Why Is the Feminist Majority Foundation Refusing to Abandon the Women and Girls of Afghanistan?

When I saw the headline, I thought this article was going to explain to us how it was all a big misunderstanding: that the Feminist Majority Foundation was not merely beating the drum for war against Afghanistan and Pakistan. The article even suggests what we all might have suspected: that the web site was out of date and not kept up properly. Yet the article then goes on to repeat a litany of policies which basically provide false justification for the US and NATO military involvement in Afghanistan. Apparently the Feminist Majority Foundation – despite its name – is really just a shill for the US military.

The US should immediately withdraw all US military presence from the region. In its place the UN should deploy peace keeping troops to oversee the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s government, civil society and infrastructure. None of that requires NATO or US military presence. Since when was Afghanistan on the Atlantic Ocean anyway.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

But then again, neither do a lot of military wives. Some do but a lot of them can be very arrogant, snotty, and pro-war.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It is easy to view the war in Afghanistan one-dimensionally, and this is why there is not the massive public opposition as there has been for the aggression against Iraq. Western soldiers are raining death on the Taliban, and that could hardly happen to nicer people.

So far so good. But soldiers are also getting maimed or killed, increasingly, and are maiming and killing the very people whom the Taliban maims and kills. On that ground the united front of the political class in Britain is starting to crack as the article at the following site shows:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/newstopics/politics/defence/5779626/
Clegg-Were-throwing-lives-away-in-Afghanistan.html (copy and paste full URL)

To make matters worse, those the soldiers are fighting FOR are not really different from those they are fighting AGAINST. They are still thugs with power to enforce their religious precepts, and the best way to evaluate any religion or any other ideology is to see what happens where it has coercive power and doesn't have to dissimulate. An article on the hoaxbusting site Snopes tells it in a nutshell:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/
petition/afghani.asp

Worth a read in order to dispel the notion that our soldiers' lives are being sacrificed for something good. They are not. They are being wasted to serve US/European geostrategic ambitions, and for nothing else. Also, the "collateral damage" to civilians is horrific, with nothing positive to show for it.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

For the good of the Afghan women? By waging war on the people of Afghanistan as a whole, look how many women, children, men, animals will die from our weaponry. If the feminists groups find this acceptable, then we could expand it to help starving people all over the world, including many in the USA, by bombing them before handing out free meals. Shattering that our "movements" are being shamefully militarized in their zeal to "do good" to others by destroying their families in the process.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Tragically, as it is with many of the stories we hear in the West, the origins and conditions of this conflict are much more complex than we are given to understand. Before our initiative to make central Asia safe for pipelines (I'm sorry: that should read 'rout the Taliban bastards', correct?), women were not undergoing such widespread hardship. Yes, there was injustice, but nothing too out of wack in comparison with other countries in the region. The public relations onus on feminist oppression wasn't there before, but now that we've got a mission to sell, it suddenly makes sense to notice such things...

I've never heard of this advocacy group before, but it sounds suspiciously like those think-tank-spawned *citizen's organizations* that appear whenever industry wants to obfuscate things and challenge environmental issues or public health controversies.

Wherever there is war, women (and children) ALWAYS suffer the most, and in fact the feminist cause is decisively set back by such inhumane measures. Ladies: don't believe the hype! You better challenge Saudi Arabia and other such places if you want to be consistent in your message!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Every time you take a bicycle or walk or use an electric vehicle, you challenge Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and other chauvinist-bloc nations. If you use a solar charger, wind energy, weatherstripping, or purchase EnergyStar, you challenge the chauvinist-bloc nations. If you refuse to use OxyContin, hydrocodone, and heroin, you challenge Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan's sexism.

Yes, we want them challenged. We want them to relinquish their slavery of women and girl children. Afghanistan tarnished their own Koran with their treatment of women, with suicide bombings, with the heroin trade. They have done everything except send women to concentration camps, and deserve the same fate doled out to Hitler and his troops. Nothing except war stops that kind, so stop the human rights violations with the only action understood by such men.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

for the plight of Afghan women. The fact that we have bombed wedding parties, killed wantonly, and destroyed what little they had to begin with shows that. What woman in her right mind would advocate occupying a country to elevate women and give them their human rights? I cannot believe there is not a better way to help the women of Afghanistan than for us to continually wage war there. It is our presence that has caused much of the inhuman treatment of women.

The only way most women of the world have ever gotten their rights is for them to rise up against their oppressors and to say: kill us all, but we will no longer be your slaves.

Women in the USA only got the right to vote in 1920--less than a century ago! And our female ancestors fought for that right for nearly a century. Not with war weapons but with reason, showing the male population that they could be strong and courageous.

Yes, the UN is without "teeth" of war weapons, but war is not the answer. I have seen documentaries of the Afghan women living in caves after the US invasion, trying to eke out an existence for the children--going without themselves--but I did not see the US military doing any helping out. No rebuilding, no food, no aid to these refugees of our war.

The USA is not anywhere for humanitarian reasons; it is there for either oil or because of the "pipeline" to bring oil through a country.

A friend of mine lived in Afghanistan before the USSR or the USA invaded. She loved it there. True, that was also before the Taliban (which, by the way, the USA sponsored in the beginning) took over. So who is to blame for the condition Afghan women now find themselves in? Look in the mirror.

Only world pressure of a non warlike kind can truly bring about the changes needed. I think it can be done. War never solved any problem; and always creates more problems.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Their cities are a pile of rubble. Still too dangerous for daily life. Not a full day of electricity or running water since 2003. Two more American soldiers killed yesterday. About the women: Iraq had equal pay since the 50's. women were highly educated. Still, we haven't been much help. The Afgan women are barely literate. They have a long way to go. It's preposterous to think that we can being them to our version of the 21st century. I'm not sure that's where they want to be. Women all over the world are anti-war. It's in our nature. No where is it more evident than in Africa. They do us no favor in ratcheting up the war. No thanks! ANNA

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Given that the almost impossible happens and a new society arises in Afghanistan that embodies Western enlightenment in the status of women, who's next on the Feminist Majority's military agenda?

Could it be Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive countries for women? What about the 'new' Iraq, where women have taken major steps backward from the rights and opportunities they had even under Saddam's detestable regime (in today's Iraq, even Christian women have taken to wearing the hijab head scarf to avoid getting assaulted in the streets by the Shi'ite and Sunni religious zealots).

Then, of course, we must invade Iran to free women from their restrictions. After that, a dozen or two other Islamic countries that seriously restrict womens' rights and status. For example, the practice of settling grievances between men by the men of the aggrieved family raping the sister of the offender.

And, lets not forget so many African countries, where female circumcision is a terrible violation of women, and where young women and girls are routinely 'sold' into marital 'slavery' to older men, against their will. And what about India, with its tradition of bride burning if the bride turns out not to be a virgin, or even if the dowry is seen as inadequate by the groom and his family.

Finally, we get to a threat to women that is ubiquitous throughout the Muslim world and in Muslim communities even in the West - honor killing. This is where brothers or the father will kill a beloved sister or daughter because she has been forceably raped or perhaps refuses to wear the hijab or talks to boys at school (more common in western countries). Muslims believe that she has brought shame and dishonor upon the family and only killing her can cleanse the family's honor.

It is not even uncommon that, when a man has a grievance against another man, he 'settles' it by raping the other man's sister, thus punishing the entire family and requiring them to kill their own family member.

Given that Karzai's government has become increasingly restrictive of womens' rights since coming to power and even restored the dreaded Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, women in Afghanistan are in basically a no-win situation no matter WHAT American and UN troops do or the Feminist Majority wishes.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Thanks to the especially unique example that Hitler has given to history, it's so easy to make the point that war will stop all kinds of awfulness... as if! For one thing, many neighboring powers were loathe to stop Der Fuhrer out of indifference, and even sympathy. When they did get motivated to do something, it took practically every nation in the Western hemisphere to put a stop to it. That kind of prolonged cooperation is extremely unlikely these days. Besides... when all is said and done, Germany was still considered one of us, and we damn well had to do something to change the situation for the sake of humanity .

With Afghanistan, there are few precedents, other than the ones that already took place there in the 20th century. And we know what the success rate was for those... If you don't want to consider our own contributions to the tensions in that nation, you are simply being lazy. Going to war in central Asia can only exacerbate tribal conflicts and bring more hardship for its citizens. But many of those who support outside aggression are unlikely to realize that... unless they've lived for years in a war-torn country themselves.

Sorry, but I don't buy your credibility... regardless of the old Hitler parable.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Their support of the continuing criminal occupation is ostensibly based on the assumption that from now on, the US government will treat Afghanistan in a totally different way. But the objective of the invasion forever taints the occupation. The invasion was part of a campaign of colonial conquest; occupations based on such larcenous invasions are inevitably and permanently larcenous.

So the mistake last time was to put evil warlords in charge, which led the Afghans to choose the Taliban. Now we have put the evil warlords back in power, which will predictably lead the Afghans to again pick the Taliban. This will give the US government an excuse to do what they have already decided to do: occupy Afghanistan permanently.

But this group of "feminists" has an answer: urge the US government, which by its contempt for international law has disqualified itself from liberating anybody, to totally abandon its policy of propping up corrupt warlords, corrupt US defense contractors, and corrupt US and Afghan politicians, and suddenly, inexplicably, turn around and base their policies on what is best for the people of Afghanistan and the US. You know what that is? That's saying the solution to rape is to encourage the rapist to marry his victim. No, the solution to rape is to imprison the rapist, or in the case of rapist superpowers, to confine them within their own borders BY FORCING THEM TO WITHDRAW FROM THEIR VICTIMS.

My guess is that these "feminists" are dominated by Christian bigots who would do anything to foil Islamic bigots not for the benefit of feminism, but for the benefit of Christianity. Whatever has corrupted this group's thinking process, it is clear that they should be ignored.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Let's just leave 'em alone and let whoever rule 'em. America's getting hungry already ! MORE FOOD and MORE TAX CUTS !!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Nobody talks about what Afghans want for themselves. Basically, support for the US is dropping, they'd rather have an international presence like the UN, but don't want it to last forever.

link

link

link

If it really is a peace-keeping mission, then have the UN take over.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I wonder if this organization backed the Soviet occupation there then? Under the Soviet occupation (which was conducted LEGALLY by the way) - these women all had the rights the U.S. likes to boast it is bringing there now.
Of course we all remember what the U.S. position was at that time. . .

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Whenever it was when President Obama announced more US troop for the Afghanistan front in the "war on terror," I rhetorically asked if the average Alterneter was willing to let the Taliban march into downtown Kabul to begin publicly slaughtering women for imagined offenses to that collection of epileptic ranting called the Qur'an.

Some few of you did answer in the affirmative: Yes, if that's what it took to bring our boys and girls in uniform home--they would be eternally ungrateful, claiming the were stabbed in the back by "librules" before they could finish the job, i.e. killing as many Taliban as humanly possible--then let the distaff blood-bath begin. If the Taliban regains its place as Afghanistan's overlords and starts murdering woman, that's a small price to pay for bringing our troops home. And hey, it's a sovereign state! How would we like it if the Taliban invaded the continental United States to bring an end to the "show-us-your-tits" festivities at New Orleans' Mardi Gras, assorted Harley-Davidson motorcycle rallies, MTV spring break parties and Budweiser-sponsored "redneck" games.

It comes as no surprise that the good ladies of America's establishment feminist movement backs further military meddling in the Afghan graveyard of empires for the sake of bringing Western suburban, middle class values to the benighted tribes of the Hindu Kush.

The bourgeoisie sentiment of America's establishment movement is so strong that the National Organization for Women, NOW, a sister organization to the Feminist Majority Foundation, had Sarah Palin's back in the recent David Letterman joke dust-up.

Now really, speaking as an atheist, it is almost too bad real gods and goddess do not exist. For if they did they would be laughing so loudly at this turn of events we all would be able to hear it.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Eleanor Smeal and Helen Cho:

I find it very disturbing that not once in your essay did you mention the biggest enabling issue that secures the misogynistic status quo in Afghanistan, opium.

Bringing about a just society in Afghanistan will require fixing the economy and that can be done only by controlling the opium economy. Take the profits out of the hands of the criminal and terrorist anarchists.

This can be done. But it requires a bravery of advocacy that most modern human rights groups based in America seem to lack.

Getting control of the opium economy is not impossible. The turkish government did it in the 1970's by redirecting the crop to legal medicine. The PoppyforMedicine program is one well thought out model.

Industrial hemp could quickly provide Afghan farmers with an easy crop with 3-4 harvest a year. This could provide the traditional Afghan textile industry a stable source of fiber.

Since We can't simply stop the heroin to the millions of addicts dependent on Afghan opium today we could adopt the Swiss heroin prescription programs for incurable addicts. Getting the addicts into dispensaries gets them off the street as dealers to new addicts and reduces new addict populations. Addicts in clinics reduce the amount of crime they use and need to sustain themselves economically.

This is breaking the economic cycle of addiction and in the process reducing crime and new addiction.

John A. Glaze in his Oct. 2007 report to the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S.Army War College wrote: "..an estimated 70 percent of the Taliban’s income now comes from protection money and the sale of opium."

There is no other source of illegal commerce on the planet as lucrative as that opium crop. Its size is irreplaceable in the global black market economy.

How much sooner can the Afghan economy and culture be stabilized if the Taliban are deprived of 70% of their income? Doing that without firing a shot.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

There is a big difference between providing security and assistance and a winnable war against the Taliban or Al Queda.

I firmly believe we helped lure Russia into a proxy war in Afghanistan as well as the creation of the Taliban and so have tremendous responsibility for inflicting this entire 30 some year devastation on them. Assistance and security yes but a winnable war with more bombs and the attempt to win a guerilla war no.

Bombs and fear of bombs, predators and hellfire and damnation missiles from the patriarchal gods of war will never benefit women and families around the world with their trust in dominance and submission and unconditional surrender. War is a vehicle of rape and pillage of the global village!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It's kinda weird for Ms. Magazine types to believe that 'Merkuh and the Imperial Military can actually do what TFM wishes they can. If the Afghani women are saying we're not helping, we're not fuckin' helping! Isn't that a central tenet of feminism, listening to women's voices?

ITA with the commentor above who astutely pointed out that war can't do what these chicks at TFM want it to. It's a true village idiot that believes otherwise. And frankly, after the last 8+ years of craptacular performance of the village idiot (and crew) the odds are stacked against those that continue to drink their kool aid. Sorry. It's like that.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Just about every paragraph in this story is filled with crap - half-truths, non-sequiturs, superficial analysis, failed understanding of Central Asian history and Western colonial involvement and intent, contradictory statements, etc. ad nauseum. Just to take one example:

"If the U.S. was to pull out of Afghanistan, the United States would be once again breaking its promise to the Afghan people, and the country would likely fall under Taliban control."

What promise was that exactly, that we made to the Afghan people? Can anyone truly name what was in the minds of our fearless leaders who invaded Afghanistan, public propaganda aside?

Also, most of the country is already back under Taliban control, or their allies.

Finally, I would have a hell of a lot more respect for Feminist Majority if they were consistent about their concern for oppressed women in countries that we blindly support and are not easy to publicize criticize (Occupied Palestine, anyone?). It's too easy to pick on the usual suspects, like Saudi Arabia (not that the wretched princes and sheikhs there don't deserve every bit of opprobrium). I can't take the double standard of these elitist mainstream feminist organizations. They have zero credibility when it comes to US policy in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Women there have enough issues to deal with without our feminist organizations in white (pun intended) shining armor proclaiming to be coming to their rescue.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I have heard people suggesting in response to this article that the United Nations or the UN take over security in Afghanistan. This would be instead of the United States. United Nations soldiers, however, are mostly American.

If you look at the nationalities of nato or UN soldiers, most of them are American. The Korean War had allied forces based around the UN, but the vast majority were American.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I'm struck by the simplistic answers that people here seem to be advocating given the complex nature of the situation in Afghanistan. I join others in deploring the conditions in Afghanistan as well as abhoring military solutions however I also feel a sense of moral responsibility to hold in mind the needs of the people who have suffered the most as a result of the past actions of the US government. This is why I was grateful for the explanation posted here by the members of the Feminist Majority. I'm stunned by the comments posted in reaction - Have you all read the entire article? Those of us on the left often accuse the right of seeing things in black and white, simplistic terms. I wonder if our understandable allergy to any action that might be perceived of as imperialistic is keeping us from carefully evaluating the situation and, at least as important, the potential fall-out from responding to this mess in a simplistic and reactionary manner. Maybe the left is as guilty of black and white thinking at times as the right is.

From what I understand the Feminist Majority (of which I am not a member) has been working with Afghan women and Afghan women's groups for over 10 years. Isn't this involvement suggestive that they ARE listening to Afghan women? It is not the misson or rhetoric of the FM to bring "democracy" to the Afghans! Where are you getting this from? RAWA is one group and one group does not represent all Afghan women. Perhaps it would be useful to survey a wider cross-section of Afghan Women's groups before making such simpistic and provocative statements!

Let's at least fairly represent the FM's stance. In the article the FM states they were not for bombing Afghanistan after 9/11. They also were not in favor of invading Iraq. Utilizing peaceful means they had successfully intervened to prevent the US from recognizing the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan in the late 1990's. We are in Afghanistan now due to the Bush administration's incompetence. But just because those of us on the left did not support decisions made for the past 30 years, does not mean that we do not have a moral responsibility to try to set things right. Abandoning the Afghan women now would only perpetuate the abuses they have suffered in the past.

It may not be a perfect solution to stay in Afghanistan for now. It may in fact be the more difficult decision which causes us to listen and respond in ways that feel foreign to those of us who support and cherish peaceful means of resolving conflicts. For these reasons, I applaud the FM's capacity to prioritize the Afghan women and to think complexly.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

We, (the United States of Imperialism) have a tremendous responsibility for much of the chaos and terror in Afghanistan. Surely, the right thing to do is to help make things in that country better. As much as I am against war, I am also a realist and know that on rare occasions, force may be necessary to protect innocent lives, and help stabilize a situation before it descends into anarchy. Surely the pacifists out there would not have stood idly by when Hitler began his campaign of genocide. Once ideology (pacifism included) trumps protecting human lives, it becomes fundamentalism. The UN does not have the ability or resources to fully stabilize the country, and besides, they didn't create the mess in the first place. If the Taliban dominates the region, no women or children will have the freedom to pursue life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, ideals which we hold in such high regard.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The pigeon wonders if the feminist majority thinks the mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters of Taleban fighters are fair game for death from the peacekeeping bombs as well? Or is the death of their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands enough punishment for the for women of Afghanistan for the audacity of having been related to the men?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The article this is a response to was presented in a way that basically turned its premises into hogwash. It was misleading. It made the Feminist Majority sound as if that organization has JUST begun a pro-war campaign, aligned with the US military, falsely claiming to help the women of Afghanistan, but really bolstering the war effort. The two writers put statements in tenses that made it sound as if something new was going on, and something deceptive.

In reality, they themselves were. The Feminist Majority was in Afghanistan long before 9/11 and our military entry there, a military entry that I don't remember any peace movement rallying against (and I write that as person who not only attended many peace rallies holding a sign reading Military Spouse for Peace, but also spoke at some of them as a military spouse against the war). Should the effort begun by the Feminist Majority during the Clinton administration be suspended or dropped BECAUSE the US military is now there? And why doesn't anyone seem to just google it? You get this, among other things (including ways to actually contribute to helping the women of Afghanistan, if anyone is interested in doing that):

"In 1997, The Feminist Majority launched the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan to urge the US government and the U.N. to do everything in their power to restore the human rights of Afghan women and girls. Chaired by Mavis Leno, the Feminist Majority Foundation's campaign has brought together more than 200 leading human rights and women's organizations to condemn the Taliban's human rights abuses against women and girls and to put pressure on the US and UN to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan."

"The Campaign was successful in increasing public awareness about the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, preventing US and UN recognition of the Taliban, increasing the admission of Afghan women and girls as refugees, increasing humanitarian aid to the region and pressuring UNOCAL, a California oil company to abandon its plans for an Afghan oil and gas pipeline which would have produced over $100 million annually in royalties for the Taliban."

"With the fall of the Taliban regime, the Feminist Majority Foundation renamed its campaign and began working to convey to the world that women are an essential part of the solution for the future of Afghanistan ."

Well, are we mostly sheeple who believe what we're told without quickly and easily checking it out, or do we stick with our preconceptions? And if we really are against something, is this the extent of the "protest"? It seems really cheap and easy to use a forum like this to "protest" (I can't seem to type that without the quotes) something while doing nothing else and simultaneously criticizing a group that is trying to help, because we don't like the circumstances that arose AFTER they started one of the only campaigns that seems to exist to actually help. To read some of these, maybe most of these, comments, you'd think this was a symbolic situation with symbolic people, useful to tack a system of opinions onto. If the war is bad, look into what populace efforts stopped previous wars and use them till the goal is accomplished. If the Feminist Majority is really helping these women in a defiled way, start a foundation that does good to them in a pure way. Or join the Feminist Majority and reform their tainted efforts. Or run for office and actually affect the war.

But if you start an American effort to go over there and really affect change, think about how you'll do it WITHOUT the military. Just watch the news, read up on the Taliban, picture yourself forming a group to go into AFGHANISTAN and force many of the men there to change their law and treatment of women. And then point out what a corrupt way the Feminist Majority is going about their efforts.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Blu Ray Burner|||MTS Converter For Mac can easily convert MTS files to other popular video/audio formats.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]