So, Afghanistan is basically screwed now? Is that it?

The BBQ Pit
1

So, the “coalition of the willing” invaded the shit out of the place and deposed the Taliban…the one, count 'em, one feature of the war on terror that close to a totality of people on both sides agree was A Good Thing…and now…

From here.

Bend your mind around that quote for a moment. Then read the whole thing. Wallow in it. It’s like an oragami rose of despair: the more you think about it, the more it unfolds, and the worse it gets.

The Taliban. Back in power. Why yes, I’m sure the freakin’ Taliban will respect a democratic compromise; if you can’t trust a repressive militaristic theocratic band of warlords, who can you trust? And thus the ideal of a democratic Afghanistan gets thrown in the crapper, where apparently all decent ideals go to die.

Oh, and this is the Republican leader in the Senate speaking. A man who still has Presidential ambitions in the face of all reason and good sense, openly talking about cutting a deal with the Taliban. This is what passes for leadership in the United States right now. Think about that. (The sad silver lining is here, too: maybe this is what will finally put a nail in the coffin of Frist’s Presidential ambitions.)

Worse still: extrapolate to the rest of the war on terror. Is this the endgame for Iraq, too? How about Iran? Five years of bombs, and then “oh well, we tried, back to burqas and madrassas for you”?

What the fuck was the point of it all? Were we just teasing women in Afghanistan, playing keep-away with their human rights? Did we decide to piss away the credibility of the idea that an international military coalition could accomplish something decent?

I’m sure someone, somewhere will flame me for posting this. Perhaps accuse me of being melodramatic, or of making political hay out of the issue. By all means, go ahead. In light of events, such a flame might prove mildly amusing.

2

Probably, except it’s not back to burkhas and madrassas; they didn’t have such things until we arrived.

It was just something that Bush had to get out of the way in order to invade Iraq; he certainly never cared about the women of Iraq. Or women anywhere. Or people anywhere.

3

OK, where to begin?

First, the purpose of going into Afghanistan was to break up Al Qaida. The Taliban were our enemy only because they were allowing Al Qaida to hide out in their country. We’ve pretty much accomplished that goal. Yeah, we don’t have Bin Laden tagged and bagged yet, but he and his buddies are hiding in caves somewhere along the Afghan/Pakistan border, where they can’t do much except play solitare and make an angry video every once in a while. Their ability to launch more terrorist attacks against the United States has been severely hindered. That is why we went into Afghanistan.

I hate to break it to you, but attempting to improve the standing of women in that country was never really part of the plan. Maybe their lot is improved under the new government, but that is only a fringe benefit.

Now, about dealing with the Taliban. They have strong support among a certain ethnic group in Afghanistan. (I forget which one. Maybe someone can remind me?) It’s foolish to think that we can supress that segment of the Afghan population forever, so trying to come to terms with them is the sensible thing to do. Nobody is suggesting turning the entire country back over to them, just recognizing the fact that they do speak for a certain segment of the population.

Actually, I’m thinking we should explore the idea of splitting up Afghanistan in two or more smaller nations, but that a topic for another debate.

4

No. If we had seriously wanted to catch him or hurt Al Qaeda, we would have used our own troops instead of the easily bribeable Northern Alliance. We let him escape, because Bush and friends ( at best ) didn’t care if he did, or about Al Qaeda or terrorism; they cared about Iraq. They still don’t care.

Nor do I see any evidence we’ve hurt Al Qaeda. I expect they haven’t attacked us here because they have no reason to; America is handing them victory after victory, so why mess with a good thing ? Short of replacing Bush with Osama they could hardly be doing better.

5

Have they changed their ways? It’d be foolish to grant them a country if we can’t verify that they’ve changed their ways.

6

Sooo…we should abandon the war that was actually a reasonable response to 9/11, and continue the war that was a lie-ridden boondoggle from the get-go…

7

If a majority of a population wants to live in a theocracy and wants to curtail freedom, then giving them the vote will reflect this in their government.

8

You must have missed the memo. Sounds like it was the plan to me.

"WASHINGTON (CNN) – First lady Laura Bush fired the first salvo in what she called “a worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children” by the Taliban as she delivered the weekly presidential radio address on Saturday.

“Life under the Taliban is so hard and repressive, even small displays of joy are outlawed, children aren’t allowed to fly kites, their mothers face beatings for laughing out loud,” she said. “Women cannot work outside the home, or even leave their homes by themselves.”

Laura Bush’s delivery of the address was in itself a part of the campaign against the Taliban’s policies: It was the first time a first lady has delivered the president’s weekly radio address in its entirety.

The State Department launched the second volley, releasing a nine-page report it on what it called “The Taliban’s War Against Women,” calling the group’s policies “particularly appalling” in “its systematic repression of all sectors of the population.”

The timing of the radio address and the release of the report is intended to add more fuel to an international fire of outrage against the Taliban, but with that regime in apparent retreat, the twin blasts against them instead signified a bold step by the Bush administration into the forefront of the fight for women’s rights

Rest of the article
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/11/17/bush.radio/index.html

9

That is a major crux of the issue: if we support the right of the people to choose, we support their right to choose wrong. Even very wrong. Well, do you, punk? Do you?

10

Actually, while I suspect (as I mentioned in the GD thread on the topic) that Frist was a stalking horse to get the idea out for review, it is not a really horrible idea. The Taliban have massive support among the Pashtun of Southern Afghanistan and keeping them wholly out of power effectively means that we are forced to attempt to occupy about one third of Afghanistan in perpetuity. The Taliban were never some small political outfit that happened to gain power or live in the South. There are so many cross-cultural and familial and tribal ties among the Taliban and the Pashtun that there is no way to excise the Taliban from the Pashtun and allow the Pashtun to participate in the Afghan government.

Calling for a plan that integrates the Taliban into the rest of society (probably with restirictions on participation by senior officials of the 1992-2002 government) is one way to co-opt the group while giving the Pashtun a sense that they are part of Agfhanistan and not simply an occupied land.

I have no idea that it is a brilliant plan or that it will work, (we certainly do not seem to be having much luck integrating the warlords of the West and Northeast), but it is not a foolish plan on the face of it.

Of course, if Frist’s “misquote” claim indicates that hardliners inside the adminstration or the GOP shut down the idea even before Coulter and Hannity could go after it, then the administration is probably going to shelve the plan and there will be no effort to attempt it for two more years (at the earliest).

11

We went into Afghanistan because George W. Bush looked like he has a very small dick. So, we dropped bombs on lots of folks. Take that, huh? Now we are going to Iraq, and show them how big Georgie’s dick is.

Georgie has such a big dick in fact, we reelected him.

Now the Republicans have to find another country to attack, so the next Republican Candidate will look like he has a big dick too.

They are only towel headed wogs, so who the fuck cares what happens to them?

Tris

12

How about “Afghani” with all the crazies and “Stan”. Stan keeps his lawn mowed, coaches the Little League, and when he borrows your tools returns them oiled and sharpened.

13

I don’t know where you got such an idea, the most certainly did have burqas and madrasses in Afghanistan, stretching back hundreds of years.

If you are saying that our efforts to use fundamentalists Muslims to fight the Soviets caused an increase in fundamentalism, I would agree. There is also evidence that we at least tacitly approved of the rise of the Taliban after the Soviet pull out.

But that is a long way from saying “burkhas and madrassas” were some kind of American import. It just isn’t true.
On the subject of the OP, I’m an aid worker and in 2003 I went from Kabul to Baghdad. I was talking to these US Army officers and they asked what I thought about Afghanistan. I said “well, the Taliban is just going to go down to the Pakistani border and wait for us to get bogged down in Iraq, then they’ll come back and take control of the country again.”

There was this stunned silence and one officer said, “I guess I kind of disagree that the US would ever let that happen.”

Well who’s laughing now? Oh right, no one; sometimes it sucks to be right, especially during the Bush years.

14

Unfortunately for your thesis, Der Trihs was specifically referring to situations in Iran and Iraq, not Afghanistan. Iran had no jilbabs between the early 1950s (when we arranged for their elected govewrnment to be overthrown, to be replaced by the Shah, who banned most public displays of Islam) and the late 1970s, (when the Iranian people, tired of one of the most repressive regimes in the Midddle East, turned to their religious leaders who were organizing a revolt against his depradations and began wearing jilbabs and, occasionally, burqas, in defiance of the Shah’s laws to protest his oppression). It is unfortunate that they wound up trading one repressive regime for another, but the U.S. played a very definite place in both the suppression and the requirementrs for jilbabs.

Similarly, Iraq had no recent tradition of either the jilbab or the burqa as the Ba’ath party suppressed a lot of Muslim tradition, insisting on being a secular state. It was only in the last years of the 1990s, when Hussein wanted to appeal to the surrounding countries (that he had terrorized) for aid against the U.S. that burqas or jilbabs again made their appearances on the streets of Iraq and it has only been since the invasion and ineffectual occupation that various sectarian groups have required their women to wear such clothing as a sign that they are the true bearers of the words of the Prophet.

So, for the two countries actually named by Der Trihs, it is very true that U.S. involvement had a direct bearing on whether women today are wearing anything other than western-style clothing.

15

Well, I thought we were talking about Afghanistan here, but even in talking about Iran and Iraq, it is pure hyperbole to say that those nations did not have hijab before US interventions.

There have been periods when less women wore hijab than others, but the rural areas or Iran and Iraq have had conservative elements who have enforced strict dress codes for centuries.

I absolutely agree that our interventions in the Middle East, including installing the Shah in Iran, have fostered a rise in fundamentalism in the regions, but it is ridiculous to suggest that hijab is some how an American construct. I have seen an increase in the wearing of hijab here in Iraq in the 3 years I have been here, but I can tell you that I saw Shia women in hijab in the south of Iraq right after the fall of the Hussein regime.

It is also a pet peeve when people lump the Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians together as if it was a single, monolithic culture.