Progressive Bankruptcy on Afghanistan
09 January 2009 1:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
cross-posted at Huffington Post
It begins in Iran, where a cleric was caught with his pants down. Daily Beast has the story, which got me thinking about the plight of women in that corner of the world, but specifically in Afghanistan, especially since some leading progressives, Steve Clemons and Rachel Maddow in this instance, seem willing to relegate them to the Taliban and tunnels, with their flippant judgment that going into Afghanistan is simply not worth the fight. Thankfully, President-elect Obama doesn’t agree. But first things first:
The cleric was apparently a member of the government-run Friday Prayers Committee in Hamadan province. Semi-official news sites tried to downplay the impact of the video, which leaked out of an Intelligence Ministry investigation. But their reports did acknowledge that the man involved was a married cleric, and that the video depicts the consummation of an unlawful affair. [...]
We all know what would happen if this video was of a woman committing adultery, now don’t we.
It got me thinking about something that was said on Rachel Maddow’s show this week during an interview with Steve Clemons. The conversation was about Afghanistan and what would happen if we walked away, with Clemons quoting Dana Priest from an online chat. Saying that we’d simply have to smuggle the women out when it got bad.
“… (Dana Priest) is increasingly of the view that we’re going to probably have to come to terms with the Taliban and just find a way to tunnel out women, because it will be an awful reality for them, otherwise this will be a never ending war …” – Steve Clemons
Coming to terms with the Taliban is a reality, agreed. But count me out on treating Afghan women as collateral damage that we will try to smuggle out via tunnels. I mean, really.
Progressives are getting quite flippant about the Afghanistan quagmire and how we shouldn’t escalate at all in that country, seemingly content to smuggle women out instead of trying to work in selected areas/cities to help Afghans restore security. Of course, Afghanistan cannot be seen in a vacuum, with the Af-Pak challenge joined, which is why Afghanistan remains important. Anyway, I have no answer on this one, but find the type of dialogue I heard between Maddow and Clemons anything but enlightened, even considering he was quoting Dana Priest. I’m not in favor of escalating in Afghanistan like Iraq, mainly because Afghans have never had a central government, so it won’t work. I also have the utmost respect for Steve Clemons, who is a consummate expert on foreign policy, and someone I know and continues to teach me every day. I’m also certainly not one of the “elitist” or “traditional” viewpoints he talks about in the interview either. But the notion that we allow another human rights disaster to unfold for women in Afghanistan, until we can smuggle them out, a suggestion being regurgitated by respected progressives, is unconscionable to me.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said as first lady, human rights are women’s rights. Countries that disavow women’s rights also have fewer democratic values and freedoms. Maybe progressives against action in Afghanistan should consider looking at a broader picture in Afghanistan, one that includes women’s rights, but also the rights of young girls to go to school, and whether that is a long term strategic interest to the U.S., not some luxury for which we can’t afford to fight. Are we really willing to allow Afghanistan to go back to the days before 9/11, shrugging off what women and girls will suffer as a result? This is the progressive line on Afghanistan? No troops in Afghanistan; deal with the Taliban, and we’ll just smuggle the women out when things get bad? Unacceptable foreign policy thinking in the 21st century. Women’s rights are human rights.
President-elect Obama is right to be turning his attention and military focus to Afghanistan, which is really a broader subject to include Af-Pak, with Pakistan the number one priority in the region. The policy won’t be easy to implement, especially with progressives losing their moral courage, but leaving the women and girls of Afghanistan to the mercy of the Taliban and tunnels should not be U.S. policy under President Obama.
That settles it! One burka in the sand is worth 70 virgins in the heavenly bush!
I’m pretty sure they have to cut something off, if I remember my Iranian law.
Afghanistan is like any other country in that they need societal infrastructure. Schools, Arts, Agriculture, etc.
We shouldn’t withdraw but it shouldn’t be like Iraq either where we went it alone.
My heart broke when I saw “Afghanistan Unveiled” and there’s no way we or they can let the country revert.
He could at least have offered a pillow, the misogynist.
I sincerely hope that Obama does not change his mind about Afghanistan. We need to go in there and wipe out the Taliban and Bin Laden. We got the Taliban the last time, so I don’t believe we should stop now.
Doesn’t surprise me one bit about the cleric. He just got caught on camera. I’m sure all the others are as bad as he is.
Betsy | 01.09.2009 – 5:19 pm | #
But Betsy who will pay for the adultery committed by the cleric? I doubt it will be him, but more likely the woman involved.
GeoT | 01.09.2009 – 4:38 pm | #
GeoT – I think it’s too late to do anything about Afghanistan. We had our chance but Bush & Co decided to invade Iraq instead with the lies about WMD. Maybe I’m wrong but the Taliban have gotten back in to various regions. I saw “Afghanistan Unveiled” and like you my heart broke too.
Jane Austen | 01.09.2009 – 5:24 pm | #
Bush blew it but I agree with Taylor, we have a responsibility to the people of Afghanistan to finish what we started and support their future.
Bush blew it but I agree with Taylor, we have a responsibility to the people of Afghanistan
to finish what we started and support their future.
GeoT | 01.09.2009 – 5:32 pm | #
As I’ve said before, they won’t do it by razing the poppy fields, which is what we continue to do.
GeoT | 01.09.2009 – 5:32 pm | #
I agree with you but we must be very careful that we do not get caught in the quagmire that the former Soviet Union got caught in. What bothers me most of all is that we let Bush go into Iraq with a lie but we were not willing to do anything to improve Afghanistan. RAWA was formed in the late 1990s and smuggled out documentation of the treatment of women in that country yet I didn’t hear a great outcry about the condition of women in Afghanistan. Anything the UN did was ignored by the Taliban and the rest of the world just went along. I started to follow the condition of women in Afghanistan in 1996 but it just never got the coverage that WMD in Iraq did.
Jane Austen | 01.09.2009 – 5:21 pm | #
I agree, the woman is going to get the punishment despite the fact that she was probably threatened by the cleric that she better perform or else.
I think we owe it to the Afghanis to get rid of the Taliban. Also think Karzai should go. He’s really corrupt.
Hey justlen -
Was thinking about you all day. Are you hanging in there? The reports out of WA are awful.
The reports out of WA are awful.
kris | 01.09.2009 – 6:16 pm | #
Rivers have crested and are coming back down. Most of the levees held so it wasn’t so bad.
They wussed out and cancelled school, though.
Good news. But I heard you are getting more rain.
Good news. But I heard you are getting more rain.
kris | 01.09.2009 – 6:33 pm | #
Hell, it will rain until July here.
When Steve Clemons said that it struck me as one of the more cynical suggestions I had ever heard of. Dana Priest may be an award winning journalist, but she also has something in common with the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.
I know. I grew up there.
what would Tip O’Neil do?
Hell, it will rain until July here.
justlen | 01.09.2009 – 6:38 pm | #
Seattle’s average (annual) rainfall is:
37.1 inches
Thanks to the Universe for letting me find Taylor Marsh through this blog entry – and thanks to Taylor Marsh for calling out progressives on these issues – “. . .the notion that we allow another human rights disaster to unfold for women in Afghanistan, until we can smuggle them out, a suggestion being regurgitated by respected progressives, is unconscionable to me.”
It makes me in turns sick to my stomach and angry enough to . . ….
Betrayal of our conscience – and that is what it would be – in this matter will bear bitter fruit indeed. “Progressives” who would counsel Obama to do so should consider the consequences of abandoning peoples, and women and children, to agents of intolerance, suppression, and injustice. Such abandonment projects a lack of conscience and commitment to generous, progressive and liberal ideals that is in direct opposition to the hope that Barack Obama can give us. Let us not try to talk him out of that.
Welcome Jim. It is a “betrayal of our conscience,” as you say. Obama is dead right about Afghanistan, though the policy will be very difficult to thread.
The treatment of women in so many parts of the world are beyond my comprehension.
Thank God.
OH MA GAWD and JEEBUS CRISPIES onna popcicle stick!!! A deeply, one could even say FUNDAMENTELIST religious leader is a HYPOCRIT and dosen’t practice what he preaches!!! THAT NEVER HAPPENS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES!!!!!
secular, I don’t think it’s just simple hypocricy.
But….I also am not about to take on the world’s burden here for women everywhere. That is simply too big for this brain.
This is the emotional expense of globalization, I guess.
I DO think it’s simple hypocricy. The only dif is there they will stone the poor woman to death.
Much as the UUUberchristians would like to…until THEY are caught at it.
I’m opposed to escalating in Afghanastan, but I am opposed not due to the virtues of the argument, etc.
I just think we’re worn out.
Enough already.
So I’m going on record.
No more war.
I said this at the beginning of Iraq. Once we’re in, then I tend to be more conservative and support the military.
but I’m opposed to this escalation. We can’t afford it. It looks to me to be a completely losing proposition.
I can’t see it will enhance anything.