I’m just glad that some of the Code Pink activists have the depth to listen to their sister organization in Afghanistan. I don’t know where I fall in terms of policy in the country, but sometimes life just isn’t simple enough to accommodate an ideologically based absolutist position. Do progressive activists really want to pull out of the country and leave girls vulnerable to the men throwing acid on their faces for showing up to school to learn how to read? Do American feminists continue to argue that the burka in Muslim culture context is actually a symbol of empowerment? Bear in mind that a large number women in Kandahar, upon arrival of American troops, tossed their burkas into piles on the streets and torched them. Afghan women, the feminists, are afraid.
Kudos to Medea Benjamin for thinking it over. And it’s not an easy paradox – reminiscent of the progressive activists during the civil rights era who had mixed feelings about the use of National Guard to enforce integration. Certainly her intelligence can respond to the cognitive dissonance, integrating the new data into a fresh ideological framework. Of course, preferable would be the loosening up of dogma and the recognition of nuance and complexity. Advocating independent thinking however carries a price. Slogans are harder to write. You can’t work speeches off a template of “isms” and villains.
Solidarity carries certain responsibilities. Maybe the peace movement in general can learn to listen a little. It’s out of practice.
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October 7, 2009 at 10:22 pm
jimi
Nothing wrong with making folks in the ‘peace movement’
look in the mirror, and ask these tough questions.
But do those against them ever stop to think what the world
would be like without those who ‘demand’ peace?
And really, the USA is in denial. We are no longer that once great, powerful, and RICH nation we once were. Wars cost ALOT of money as well as lives of all living things.
Can we really afford it? What WOULD happen if we left?
We werent always there you know.
October 8, 2009 at 12:07 am
annnonymoose
Eric ,
Is it really our job to police the world ? when we can’t even take care of our own ? 45000 die every year for lack of health care. Violence against women and people of color is on the rise. Our own schools and children suffer while billions are spent on war. We would probably do more good in the world if we spent more on the health and welfare of our own and stopped meddling in other countries because of some perceived superiority on our part . Billions of $ spent on blowing people up is a hell of a way to save them from oppression when you do nothing about the root causes of oppression in the first place.
October 8, 2009 at 1:24 am
c. miller
Eric,
In answer to your question, “Do progressive activists really want to pull out of the country and leave girls vulnerable to the men throwing acid on their faces for showing up to school to learn how to read?”
First of all, Hell no!
This progressive wants our present administration to use their great diplomatic skills to do something that sounds archaic, naive, “beneath us”, (to some) and that is to sit down and talk and listen with Taliban leaders and keep talking until they can come up with some agreements.
I respect the judgment of Medea, Code Pink and Ms. Jalhal in her position as a former Afghan minister of women, and agree that keeping some troops there, with an exit strategy, for security, development and aide that focuses on structural, sustainable improvements, and avoids violence is what is needed. However, I disagree that putting more troops with bombs and guns in Afghanistan is the way to go. Our young soldiers’ lives are no less dispensable than the lives of people in other countries. Perhaps our government should use some of the vast amounts of money spent on warfare training, to instead develop alternative energy technologies and a.e.t. job training, so that we won’t be so dependent on the resources in that are the reason for our presence in that region in the first place. Nothing will be sustainable without peace and like Michael F’s song, “You can’t bomb the world to peace.”
October 8, 2009 at 1:53 am
c. miller
So agree with your last points about loosening up of dogma and recognition of complexities and nuance, etc. Finding areas we can loosen up on and respecting nuances of their cultures can give gains in areas such as women’s rights and protections and in the process promote non-violent conflict resolution, which I think should be taught from elementary school on up as a regular subject.
October 8, 2009 at 3:57 am
Moonshadow
In the beginning (of the Iraq debacle) I was wholeheartedly in the CodePink camp with regards to Iraq. However, I am not against our (US) presence in Afghanistan. Could we do better? Certainly! Should we leave Afghanistan . . . I don’t think so. The US troops are spread thin, tired, often under-equipped, and feel completely under-appreciated by the American public; at least that’s what I am hearing from my friends in the US Army. Much of my reading of the various media backs that up too.
If one has read Three Cups of Tea by David Mortenson, then one knows how much the girls and women of that country (and Pakistan where most of the book takes place) need outside help. He has been doing it by building schools, to educate the girls primarily, but there are boys in them too. From the beginning he has had to deal with fundamentalist Imams and even Taliban to get things done. It has not been without great personal cost on his part (he has even been kidnapped by islamic extremists).
The situation is now becoming more tenuous and some of the newly built schools in the country (not all built by Mortenson) have been targeted by the Taliban and forcibly closed or destroyed. In an ideal world we would solve this mess with diplomacy but so far the Taliban have shown no indication that they would or will respond to such overtures.
What should have happened in the beginning is that we would never have gone into Iraq, and instead devoted all those resources to stabilizing Afghanistan and finding Osama bin Laden who has been hiding in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region. Dubya blew it by only putting a small force into Afghanistan and attacking Iraq instead.
It may surprise many, in the activist community who know me, to hear this viewpoint from me. I have never been anti-military . . . only against the conduct of a specific war (Iraq in this case). As I said to a friend . . .
I think many of us can agree that Iraq was a misadventure and a huge misuse of our military . . . in fact I would go so far as to say the misadventure in Iraq is disrespectful of our troops. It disrespects them because it was unnecessary, ill planned, and the product of shameful manipulation by our leaders.
. . .
[it is important] to understand that without them [our miltary] our country would be like the looted store in the bad part of town where the police rarely go. He might want to consider that even a neutral country such as Switzerland has a defense force which has participated in some peacekeeping missions while not participating in armed conflicts in other countries. Costa Rica survives without a military as a demilitarized country because it has a large Civil Guard (~ 4400 members) and a police force that is largely military trained. [We] need to refocus [our] anger to the civilian leaders who got us in the mess we are in.
We need the conscience of groups such as CodePink but it is important to be careful to not let dogmatic opposition to warfare blind us to the realities. The truth is that our troops are needed there as much as our development dollars.
October 8, 2009 at 8:03 am
Eric Kirk
I don’t know annonymoose. All I know is that counterpart activists in Afghanistan are begging us to stay there. During the Vietnam war pretty much all of the left wing activists there wanted us out, though some of them came to regret it later after they were jailed and on their way to be executed.
What our role is internationally is a fair question. You can argue that having entered Afghanistan and so heavily influenced events there over the past decade we have a particular responsibility that maybe we don’t have elsewhere. But even that’s beside the point. I’m reminded of an anarchist cartoon criticism of Friedrick Engels, who actually owned two factories. In the cartoon his workers come to ask for a meager raise and he responds, “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a raise. Your misery must increase. You see, it’s historically inevitable.” So when people who normally think like us, who are familiar with the situation in Afghanistan, are begging us to support the presence of troops, it bears listening to. Perhaps the Prime Directive approach of the left since WWII bears some rethinking and we have to ask whether our abstract principles are more important than the welfare of the people involved.
I’m also aware that it’s a very slippery slope.
October 8, 2009 at 10:06 am
ecoshift
“Do progressive activists really want to pull out of the country and leave girls vulnerable to the men throwing acid on their faces for showing up to school to learn how to read?”
What assurances can you offer that protecting the education of young women is any kind of priority for our presence there? or anywhere?
It clearly wasn’t the reason we got involved…
October 8, 2009 at 10:10 am
Shane Brinton
Eric, when write about “the feminists” that are afraid of what will
happen if U.S. troops leave, you should be clear that you are talking
about one particular group of feminists.
RAWA, which is one of the most well-known and respected feminist
organizations in Afghanistan, has consistently opposed the U.S.
occupation on the grounds that it is making life even worse for Afghan
women.
The following quote is from this
very compelling article by Mariam Rawi of RAWA and Sonali
Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission.
“In our conversations arguing this point, we are told that the U.S.
cannot leave Afghanistan because of what will happen to women if they
go. Let us be clear: Women are being gang raped, brutalized and killed
in Afghanistan. Forced marriages continue, and more women than ever
are being forced into prostitution — often to meet the demand of
foreign troops.”
I encourage you to read the full article. This isn’t just left-wing rhetoric. It’s a chilling assessment of the facts on the ground.
October 8, 2009 at 10:36 am
Eric Kirk
I don’t know, but the woman Medea Benjamin is in dialogue with says it makes a difference regardless of the priorities. I imagine it probably is a priority if for no other reason that it makes for good P.R.
October 8, 2009 at 10:42 am
Eric Kirk
I’ve skimmed it and will read it more carefully later tonight. It is certainly compelling, with the added benefit that it is much more convenient to our world view than what Masooda Jalal has to say. That’s not to dismiss JAWA, who has been involved with women’s rights issues in Afghanistan long before it became fashionable. But there is a danger to shopping for perspectives which make us feel more comfortable with our own convictions.
October 8, 2009 at 10:58 am
michael
I feel the need to interject a pacifist viewpoint. The dangers of the world are only increased by our military and CIA activities. Afganistan was a paradise for foreign travelers (as I’ve heard from people old enough to go there in the 60s and early 70s) We goaded USSR into invading (as Zbignew B. bragged), then supported Dostum and Ossama. We installed the Shaw and Saddam in the place of leaders who wouldn’t let our corporations exploit their countries. Bring the military home to defend us if we are in so much danger (where was our air cover on 911 or the national guard during Katrina). Our civilian leaders are elected by us, so lets keep the blame where it belongs. I feel for the women of AfPak but I believe military solutions only empower evil and beget more military. Only the insane keep repeating a strategy expecting a different outcome.
The massive first world legal medical consumption of opiate medicines is currently supplied by licensed farmers in the US and Aus. and processed (whole plant extracts) into Oxy and most other dope (legal dope of course). Why not just buy opium directly from the Afgan farmers. We could cut out Karzai’s brother and the warlords, and pay for it with schools, books, DVDs, iPods and WiFi if they didn’t want paper currency or gold. The junkies of the world can be supplied by nice, stable places like Burma (I can’t spell Myamrymarmay… ) and the current farmers can grow ethanol!
October 8, 2009 at 11:54 am
Eric Kirk
I respect the position. But you aren’t a parent who sends his daughter to school and hopes it’s not the last time you’re going to see her. I’m not either, but it would be a perspective altering experience. The military is protecting the schools. It’s not all they’re doing and I don’t know where it is on their priorities, but it’s one function.
October 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm
HumboldtBlue
When did it become our responsibility to protect the women of Afghanistan? You don’t make that argument for Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon or Iran, why is Afghanistan worth our treasure and blood? We have gang rapes right here in the good ol’ USA that can’t be prosecuted because of Bush and Cheney and their defense of their favorite mercenaries, and yet, we’re supposed to send more young men and women to die in Afghanistan because of tribal abuses that will exist long after we are gone?
This is the same backwards, bullshit rationale we heard in the run-up to the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq — Saddam is a monster (no mention he was OUR monster, we created, armed and supported him) so we have to go take him out. We don’t take out the monster in North Kora, and you know why, he doesn’t have any fucking oil.
We don’t take out the monsters in Israel who allow women to be beaten and publicly humiliated by the Jewish version of the Taliban. We don’t take out the Pakistanis (watch those nukes!) we don’t take out the whole swath of raping, murderous monsters that populate Africa (again, no black gold, Texas tea), we don’t dare prosecute Haiilburton, KBR and Brown and Root for the crimes they have committed, but somehow we are morally and politically responsible for Afghanistan?
Maybe you can tell the women in the rest of those nations, Eric, that they should just shut up and put them in their place.
October 8, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Marc
I think Larry Slade in the “The Iceman Cometh” was right: the only way to make progress in a movement is to where blinders. Woe to us who must see the other side of the issue (let’s hope we don’t end up like Larry)
October 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Marc
make that “wear” blinders, although the “where” is more poetic
October 8, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Eric Kirk
When did it become our responsibility to protect the women of Afghanistan?
When we decided to invade their country.
October 8, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Moonshadow
As Eric said, it became our responsibility when we invaded their country. Not only that but it became the moral thing to do because we so destabilized their country.
October 8, 2009 at 2:13 pm
HumboldtBlue
We destabilized Afghanistan? Really, you mean Afghanistan hasn’t been one step ahead of the bronze age for the past 2500 years? All of the sudden because the forces of freedom have come to protect their corporate interests with a waste of lives, treasure and time is now worth more lives, treasure and time?
Yes we need to get out of Afghanistan, because we aren’t there to promote, empower and defend human rights, and to think otherwise is the height of silliness. Whether or not we stay or leave won’t change a damn thing. Afghani society will still treat women as chattel, except now they do it with the official okey-dokey of Uncle Sam. George Bush called this bullshit “nation building.”
Afghanistan has been nothing more than a useful pawn for this country since the Soviets sent their empire there to die. The idea that women, somewhere are being mistreated is enough for us to provide a military presence means we had better institute a national draft immediately, because while Afghani women may be in the news today, there are 50 or so more countries that are as abominable in their treatment of women.
Get back to me when that ideologically based absolutist position, one held by Code Pink, gets to work.
October 8, 2009 at 5:52 pm
michael
You broke it you bought it shouldn’t apply to nation states.
October 8, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Shane Brinton
If I really thought that using U.S. troops for humanitarian purposes was going to save lives and lay the groundwork for a society that respects the rights of women, I would give the idea more consideration. However, the history of U.S. interventions and occupations has shown that “humanitarianism” is usually a marketing tool to justify imperialism.
I agree that we have a responsibility to the women of Afghanistan, but bombing their houses and shooting their sons is not the way to help them. Ultimately, I expect the U.S. occupation to have the same impact as the Soviet occupation. Extremists will grow stronger and it will take even longer for Afghan democrats and feminists to achieve their goals. It’s time to bring our troops home before the situation gets even worse.
October 8, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Moonshadow
Ummmmm so, Michael, you’re saying that we (the citizens of the USA) do not have a moral duty to repair the damage our leaders may cause on their misadventures? Dubya got us into the present situation in Afghanistan, a situation that has on many levels caused a significant deterioration of living conditions there. It seems to me now that we’re there we should see it through to an end that leaves the Afghanis as whole as they were before Dubya decided to play hero.
October 8, 2009 at 6:55 pm
highboldtage
The Taleban controls as much or more Afghani territory than it did before our invasion eight years ago. Face that fact.
And if we do somehow defeat the Taleban and install democracy, the Afghans will probably vote to subjugate women. As bad as pre-invasion Iraq was in human rights, Iraqi women under Saddam had far more freedom, rights, and educational and economic opportunities than they do now under our democratic puppet government. Face that fact.
Let’s offer asylum to the thousands of Afghanis who have mistakenly aligned themselves with the invader, and asylum to those womens rights activists whose lives will be in danger when we leave and then let’s get the hell out of there.
have a peaceful day,
Bill
October 8, 2009 at 7:00 pm
mresquan
W. may have gotten us in,but he certainly had strong backing from those considered to be on the other side.Both Thompson and Obama,and many other dems backed going into Afghanistan wholeheartedly,and I would suspect that if Bush even hinted that wasn’t going to invade (obviously not a chance of that happening),they would have forced him to act decisively.
October 8, 2009 at 7:17 pm
mresquan
The heroin trade was relatively dead until we decided to bring tearing the place to shreds.
October 8, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Moonshadow
care to offer some evidence in support of your assertion?
October 8, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Moonshadow
Ummmmm . . . Obama backed us going in? He was hiding in the caves there.
The mistake Dubya made was not devoting enough manpower to the search for Obama in Afghanistan.
I’d also add that in the immediate period after we entered Afghanistan conditions did improve in the country as the Taliban was, temporarily at least, pacified.
October 9, 2009 at 5:09 am
Moonshadow
*laugh* I blew it in that reply. That will teach me to write a reply with tired eyes! I mis-read “Obama going in . . . ” as OSAMA going in.
OOOPS! *embarassedblush*
October 9, 2009 at 6:13 pm
michael
Our moral duty (to many places) does not involve force. I agree with Shane and Highboldtage below, but I too question mresquan’s heroin statement (but agree that war is bipartisan). I really do think that trading opiates for consumer goods and “culture” would undermine the Taliban far more than arming warlords and bombing people.
October 12, 2009 at 10:29 am
Kathy at the bookstore
If you are really concerned with what CodePink’s position on this and other issues is, you might go to the source and read their own words and reports.
http://www.codepink4peace.org/
October 12, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Eric Kirk
I’m more interested in the candid statements individual members make when they run into surprises. I know that the activist community has browbeaten Media since this article came out, and she’s backtracking a bit. But at least for a moment she was willing to listen to a somewhat different perspective. That’s a good thing.
I did take the link and it didn’t surprise me. Their web pages are about rallying people to a cause. I wouldn’t expect to find introspection there. I have to look elsewhere for that.
October 12, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Moonshadow
Errrrrr . . . it is MEDEA . . . not Media.
October 12, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Eric Kirk
Yeah, her too. :&)
October 17, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Code Pink nuance redux « Sohum Parlance II
[...] 17, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, War In my previous post about Medea Benjamin’s change of emphasis on Afghanistan, it was suggested here and [...]
January 25, 2011 at 8:30 am
Two Iranian dissidents hanged for making videos « Sohum Parlance II
[...] Progressives in the US have a history to be proud of in many respects, but far too often we are on the wrong side of history in other countries. Code Pink has apparently resolved its brief struggle with reality. [...]