Yes, Antiseptic - Afghanistan is a small country, a long way away, with which we have little to do. So why should we care about it, or its women ?

Joe

No Joe, Afghanistan has people, some of whom are not women and some of whom are women who are perfectly happy with their lot.

Why should we only care about the ones who are not and ignore the wishes of everybody else, especially when the ones who are not have been only made that way because of outsiders?

Afghan society has been around for a long time. What makes you so arrogantly sure you know so much better about how it should work than they do?

Hi Antiseptic,

Now we're getting somewhere :) By the way, you think of yourself as, generally, being on the Left, don't you ?

So some women are 'perfectly happy with their lot' ? I suppose, when it's all said an done, that's been the case throughout history, that somewhere, some women have always been 'perfectly happy with their lot'.

Well, I'm glad that's sorted. Poirot and Lexi and C. Steele can rest assured now that their sisters in Afghanistan are 'perfectly happy with their lot'.

'Move along, people. Nothing to see here.'

Thank you, Antiseptic, you've made it clear where the Left stands these days. Culture - male domination, but so tastefully 'traditional' - trumps rights, I've got it.

I'll just crawl back to my 'human rights' cave.

Cheers,

Joe

Yes Joe, I'm sure there are some women who are perfectly content in their role and there are probably some men that are not perfectly comfortable in theirs. That's life, really. We fit in as best we can.

But trying to impose a structure that doesn't suit on that mass of independently strong and insular subunits is not going to happen.

It will only lead to people being killed and maimed and a stronger, nastier form of fundamentalism.

They have to be allowed to catch up with the west in their own time, as has happened in Pakistan and Kurdistan and all the other places in that part of the world. Pushing isn't going to work and there are lots of mujahideen in the other Islamic states to help.

Joe,
Antiseptic shows the typical lefty about putting culture before everything. So the women are happy with their lot, like getting an acid bath, sounds good! If the wives in SE Asia don't shape up they get burnt with kero, guess that makes them happy? Years ago a British general in India stopped the practice of burning wives on the husbands funeral pire, simply by hanging a few that did it after he warned them. That stopped a cultural tradition. So sometimes force does work.

It is anti's attitude that is the cause of the problem runner talks about re the abuse of aboriginal women and kids, on his thread.

Hasbeen, we can only hope Afghan troops are sufficient to hold the influence of the Taliban and that if the Yanks keep giving money to the Government, they may have some say in the treatment of the girls there.

Banjo, how many women have been killed since the US started the whole "empowering women" thing?

How many were killed in the same period before that?

Take your time...