Marilyn shepherd “Afghan women are not getting any better deal you silly twerp.”

…. “I think you live in fantasy land mate. It might be safe for a few women in Kabul but even women MP's couldn't be seen in public without being threatened with death.”

Well what can a silly twerp and fantasist say

Try this

Background reading http://www.un.org/events/women/2002/sit.htm

Someone is doing a lot for Afghani women, but Marilyn Shepherd thinks she knows better.

Both

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/crisis/download/afghanwomen.pdf

http://usawc.state.gov/

suggest someone is doing something "positive"

and

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i4Lt27OFrzdDvdURAXCgBqDXIkhA

suggests something positive is happening.

But Marilyn Shepherd know more than anyone else, we are just silly twerps.

Following the liberalization of Afghanistan in 1959, under the Monarchy, women were no longer required to wear the burkah and allowed to study up to and including University level.

Following the first communist coup (1973) then the second communist coup (the Moscow faction -1978) then the invasion by USSR (1979) Afghanistan became a charnel house of repression, only to sink deeper into even greater repression when the Taliban took power following the Russia crawl out.

And now Marilyn thinks things are bad.

Above and beyond the material aid, if one thing exists, for all Afghanis and particularly for women, which was not available for many years, before the west removed the Taliban, it is simple

Hope.

So you cannot eat hope.

You cannot keep warm with hope.

Children will still get sick, regardless of how much hope they have.

But for all its inadequacies, to live without hope is the cruelest torture possible, compared to living with it.

But I am a silly twerp, living in fantasy land. What could I possibly know about hope?

I would modestly suggest, a hell of a lot more than Marilyn Shepherd.

Footnote,
Marilyn, you have had your free kick. Call me names again and I will respond in kind.

Six years after the departure of the repressive Taleban this is the paradox of women in Afghanistan. They now have a say and a position under the country's constitution. But they have to work in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation
In a country where for the last six years there are many claims regarding “democracy”, “human rights”, and “freedom of press” An Afghan court sentenced Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, a reporter with the Jahan-e Now daily paper, to death on Tuesday after he was found guilty of blasphemy, a court official said.
Kambakhsh was detained three months ago after complaints from some of his university classmates for allegedly mocking Islam and the Koran, and for distributing an article which said the Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women.
"That is all that the government does - send a letter by mail once every month saying my life is under threat. There isn't talk of even providing security," says the feisty parliamentarian and mother of three daughters.>> She is one of six MPs getting such a letter these days.
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, for example, alone documented over 1,500 cases of atrocities against women last year
Amnesty International calls on the government of Afghanistan and its international partners to reaffirm their commitment to protect the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan in accordance with international human rights law and standards. Access to education, in conditions of safety and security, is essential for realising the human rights of girls. In Afghanistan, many girls and women still live under daily threat for attending a school or teaching in one. Their courage in the face of terrible odds is a reminder that the struggle for the right to education is being fought daily in many communities in Afghanistan.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

This is old fogy strategic thinking on the part of a former diplomat. For any nation that is already fighting its enemy by means of military operations to abandon the latter and open instead the door of diplomacy, is to admit defeat. And hence negotiate with its now more emboldened and confident enemy from a position of weakness. In such conditions of military “surrendering”, especially to a religiously inspired fanatic enemy, it would be utterly foolish to consider that such a nation, or a coalition of nations as presently in Afghanistan, could achieve any of its initial goals through diplomacy other than its conditions of “surrender”, is to make a mockery of the art of Talleyrand

Bruce Haigh’s proposals about Afghanistan have sprang from a strategically barren soil.

http://kotzabasis1.blogspot.co

I'm sorry the link is: http://kotzabasis1.blogspot.com

Col I actually thought it best to ask Afghans rather than rely on western propaganda.

I'm still thinking of doing a thread on "Dirty Money, Dirty Tricks and the CIA"

It occurs to me that you cannot budget 'bribe money' or 'gun money' for small governments who can help you in getting a pipeline or some other resource.. so..where would the money come from ?

DRUGS... is the most likely candidate.

I often wonder why, after all the time in Afghanistan, they have not completely irradicated all the opium poppies 'en masse'...
They seem to be 'holding back' and the justification is "Oh.. we can't do that or we will lose the hearts and minds of important allies"

...which raises questions about the morality of being there at all.

I can only speculate, but it seems that 'morality' is not what Afghanistan is about, its 'interests' and the sub plots of morality take second place to the big picture of 'interests'...

1/ If we destroy all the opium poppies.. allies become enemies.
2/ If we leave them..and leave afghanistan, they ALL become our enemies, and Al Qaeda is back in business training terrorists to kill us.
3/ Once the Taliban get back in power... the non Pashtun minorities will whine 'persecution.help us, help us PUH-lease' but when we save them, they are back in the opium business.

4/ In all of this, we are bound to the USA by alliance..and without that alliance, we are just dead meat.

John 3:16 looks mighty good right now :)