On Monday, Josh Rogin reported on a “shadow summit for Afghan women” held in Chicago during the NATO summit there, calling attention to the concern that allied withdrawal from the country will leave women in Afghanistan at the mercy of the grotesquely misogynistic Taliban. Yesterday, Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth followed by lambasting NATO’s seeming lack of attention to human rights, especially for women in Afghanistan.
Roth noted that “many of the world leaders assembled in Chicago — though, notably, not Karzai — spoke eloquently about their commitment to human rights, particularly for women. But the test of that commitment is whether anybody cares enough to put in place a concrete plan to carry it out.” Human rights advocates are worried that when troops leave, the Taliban will work to delete any and all progress on women’s rights. This morning, the Taliban again answered that concern: they will not wait for the troops to leave:
More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday….
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops….
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education said last week that 550 schools in 11 provinces where the Taliban have strong support had been closed down by insurgents.
Perhaps it would be worse if officials pretended to care, because that would create expectations. But it’s worth remembering that, as Jamie Fly wrote in the April edition of COMMENTARY, concern about the treatment of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban predated 9/11:
The year was 1998 and Hollywood was up in arms over a new social cause: the plight of Afghan women under the repressive rule of the Taliban. Mavis Leno, wife of Jay Leno and chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan, told members of Congress, “The U.S. bears some responsibility for the conditions of women in Afghanistan. For years our country provided weapons to the mujahideen groups to fight the Soviets.” Leno and the Feminist Majority pushed an extensive U.S. campaign to delegitimize the Taliban until the rights of female Afghans were recognized.
The Taliban enforced a strict morality code for both men and women, but women and girls bore the brunt of the most brutal repression… It is not surprising that such a moral wasteland came to serve as the staging ground for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as they planned the attacks of 9/11. Bin Laden’s ideology and that of his Taliban hosts sprang from the same vile swamp.
And to that “moral wasteland”–and the security threat it poses–Afghanistan may soon return. Fly argued for reversing cutbacks to Afghan security forces and renewed focus on negotiating with and strengthening the Afghan government, not the Taliban. Roth suggested the two sides “establish an independent mechanism — some sort of national ombudsman — where civilians could file complaints about the use of abusive force, and where officials would be authorized to investigate and, if appropriate, recommend prosecution.” He added that American aid to the Karzai government can be used as leverage.
But he also said that when he talked to officials about it during the NATO summit, everyone liked the idea, and no one expressed the least bit of interest in actually proposing it or fighting for it. The women of Afghanistan won’t soon forget the brief window of opportunity they had, nor will they forget our apparent apathy as it is taken from them.
What do you expect Nato and the US Admin to do about the Taliban's ('Tal-eee-bun' in Obama's culturally sensitive formulation) misogyny? Sensitivity training? n nSome problems require solutions so radical that they take on greater grotesqueness than the problem one is trying to solve. n nTackling this problem means addressing the Islamic precepts underlying misogyny and homophobia. The Taliban is not open to changing their Islam, and the culturally relativistic West is not open to challenging Islam. n nWhere do we go? n n n n
"Our apparent apathy"? It was our lack of apathy that gave Afghan women and children a chance! n nOur withdrawal is unfortunate, but Americans do not support our indefinite garrisoning of Afghanistan. First, our economic situation constrains our military efforts. This is why the 2008 crash and recession were a national security calamity. Second, our various prescriptions for lasting stability in the region without our presence have proven ineffective. Third, even if our help were effective, history has shown that it will be trumped sooner or later by the Afghans' endemic tribalism and corruption. Fourth, as we have found the world over, tribalism and corruption cannot be eliminated by fiat. Even in the Western world, nations like the Scandinavians are the exception when it comes to social consciousness and political integrity. And given that the current world economic slump can arguably laid at the doorstep of America's monstrous toxic derivatives, our own credibility is suspect. n nActually, Afghanistan had a fairly stable evolution from 1933 to 1973. One of its artifacts is the Ring Highway around the country, built by us. It's now a ruin. After 1973, there was turmoil. The government was centrist and nominally reform but utterly corrupt and crony-run. Its unpopularity led to its overthrow by local communists, whose only serious opposition became militant Muslims. When in 1979 the communists were about to be overthrown, the Soviets intervened, and this led to the insurgency that lasted until the Soviets withdrew in 1989. n nAfter a struggle amongst warlords, the Taliban prevailed, and the rest is current events. n nThere's a chronic rift between the majority Pashtuns and the minority, élite Tajiks. The reason Karzai, corrupt as his regime is, remains in power is that he's the only Pashtun the Tajiks will accept and thus the only semblance of national unity. n nThe dilemma for us is, that if we stay, then there will be at best a continuation of the status quo for at least a generation. We cannot rid Afghanistan of its tribalism and corruption; we can only nudge. If we leave, then Afghanistan returns, after Karzai, to Chaosistan, with a probability of the Taliban's returning. n nOf course it's easy to bash Obama's policies there. But I think it would be easy to bash any administration's policies in that region. All we want is for Afghanistan and Pakistan not to be breeding grounds and havens for anti-American jihadi terrorists. Since both these countries are firmly Islamic and thus hopelessly barbaric, how in the world can any administration cope with them? I'm reminded of Nietzsche's aphorism about the tragedy of the ass: "To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off."