Why I Remain A (Reluctant) Feminist Hawk on Afghanistan
31 August 2009 9:05 am by Taylor Marsh
It’s lonely out here. And for a very good reason. But even though the Taliban will out last our efforts, the fact remains that if we don’t secure Afghanistan to the point where women aren’t subjugated, tortured and murdered, Afghanistan will likely once again turn to teeter on failed state status, something candidate Obama pledged he would not permit.
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington – The Obama administration is racing to demonstrate visible headway in the faltering war in Afghanistan, convinced it has only until next summer to slow a hemorrhage in U.S. support and win more time for the military and diplomatic strategy it hopes can rescue the 8-year-old effort.
But the challenge in Afghanistan is becoming more difficult in the face of gains by the Taliban, rising U.S. casualties, a weak Afghan government widely viewed as corrupt, and a sense among U.S. commanders that they must start the military effort largely from scratch nearly eight years after it began.
A turnaround is crucial because military strategists believe they will not be able to get the additional troops they feel they need in coming months if they fail to show that their new approach is working, U.S. officials and advisors say. …
President Hamid Karzai also hasn’t exactly distinguished himself, with ridiculous laws against women, siding with long established tribal and religious customs that continue to keep women down. It doesn’t exactly give people like me a very good chance at inspiring company on this side of the argument. That staying in Afghanistan and supporting his corrupt, inept government will actually change Afghan women and girls’ tortured path to better lives.
But nobody on the left seems to care, with their focus on withdrawal, which includes Sen. Russ Feingold who once again talked about a timetable for Afghanistan withdrawal, but without even mentioning the women and girls of Afghanistan even once in his recent op-ed. Having great respect for this progressive Senate leader, I continue to be stunned that the best on our side remain mute on this issue. My friend Steve Clemons, someone who I respect, as well as Rachel Maddow, gave evidence months ago that represented the common feelings on the left, when Steve quoting Dan Priest’s idea, “to find a way to tunnel out women.” Something I couldn’t accept then and don’t now, even amidst my gathering doubts and tortured resolve.
This year’s elections proved that women are already losing hope and the road forward.
“Everywhere I went before elections, I urged women in the villages to vote. But when the day came, even professional women in the city who normally felt free to go to work and shops and weddings stayed home. I was shocked,” said Safia Siddiqui, a legislator from Nangahar province. “There has been a lot of talk about women’s civic life and political movements, but security comes first.”
[...] The sense of eroding political rights for women did not begin with this election. In the past several years, Taliban attacks on prominent women have sent a powerful message to others who dreamed of entering public life. In the southern province of Kandahar alone, a female legislator, a women’s affairs official and a female prosecutor were gunned down by terrorists. Others have received constant threats, travel with armed guards or rarely visit their constituencies. …
There is family pressure, rooted in a long history of women being kept in their place, with the Taliban adding more fear until not even the strongest activists are willing to lose their life. Washington Post:
Some rights activists said the election-day chill signified a wider, continuing setback for Afghan women’s role in social, political and economic life after a brief period of hope for change after the Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001. They noted that domestic violence against women is increasing, that the Taliban has attacked and shut down hundreds of girls’ schools and that most women remain economically in thrall to their fathers and husbands, even when they are abused.
“Things are reverting, and it’s because of a mix of insecurity, economy and culture,” said Soraya Sobrang, a physician and member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “For a few years when security was better, women could participate in public life and the new constitution gave them political rights. But then the attacks started, and people were warned not to send their daughters to school, not to send their wives to work. All their new rights came under threat, and nothing really changed in their lives.”
Now, Sobrang said, many Afghan women have lost hope.
“We have lost a lot of the ground we made. Women still face forced marriages, still work in the fields, still depend on men who beat them every day,” said Sobrang, who voted on Aug. 20 in a very short line of nervous, unsmiling women. “We can give a card to a woman and tell her to vote, but that does not protect her from danger, and it does not give her any real rights at all.”
When Obama first began talking about his limited increase in troops and focus on Afghanistan, I was for the plan. Though I’ve become skeptical in the last month over what is clearly mission creep, a Vietnam throw back term that should send chills up anyone’s spine, the reason I haven’t come out against further escalation is simple. No one has explained to me how we support the gains of women and girls without being engaged militarily.
Yet amidst these stories, even as I was never for the Iraq war, visions of Obama as LBJ dance across my nightmares. So, I in no way can embrace the talk of Mr. Anthony H. Cordesman of CSIS, whose rhetoric about “the United States win in Afghanistan“ leaves me slack-jawed.
We cannot win anything for the Afghans, because there will always be the Taliban who will out last us. What we need are leaders, male at first, because that is the culture of this country, to stand up and be a real partner with us trying to help bring some kind of stability on which the Afghans can build, which begins with security and no corruption so eventually women can make progress and eventually the difference. That in no way includes fixing jails and other ludicrous ideas leaking out of what could be our mission in Afghanistan going forward.
Because without the women and girls of Afghanistan, the country has no long-term hope and no future at all, which means nothing good for the region and U.S. interests in the long view.
