> While good for them, basically any other protest march of hundreds of people would just be ignored.
But this is clearly not any other protest march. This is women taking up arms (and braving extreme danger) so that they could step out of their houses, educate their kids etc.
That was also the propaganda used by Laura Bush back in Nov. 17, 2001 to go to war in Afghanistan:
> Text: Laura Bush on Taliban Oppression of Women - Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001 - Following is the text of Laura Bush – giving the weekly radio address normally delivered by President Bush – speaking out on Taliban oppression of women and children inside Afghanistan.
Because the US Federal government derives its power from its member states, it directs its power to places it can actually attempt to change instead of anything in its backyard.
Few protests are ignored when the participants carry antitank missiles and AKs, and presumably a goal of the US occupation was to prevent "civilians" from bearing arms. Maybe a cultural victory...
The regime supported by the USSR lasted several years after losing all Soviet support and with the Taliban getting full Pakistani and US aid. And this ended in a horrific blood bath (not to claim the Soviet-supported regime by itself was anything to write home about).
So there's some incentive for the urban population, especially women, to resist the rise of the Taliban. It should be noted the US has spent twenty years in the nation aligned with the drug lords of what was once the Northern Alliance, a group that could, among other things, could never develop the country. It's not surprising the US could get nowhere.
The Soviet Union supported government of Afghanistan fell very quickly, and only after, Soviet aid was cut in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately the US left the Taliban a huge cache of weapons and equipment, and this Sky video discusses that no women were seen on the streets during their filming as the fundamentalists rapidly take over the country.
I wish the Guardian had a more realistic approach in their choices of 'news' stories, they tend to promote tiny events they are interested in as though they are huge, distorting people's understanding of what is actually occurring
which 'always'? The rotten kleptocracy it appears to be right now (from my cosy European point of view)? The warring tribal zealot-ridden hellhole it was after the Soviet invasion? Or the (apparently) fast-advancing more-or-less liberal democracy it was before the Soviet invasion?
People and countries can change. And people and countries DO change. I think the lesson I've learned from my safe distance these last 20 years is that it is hard to influence the direction in which this change happens, even with the expenditure of blood and treasure. Oh, you can stir shit up, but there's no knowing how it will settle.
[incidentally, it really isn't clear to me why this sort of thing seems to have worked well for the de-nazification of Germany and pacification of Japan]
You say countries change but the only part of Afghanistan that's changed at all is the cities. Once you get out of the cities you're turning the clock back a thousand years.
It was never anything like a "liberal democracy". The fundamental political unit is the tribe and any analysis that does not use the word tribe is misinformed. It's very difficult for someone from the west to understand that a society so different from their own can exist today. It's a pastoral society centuries removed. There is no print media, no radio, no cell phones. Travel is difficult, and only possible some times of year. Most people in Afghanistan have never heard of 9/11 and do not understand the war(s).
https://www.pbs.org/video/pbs-newshour-what-does-911-mean-to...
edit: The comparison to Germany and Japan shows just how out of context Afghanistan is to western eyes. In european terms Afghanistan is pre roman europe. No roads, no laws, no central government, no news, no standing army. By contrast germany was a western country and japan was westernizing very quickly post Meiji.
Hey. So at the end of the 19th century both Germany and Japan where backward agrarian societies. I have read (sorry, no reference) that bigoted westerners considered Japanese people to be lazy and feckless. I repeat, things change.
What? This is extremely wrong. The end of the 19th century is ~1900. Germany and japan were absolutely not backwards agrarian societies at the time. This was post industrial revolution.
Having the Taliban retake the country was inevitable. The US went in there stating flat out that they were not going to stay in the country forever. The Taliban hears this and goes "Oh really? Because we are."
So now all Afghans have to ask themselves. Am I going to back the people who are going to leave in a few years? Even if you hate the Taliban (and a lot of people do), they'll kill you if you oppose them and your allies aren't going to be around to help.
The grand American plan of uniting a bunch of tribes that have been at war with each other of centuries was never going to work either, even if you could find some magical unicorn of a local leader that wasn't hopelessly corrupt.
How large is this Taliban group? Where do they get the weapons ? Are they recruiting local populous where they take grounds (by force or they get many volunteers?)?
I mean, after decades of screw ups in that country and war and destruction, I can't imagine for the majority to wan't to fight more, especially for a group who want sharia law, but maybe I am totally clouded by my European thinking.
The Taliban is a hybrid tribal confederacy and an offshoot of the Pakistani ISI run by the children of the madrassas funded by the gulf states. It's main purpose is preventing Iranian influence via Afghan Shia's.
It is surprising to me that the Taliban, seemingly a fringe and unpopular group even in Afghanistan itself, are so good at clinging to power. But what do I know.
Not entirely surprising. The Taliban is mostly comprised of Afghan refugees who were raised in the madrassas of Pakistan. These were funded by the gulf states and the CIA and controlled by the ISI. With foreign money the Taliban bribes the tribal leaders. The tribe is the fundamental political unit in Afghanistan and always has been. In the early invasion US special forces found every foreign fighter was carrying something like 10k USD.
The 'pitch' is as follows. The Taliban are Afghani's returning home to help their people. They have the legitimacy of islam and bring money to support the locals.
I was going off articles like this one. If people are fleeing in droves, or are kicked out of their towns and ground razed, doesn’t sound like they are the favourites.
Can you explain why you'd attribute this to imperialism? Seems to me that women are finally fighting back, after taking shit from the extreme Islamists for too long. Similar scenes were seen when Kurdish women took up arms against ISIS.
>Corollary: When Rep. Ilhan Omar ("a frequent critic of Israel") says something, understand that the words she says must follow the Koran or she faces execution for blasphemy. For that reason, she should not be a US House member, and certainly not on House committees. Islam and the US constitution are opposing ideologies.
Yeah, you slightly lost yourself there. I mean, by any means of the word, she very much appears to be quite progressive...
And if you do want to go down the route of "For that reason" - we have a much larger issue with a member of the supreme court belonging to the batshit craziness of the handmaid's tale cult.
> Corollary: When Rep. Ilhan Omar ("a frequent critic of Israel") says something, understand that the words she says must follow the Koran or she faces execution for blasphemy. For that reason, she should not be a US House member, and certainly not on House committees. Islam and the US constitution are opposing ideologies.
You were making some… reasonable claims up until this point where you jumped the shark. We’ll ignore for a second she got a divorce which would also have her beheaded in the Koran, and I’ll immediately point out that literally every religion when taken verbatim is incompatible with our constitution. That’s why we have separation of church and state.
Please read the parent post before making assumptions about my understanding of Islam. The parent is speaking in the context of Sharia law as implemented in Afghanistan. If you think a woman can simply divorce her husband and walk away unscathed in Afghanistan I'd suggest you take your own advice and read up on the region before you come across as ignorant.
Can a woman who practices Islam in the US divorce her husband without physical harm? Absolutely. Can a woman who practices Islam be a US representative while abiding by the constitution without physical harm? Absolutely.
More nonsense. There are the usual male-female dynamics at play in any relationship, but this constant falsehood being propogated here about how Islam denies these rights is not just misleading, its the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of the truth.
I repeat, the ability of a wife to divorce her husband is enshrined in Islam. In capital letters, With a bold font.
And yes, that includes Afghanistan.
And yes, I AM from that region (before you bring up that nonsense).
Obviously you are not - as evidenced by the usual hokus pocus anti-Muslim superstitions you're spreading. You're just spreading FUD, possibly spoonfed to you by other even more disreputable sources.
As other posters have said, keep your ignorant falsehoods, FUD and superstitious nonsense ("she would be beheaded" - please ...) to yourself.
Feel free to keep lying to yourself and believe it. Just don't spread it here.
> I repeat, the ability of a wife to divorce her husband is enshrined in Islam. In capital letters, With a bold font.
That is the best kind of lie. It's technically true. Yes a woman is not executed for divorcing a husband. To that point, what you say is correct. But it still really obscures the truth rather than help people see it.
A man can divorce his wife. Easily and fast. NOT the other way around. If the wife remarries without divorce, which may of course be the point, the punishment is indeed death. And yes that's because of the second marriage: sex is assumed if she remarries, and carries punishment of death.
I don't believe the method is specified. So yes you can claim that any particular method of killing that woman is not prescribed, although stoning seems to be generally agreed upon, even if not acted upon, by most of the muslim world. Great. It is definitely prescribed that she be executed.
Yes the GP was slightly off base, but you are painting this backward religion as way nicer than it actually is.
Also worth mentioning, by the way, any divorce assigns all kids to the man. Always. Without exception, even if prenuptial agreement says different (and let's not discuss Shi'a islam).
There's a reason there's an arabic saying it's wiser for a woman to poison her husband than to divorce.
You're deluded. As someone with experience of more than a few Muslim countries, I can categorically say that nothing you're trying to paint has any semblence to reality.
You're pretending that a woman who divorces and remarries is considered to be guilty of adultery.
The Quran, in black and white, disagrees with you. Legal code in every Muslim country I am aware of does not agree with you. And no Muslim society I have any experience of would tolerate what you're trying to push.
In short, you're lying.
> but you are painting this backward religion as way nicer than it actually is.
And this quote shows your agenda and incentive. This is nothing more than bigoted online trolling. You're adding 2 and 2, getting 35, and screaming out loud about it.
You're just rehashing stuff you consume from other equally-excited anti-Muslim bigots, who swap all sorts of fake superstitious nonsense of what Islam actually is (none of which has any connection to reality).
Its sad. Pathetic, sad, and yet oh so predictable.
Whatever your affliction, deal with it on your own time, and in your own space. Hacker News is not the place for flat-earthers and other such-like fakery peddlers.
> You're pretending that a woman who divorces and remarries is considered to be guilty of adultery.
A woman cannot divorce a man. So the situation you're describing is a woman who doesn't divorce and remarries.
This is a fallacy: you're just "misunderstanding" a situation and then describing the outcome of a different one with strong wording.
> And this quote shows your agenda and incentive
And I suppose you attacking me shows your agenda. What is it with people defending 1500 year old texts? They are backward. All of them. Including your favorite one. Including my favorite one. Is that really so controversial? We know better. On all fronts. Better than every religion. Including your favorite one.
Even if I'm indeed a bigot, and perhaps I am, it doesn't pertain to the argument.
A blatant lie. False. Untrue. As I said, you're just a flat-earther.
The real joke is that you're probably unaware of what Islam actually teaches, nor what the law is in practice. You're just regurgitating ragged hand-me-down propaganda sheets. And you've swallowed the kool aid.
Yes, definately a flat-earther ...
> So the situation you're describing is a woman who doesn't divorce and remarries.
No, thats the situation racist Islamophobic bigot #1 tried to insist upon. Do try to keep up.
> Even if I'm indeed a bigot, and perhaps I am
Self awareness is a start. Stick on that path.
> it doesn't pertain to the argument
There really isn't an argument to be had when you and your ilk's "arguments" are 50% complete ignorance and 50% outright deliberate lies. And you are 100% stuck to your bigoted guns.
> A blatant lie. False. Untrue. As I said, you're just a flat-earther.
Problem is, what I find online agrees with me. A man can just divorce, for any reason, at any time. Most but not all sources claim there's a waiting period, some allow instant divorce. Some sources claim it is "discouraged" to go this way.
A woman can ask an imam for a divorce, which then may or may not be granted. There needs to be a reason for the divorce. Most sources seem to indicate this is a fairly general right of people. The man can ask for the same process. The "police"/state can ask for it, at least in some countries/interpretations. Some family members can ask for it, or can ask for it to be denied. And it does seem there are plenty of interpretations of sharia that state it should be flat-out denied if a woman initiates it.
And then there's Shi'a islam, where a right to divorce exists, IF agreed to by the man and woman before the marriage.
So I don't see how what I said as a lie. A man can divorce a woman, a woman cannot (if I add "by herself", would that make you happy?). She can ask an imam to dissolve the marriage, and of course a number of American Imams seem to have started to blindly (not hearing both sides) grant them for a few dollars, which is very funny I must say. Still doesn't change matters.
>We’ll ignore for a second she got a divorce which would also have her beheaded in the Koran
The sentence above was quoted verbatim from your statements, thus your post is misleading at best and lying at worst. If you not an ignorant about the subject, please point exactly and anywhere in the Koran that unequivocally support your statement.
> I’ll immediately point out that literally every religion when taken verbatim is incompatible with our constitution. That’s why we have separation of church and state
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”
“My kingdom is not of this world”
These quotes from Jesus, along with the pages of Paul arguing for faith over religious law have created this separation between church and state.
It is believed by Christians all over the world that the religious laws died with Jesus on the cross.
In this regard, not all religions are created equal.
Islam is an orthopraxy as the Koran, supposedly the world of god, directly dictates laws.
First Vietnam, now Afghanistan. The wealthiest nation with the most powerful military was bested twice by a passionate local force that played the long-game. Iraq is not exactly going well either.
I'm glad that America can return to its isolationist roots and stop policing the world. Export culture, not troops. You simply can't force a country to act the way you want using a military invasion.
If Afghani women want freedoms, I'm glad they are fighting for it themselves. It makes it significantly more authentic (perhaps the only way it can be treated authentically) and will give the Taliban far more pause than the US forcing them to respect women at gunpoint.
This rocks. If the US never invaded, this is the kind of thing we'd hope for. Oppressed people fighting for their own liberation without the intervention of people like Pete Buttigieg hanging a map of Afghanistan's natural resources on his wall.
Wow that article has no clue what it's talking about.
It's claiming a lot of extraneous nonsense based on his Annual Performance report (which are mostly nonsense anyway) bereft of any understanding of the units it's talking about.
That's what those screenshots with text are of. It's possible that those actually they might be an interim performance report based on the deployment, that isn't a full cycle.
I see, as a non-US resident the article seems pretty benign/inconsequential:
"US politician who worked in the military is part of the establishment and the unit he worked with might have had contacts with the intelligence (not necessarily CIA), DEA and US Treasury, news at 11."
This article seems like propaganda trying to say our twenty years at war weren't a complete waste, as we empowered hundreds of women.