http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/20-5
by Tom Hayden
Published on Monday, July 20, 2009 by Huffington Post
Over a decade ago a young woman approached me on the California
Senate floor with a petition against the Taliban. Women are being
repressed, tortured and killed by religious fundamentalists, she
said. I signed on. The Taliban seemed like a Ku Klux Klan aimed at
women. I was disgusted that the State Department and oil companies
would negotiate with them over pipelines, with cursory regard for
women's rights. I still feel that way.
But I had no idea then that I was joining The Feminist Majority in a
coalition with the Pentagon to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Given
the respect I have for Ellie Smeal and Kathy Spillar, among others,
it's still hard to believe that they think Afghan women can be
liberated by an invading, bombing, imprisoning American army. It's
hard to believe that Predators, drones, Special Forces, detention
camps and foreign occupiers are solutions to Taliban fundamentalism.
Even the US-supported Kabul government showed its real character this
year by passing a law requiring women to obey their husbands in
sexual matters, in violation of the country's own constitution and
international norms.
A top United Nations official this month told a Kabul audience "that
violence against women is not being challenged or condemned." This
was eight years following the Bonn Agreement which included human
rights at its core. In northern areas under Western occupation, the
UN report found that in 39 percent of rapes "that perpetrators were
directly linked to power brokers who are, effectively, above the law
and enjoy immunity from arrest as well as immunity from social condemnation."
It's safe to say the Kabul government will not be recognizing any NOW
chapters among its local non-governmental organizations in the
foreseeable future.
The Feminist Majority echoes Democratic Party hawks in claiming that
the liberation of Afghanistan was well underway until the Bush
Administration wandered off into Iraq. But Afghanistan was among the
poorest countries in the world before and after the Bush years, and
will continue to be left impoverished by a Pentagon budget that
expends 90 percent of funds for military occupation. According to the
United Nations, Afghanistan is 174th of 178 countries in its human
development index. One in every four children dies at birth, the
fourth highest child mortality rate in the world. Half of Afghan
children are malnourished, and an estimated 40 per cent of children
die from diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections. Thirteen per
cent of the population have access to safe drinking water and 12 per
cent have access to adequate sanitation. In both Afghanistan and
Pakistan, children are growing up traumatized, malnourished, stunted
and extremely stunted [the categories the United Nations uses]. Life
expectancy for women in "peacetime" is 44, twenty percent below the
global mean.
The Feminist Majority chooses to be uncharacteristically obscure in
advocating more American troops as the solution. Its website speaks
of more "peacekeeping forces" rather than an escalation of the
occupation. They write that "virtually everyone knows that a military
solution alone won't work. Yet, we cannot ignore that security and
the Taliban are among Afghans' top concerns", whatever that means.
They quote an Afghan human rights activist, Sima Simar, who obliquely
says "security must be re-established until the Afghan army and
police can take over." But they fail to note that the current
Pentagon plan for establishing an Afghan security force will take at
least ten more years. Meanwhile, the war continues under the
direction of an American general, Stanley McChrystal, whose career in
Iraq was in clandestine Special Ops, including the supervision of
many extra-judicial killings [according to Bob Woodward's most recent
book]. The real effect of the Pentagon's game plan is to kill Al
Qaeda and Taliban suspects, round up and hold thousands more in
detention camps with no due process, lock Afghanistan into the
Western alliance, and obtain American military bases and pipeline
projects in the region. Women's rights always will be secondary to
military objectives. "Protecting the population", which the Feminist
Majority supports, is counterinsurgency phrasing for keeping the
population surrounded by barbed wire, floodlights, blast walls and
subject to check points and retinal scanners while, a short distance
away, the killing goes on.
As for women's rights, perhaps Condoleeza Rice could be named US
ambassador to Kabul; after all, she's been on Chevron's board and
already has an oil tanker named after her.
Seriously then, what to do about the fate of Afghan women? Ending a
military occupation through a negotiated settlement among countries
in the region, and parties in Afghanistan, is the only way out of
this latest adventure in The Long War. Making any future economic or
diplomatic assistance contingent upon women's rights to health care,
child care, education and dignity should be among the terms for a US
and NATO withdrawal. In all seriousness, top US officials in a future
Kabul embassy could be feminists linked to Afghan women's groups.
Hillary Clinton knows how to be relentless if she chooses. The
struggle will be long and bitter, won in civil society, not on
battlefields. Even if all the Taliban are killed, Afghanistan will be
a deeply patriarchal Muslim country where change will emerge from
outside and inside pressures.
These progressive initiatives could be advanced today by the Obama
administration and Congress as civilian ones, not as cover to solicit
support for deeper military occupation.
The Feminist Majority is being used by the Pentagon to advance its
war aims. Perhaps they believe they are using the Pentagon, though
they don't say it. One result is division and confusion within the
peace movement. In soliciting support from genuine peace groups for
Afghanistan, for example, The Feminist Majority is less than candid
that the funds are linked to the escalation of the war.
The solution is more transparent and thorough discussion at the base
of the peace movement, where the possibility of a feminist coalition
with the Special Forces should be hard to defend.
--
Tom Hayden is a former state senator and leader of Sixties peace,
justice and environmental movements. He currently teaches at
PitzerCollege in Los Angeles. His books include The Port Huron
Statement [new edition], Street Wars and The Zapatista Reader.
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