Comments | shangy_feminism: Afghanistan:against the good war

elastic_spam in shangy_feminism

Afghanistan:against the good war

Dec 10, 2008 03:40

Article basically about how the U.S.invasion is harming Afghanistan rather than helping: http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=481&issue=120

Though not directly about feminism, it is mentioned in the context of the 80s Soviet Invasion and also discusses how RAWA (Afghanistan woman's rights group) is against the American occupation. Note:the article is ( Read more... )

Comments 8

charles_rb December 11 2008, 00:26:27 UTC

"Yet the media still present it as a good war."

Actually, in media over here it gets presented as under pressure, lacking any unity by the nations involved, failing in many objectives, increasingly causing civilian deaths, and something we fucked up majorly by turning focus to Iraq & getting complacent.

And the article, while making many good points and having a conclusion I'm in agreement with, comes off to me as trying to downplay that the Taleban are vicious bastards. To me, that's wimping out. They are vicious bastards, they are not someone we should be happy to deal with, they're not going to be nice when in power - and we inevitably have to deal with at least some of them and include them in any relatively stable coalition anyway. Post-conflict politics (and conflict politics, and general politics) involves a lot of rolling around in the muck.

elastic_spam December 11 2008, 00:53:28 UTC

Yeah, If Afghanistan civilians are siding with those who oppressed them,so to speak, you know there's trouble.

charles_rb December 11 2008, 01:16:37 UTC

There's a lot that don't side with them, let's remember.

And I'm betting an even bigger number who don't give a crap who's in charge as long as they can get on with stuff and not get killed, raped, injured et al.

Both groups are fucked and we did it, in the latter group literally in many cases. What a fucking cock-up. After December 2001 ( ... )

charles_rb December 11 2008, 01:20:47 UTC

Sorry, "after December 2001" was meant to continue "we were in a position to rebuild the nation as a more stable country, with a friendly/proxy government in at least the short term. And then we go on to do basic things wrong afterwards. The incompetence is staggering."

Thread 6

charles_rb December 16 2008, 21:08:40 UTC

Saw this and thought of you - Guardian reporter interviews the resurgent Taliban: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/afghanistan-terrorism

(A follow-up article confirmed that, shockingly, bombing civilians pisses off civilians and makes them hate you)

elastic_spam December 16 2008, 23:12:47 UTC

Yeah, I wonder how they're different from the previous taliban. Here's a prequel of sorts to the article I posted: http://www.marxists.de/middleast/neale/taliban.htm

And the author still seems to downplay the taliban's oppression of women. I wish he'd explain what a better repsonse would be.

There's this too: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23612315/how_we_lost_the_war_we_won
On one hand the taliban seem to be slightly more open to women's schools,etc. On the other, they're still damn fierce.
And if all that weren't confusing, I read that RAWA doesn't like the U.S. occupation,but believes it's better than nothing. Egad