, the first “war of domination” was large over small and “male over female.” In a great many households, women control the resources (often with the blessing of their husband) because females have to care for their offspring (especially when the male leaves them for a younger, more fertile female). While a modern female may purchase superfluous amounts of cosmetics in order to appear younger or more attractive, it is the status-seeking modern male who typically purchases the gas-guzzling Hummer.

Truly, the rules of online posting etiquette should include something regarding a basic knowledge of history, antropology, and science. Ordinarily I would laugh out loud at such a post, but that would be disrespectful of all the women and girls who suffer at the hands of men who, like you, blame their victims.

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By sophie, April 3, 2009 at 4:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I suggest some of the misogynistic, moronic commenters (GULAM, etc.) actually read the article-which is breathtaking in that this is actually happening NOW in any country on this earth!

““The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists,” the first lady said in a radio address shortly after President Bush launched the U.S-led invasion to overthrow the Taliban following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.”

  “That was then. This is now: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just signed a law that forces women to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, keeps women from leaving the house—even for work or school—without a husband’s permission, automatically grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers, and favors men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. In short, the law again consigns Afghan women to lives of brutal repression.”

I suggest that it is time to wake the F**K UP, and try to remember what century this is, although there seem to be those individuals who would prefer to be living in the middle ages.

Really, is equality between men and women so threatening?

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By P. T., April 2, 2009 at 11:14 pm #

Liberals support human rights in some places, at some times.  The discarded, indigenous Palestinian people are a classic example.

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By Ben Takin, April 2, 2009 at 9:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Who is Hamid Karzai???

“Hamid Karzai, the Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations More..with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service interlocutors. Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency’s interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources.”

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=59b_1225807900&c=1

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By Lin Zucconi, April 2, 2009 at 7:28 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Given that Afghanistan has just passed and Pres. Karzai has just signed a law that allows a husband to rape his wife and forces a woman to get permission from a man in her household before she can leave her home, I no longer support the US effort in Afghanistan.

Up until this point I have believed that Afghanistan deserved our support to rebuild and our troops to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda. However now that Karzai and his government are legalizing Taliban laws as their own, to hell with them.

I am absolutely furious! We have no business supporting that government and no business pledging the life and limb of our troops - including our female troops! - to helping that government. Let the Taliban have the lot. And tell them that if any attack is launched on the US from Afghan soil, no matter who does it, we will nuke them into oblivion.

Enough!

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By Anarcho, April 2, 2009 at 7:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The travesty of the women in Afganistan is exceptional in terms of what is now being forced upon them. But the US in the past has failed, and continues fail on the Human Rights front, not only in their own nation but abroad. The Human Rights abuses caused by the so called “War on Terror” are immense, the Vietnam war which was supposed to be fought against the North in which more Agent Orange was dropped on the South Vietnamese people who they were “trying to protect”. It’s publically reassuring to hear Hillary Clinton say that she will work to prevent and even stop the abuse of women in Afganistan and I hope that she does succeed, but I just don’t know if she is saving face in saying that or if there will be much action from her and the US in general.

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By Paul_GA, April 2, 2009 at 6:21 pm #

There’s a trade-off with everything we humans do, eh, Gulam? And lots of unintended consequences. Well, this country is in decline now; no one in political office has the courage to see that, so it looks as though America is fated to continue along the primrose path to Perdition.

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By Gulam, April 2, 2009 at 5:10 pm #

If America had not put its women into the work force over the last fifty years, the consumption of oil would not have risen many times over. America could have managed for many more decades longer with its own energy reserves, but doubling the work force made necessary three times as many cars, because also needed were industries for elder care, child care, and fast food. American feminism has driven an exponential increase in consumption that has made inevitable foreign wars of domination to secure the resources of others. All the new high-end jobs have gone to the wives of men who already had high-status jobs, not to black and hispanic men, further dividing rich and poor. This is old fashioned decadence folks. It always takes the form of a growing gap between rich and poor, feminism, prostitution, human sacrifice, international trade, and a rapid increase in the importance of luxury goods.

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By expat in germany, April 2, 2009 at 2:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Gulam,
Your informative, if meandering, post seems to confuse what is “natural” with what is “desirable.” Natural selection doesn’t “favor tribes” because it doesn’t work on the level of the group, but rather the individual. Males have been controlling female sexuality for millennia because that is the only way a male can ensure his paternity. That doesn’t make it any more desirable or “good” for the female. What makes us uniquely human is our ability to recognize and think about our primitive impulses, and to willfully choose those actions that cause less misery and suffering, not more.

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By Paul_GA, April 2, 2009 at 2:08 pm #

Maria, with all due respect, do American soldiers deserve to fight and die in a faraway land trying in vain to change habits and beliefs that are centuries old?

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By Paul_GA, April 2, 2009 at 12:38 pm #

I don’t like it any better than you do, Jacks, but is it really a good idea to change the hearts of male chauvinists by shooting bullets into those hearts? Or change their minds by blowing their brains out with missiles fired by Predator drones?

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By Maria, April 2, 2009 at 12:27 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Before posting a comment, this site asks: “are you human”?
I would also like to ask the same question of those who think other cultures should be left alone to treat women any way they please:
Are you human? Do you per chance suffer from severe lack of imagination? Did you have a choice not to be born a woman in Afghanistan or in Darfur? Did you “deserve” to be born a male? in the US?

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By Jacks, April 2, 2009 at 12:16 pm #

Why the United States is allowing this is beyond me.  Do we honestly think allowing gender violence won’t be explosive in its blowback for the stability of that nation?  It only serves to justify the misogynistic killings of women and girls (If they don’t even deserve the most basic right of individual autonomy, they have no rights) and further entrench that country into the arms of extremists.

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By Jim Yell, April 2, 2009 at 12:01 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

This is indeed sad news and the difference between abuse of women in Moslem countries and abuse of women in liberal countries is that the abuse in Moslem countries is a matter of government policy and social organization.

It has taken Europeans and Americans centuries to modify the old cavemen virtues of “me, Tarzan, you Jane” and the attendant assumption that women need to be protected from themselves by men who are irratic, violent and narcisstic.

Under the Taliban the women could not seek proper medical treatment and could not have jobs to make a living, while being considered prey for men if the women did not have an annointed male relative or husband to protect them.

The signing of this indenture law against women’s rights and humanity, make a clear statement that Afganistan is lost and we have no business to be there. No American should be supporting any government in Afganistan and no American money should be spent there. Bring it to an end.

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By Paul_GA, April 2, 2009 at 11:36 am #

“Physician, heal thyself!” (Luke 4:23)

Or as the Good Lord also said, “Why do you see the mote in your brother’s eye, when you have a beam in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)

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By Gulam, April 2, 2009 at 10:44 am #

Just exactly why is it the business of American and Europeans to tell the Asians what to do in their own countries? There certainly are more American, Israeli, and British women who are forced, for one reason or another, be prostitutes. There were no whore houses in Kabul before the American occupation began. Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, said that half the roads in the ancient world led to Aleppo, in Syria, and the other half led to Bagram, just north of Kabul. Before the age of ships, whenever a disease emerged anywhere on the earth, if it spread widely it would travel the trade routes and pass through the caravan crossroads. Over the millennia natural selection has favored tribes near trade routes that were strict about contact with strangers and about sexual relations in general. Tribes that survived over the centuries did not pick up diseases from the caravans and pass them around. The Afghans have lived at a major crossing of the trade routes for many centuries, and with Islam, brought from the Middle East, this tendency toward sexual Puritanism has been reinforced. With twenty-first century transport systems, we all live at the crossroads of the trade routes.The arctic explorers Perry and Henson both fathered children in the wilds of northern Greenland, but Wilfred Thesiger the explorer of Arabia, never wrote of being sent off to bed with the wife of a desert sheikh. In the Arctic and on isolated islands, infrequent visitors were encouraged to contribute to the gene pool. People in remote, distant places feared inbreeding. Semites and Central Asian tribes, people who have lived for millennia near the trade routes, have traditions that protect them from social diseases. The turban of a man often covers everything but his eyes. These traditional practices are as natural an adaptation to real conditions as any in nature.

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