exposition of this point of view I've seen. If you differ or just have
read a good contrary position, please send it to me for pass-on.
Ed
http://www.thenation.com/blog/153951/women-taliban-and-time-cover?rel=emailNation
Women, the Taliban and That 'Time' Cover
Robert Dreyfuss
TheNation.com: August 8, 2010
The latest entry into the trumped-up debate over the fate of women in
Afghanistan comes from Judy Bachrach, an editor at Vanity Fair. It's all
part and parcel of a campaign, by some well-meaning people and some not so
well-meaning, to justify America's failing counterinsurgency policy in that
devastated nation by raising the banner of women's rights, a debate kicked
off by the now ubiquitous Time magazine cover photograph of an Afghan woman
whose face was mutilated, allegedly by a Taliban-allied, reactionary tribal
potentate. Referring to a CNN interview of Nancy Pelosi by Christiane
Amanpour, Bachrach writes:
For effect she shoved the photo of the mutilated face right under the
speaker's startled gaze, adding: "To put it right down to its basics, is
America going to abandon the women of Afghanistan, the people of
Afghanistan, again?"
"To put it right down to its basics-Yes, Christiane. We are. You can bet
your ass Nancy's not going to tell you this, in fact she'll tell you nothing
at all substantive on your show in response to any of your questions, but
abandonment is the American way."
To her credit, Bachrach does go on to admit that the United States is not in
Afghanistan because of the plight of its women but, as Pelosi told Amanpour,
"because it's in our own strategic national interest." But, since the Time
cover hit the newsstands, it's allowed proponents of the war to argue that
America has a moral obligation to defend that country's woman against the
predatory nature of the Taliban.
However it's being used by the supporters of the war, it's an issue that
progressives and antiwar activists need to address squarely, too.
The issue is, what might happen if there is a Taliban restoration in
Afghanistan. Now, it's true that it's possible to argue that the departure
of US and NATO forces might not inevitably lead to a Taliban comeback. It's
even possible to argue that the US presence in Afghanistan makes a Taliban
comeback more likely, not less. But that's not the issue. The question is:
might they come back? Might they seize Kabul, or just entrench themselves,
in the manner of the autonomous Kurdish zone in Iraq, in the Pashtun areas?
Personally, I'm an agnostic on this question. But it's foolish to dismiss
the possibility, even probability. It's one thing to argue that the Taliban
is a complex organism with many moving parts, and that it would be resisted
by non-Pashtun minorities in the north and west and by liberal and
enlightened Afghans everywhere. Still, it might come back, especially if
Pakistan decides that's the game it wants to play.
If the Taliban does come back, it would be a bad thing for Afghanistan-and
not just for women. Women may have their noses sliced off when they act
uppity, and schools for girls may close. But the cultural backwardness and
reactionary politics of the Taliban will slice across all sexes, ages and
ethnic groups. In other words, the Taliban's comeback isn't just bad for
women. Both men and women will be forced to live under the benighted and
despicable reign of the Taliban's thugs. Like the reign of the mullahs in
Iran, the Taliban is bad news for all. Men and boys, like women and girls,
will be forced to abandon modern life; they will be crowded into oppressive
Islamist schools, compelled to forget that they live in the twenty-first
century, and beaten or killed for listening to music, reading banned books
(pretty much everything but the Koran), watching DVDs or flying kites.
Tribal and clan leaders who are more enlightened, who'd like to bring
Afghanistan into the modern world, will be slaughtered, just like tribal
leaders who opposed the Taliban in FATA were obliterated by the hundreds
since 2001.
Is this a women's issue? I don't think so. Now, it's true that the sorts of
reactionary drivel that comes from the Taliban is intrinsic to the
institutionalized cultural life of that part of the world, in which men come
first, women are treated as property, and so on. That is, only part of the
deadening and oppressive conditions that existed under Taliban rule
1994-2001 arose because the Taliban were political reactionaries; some of it
was already there, deeply ingrained into Afghan life. Indeed, even since
2001 there have been numerous reports of both official and unofficial
mistreatment of women and women's rights by warlords, local and provincial
official, and by the supposedly enlightened government in Kabul. It' s
chicken-and-egg problem, and I'm not sure whether Afghanistan in the 1990s
was so bad because the Taliban imposed an alien system or because an
inherently reactionary system was already there and that that system helped
produce the Taliban. Either way, however, the Taliban and its allies are bad
news.
The problem, as I said, can't be ignored by saying, "Oh, if the US leaves
Afghanistan, the Taliban won't come back." The fact is, if the United States
does leave Afghanistan, it is at least a 50-50 possibility that they'll
storm back into power, and that civil war will result. (The US is leaving
Iraq, and there is a real possibility that there, too, the result will be
civil war sometime in late 2011 or 2012.)
What's sad is the naked attempt by supporters of the war to put the women's
issue out front so shamelessly. That's because it's effective. Back in the
1990s, when the Clinton adminstration, Khalilzad et al. were happily ready
to make deals with the Taliban-in-power, it was the women's issue that
overthrew those efforts, riled up Hillary Clinton and helped push the
Taliban regime into Untouchable Land. Don't think for a minute that the war
supporters who bemoan the issue of women-under-the-Taliban don't remember
that. The fact remains that the forces of reactionary political Islam are
dangerous and oppressive, whether its power is wielded by the CIA (in
backing the anti-USSR jihad in the 1980s), by Shin Bet (in supporting the
rise of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood between 1967 and 1987) or by the
ISI.
Yet the US has neither the right to fix Afghanistan nor the ability. All the
economic aid in the world isn't going to do it, and promises of US postwar
assistance to Afghanistan are a joke, if indeed the Taliban comes to power.
Can you imagine any US Congress appropriating a dime to help Afghanistan in
that case?
Progressives need to take a cold-eyed look at the consequences of leaving
Afghanistan. Pollyannish views and soothing bromides won't cut it.
If there is any hope for Afghanistan after the United States leaves, that
hope will reside in two places. First, India, Iran, Russia and the 'Stans
will have to assert themselves in support of anti-Taliban Afghans. Second,
Pakistan will have to decide whether supporting the most reactionary
elements of the Taliban movement is worth continuing a bloody civil war that
is the most likely result of America's departure. As I've argued for a long
while now, the July 2011 deadline from President Obama ought to light a fuse
on American diplomacy aimed at getting all of those parties to underwrite a
deal that starts with an accord with the Taliban. I've spoken to Indian
government officials who recognize that a deal with the Taliban ultimately
is what's needed, even if they'd like to see Pakistan's influence radically
diminished. Perhaps, inside the Taliban, there are relatively more
enlightened individuals and pragmatists willing to acknowledge at least the
minimal rights of Afghan women. But whether that's true or not, some sort of
deal is going to be cut eventually.
Is that abandonment? Maybe so.
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