<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><span style="font-style: italic;">And the idea that US occupation of Afghanistan is somehow helping women there is more delusion. Here's an article by Lina Thorne (Chicago chapter of WCW) from the national World Can't Wait website:</span><br><br><table border="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td style="width: 100%;"><table class="contentpaneopen"><tbody><tr><td class="contentheading" width="100%"><a href="http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/home-mainmenu-289/5860-us-war-occupation-deepen-the-bitter-oppression-of-afghanistans-women-this-must-end" class="contentpagetitle">US War, Occupation Deepen the Bitter Oppression of Afghanistan’s Women: This Must End</a>
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Friday, 18 September 2009 06:52 </td>
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<p><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">By Lina Thorne <input src="http://www.worldcantwait.net/images/stories/600afghanistan_woman.jpg" align="right" height="240" type="image" width="300"><br>
</span></i></p>
<div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I want the women of Afghanistan to be liberated. Do I have to support the war?<br>
<br>
Short answer: No. In fact, supporting the war only works against their liberation.<br>
<br>
If you can’t stand the idea of <em><a href="http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/handmaid/">The Handmaid’s Tale</a></em>
come to life; set in a dusty, third world country, and despise the
thought of women being kept out of schools and in large respects the
outright chattel property of their fathers or husbands, then in fact
you must work as hard as you can to end the continuing U.S. occupation
and war against Afghanistan (as well as Iraq, Pakistan, and the
potential war against Iran that still lies “on the table”). The reality
is that <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> continues… While the Taliban were
and are harshly oppressive – they are cut from the same fundamentalist
cloth as the Northern Alliance which the U.S. brought to power, and the
current regime has meant even <a href="http://revcom.us/a/158online/FAQ_pt1-en.html">more acute suffering</a> for most women living in Afghanistan. <br>
<br>
Pro-war imperialists, including everyone from Hilary Clinton and Barack
Obama to the truly laughable fascist types on FOX News have argued that
the war in Afghanistan is necessary to bring the girls of Afghanistan a
chance to be free. This is not about <a href="http://jezebel.com/5339829/hillary-clinton-womens-rights--colluding-with-global-misogyny">Clinton valiantly struggling</a> to put women’s rights on the agenda and sometimes succeeding against all odds. This is not about Obama’s administration “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eleanor-smeal/why-is-the-fmf-refusing-t_b_234595.html">fixing</a>”
mistakes made by the bumbling Bush/Cheney regime. This is about a war
for empire, pure and simple. The rhetoric about the oppression of women
provides a convenient excuse for the continued occupation but does not
justify the war- not from the initiation nor the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/04/world/AP-AS-Afghanistan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=afghan%20wedding%20airstrike&st=cse">present day bombs</a> still raining on wedding parties. <br>
<br>
It’s more than the scandals that reveal that the mercenaries protecting the US embassy in Kabul have been <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112728404">buying and pimping women sex slaves</a>
in Afghanistan (which is, today, a major crossroads for international
“sex trafficking” [read: slave trade]). It’s more than the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/06/afghanistan.law/index.html">recent law</a>
passed in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (the full name of the
country post- U.S. ‘liberation’) that explicitly legalizes marital rape
as well as forcing women to dress and make themselves up (while in the
home, of course) according to their husband’s demands, outlawing the
ability to leave the home without a husband or a good reason to do so,
and automatically granting custody of children to the male relatives
(fathers or grandfathers). It’s not just the fact that the government
has been cobbled together from the same warlords and fundamentalists
that ruled the country before, in a fragile and fraught coalition under
the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/magazine/09Karzai-t.html?scp=7&sq=karzai&st=nyt">corrupt Karzai regime</a>. <br>
<br>
It’s the fact that the whole relationship between the U.S. and the
region (as well as the world) has been about imperialist domination in
one form or another. For instance, Zbignew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s
national security advisor, has <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html">bragged</a>
about “giving the USSR its own Vietnam” in Afghanistan by funding and
arming the Mujahideen in the then pro-Soviet Afghanistan in 1979. The
Mujahideen, of course, is the movement that eventually overthrew the
government of Afghanistan, gave bin Laden his political start, and
evolved into the Taliban of Afghanistan. The entire war on Afghanistan
was, in fact, <a href="http://revcom.us/a/145/afghanistan-en.html">conceived before 9/11</a> at least in part to address the needed stability in order to build an oil pipeline across the country (see also: <a href="http://revcom.us/a/146/afghanistan-pt2-en.html">Parts 2</a> and <a href="http://revcom.us/a/147/afghanistan_pt3-en.html">3</a> of the series by Larry Everest: "A War for Empire—Not a “Good War” Gone Bad").<br>
<br>
When we marched in the streets in 2001 against the bombing of
Afghanistan, we not only chanted “our grief is not a cry for war” but
also, “bin Laden, Saddam, Pinochet: all created by the CIA” (perhaps a
little over-simplified, but a good teaching chant!). The hysterics in
the aftermath of 9/11 were designed to focus the grief and anger
without regard for history into blind support of Bush’s crusade –
which, as we know, didn’t stop at Afghanistan, and had larger goals
than Iraq. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">This lopsided
relationship of domination should not be bandaged or sustained by
diplomacy or by the “international community.” It must be broken, and
the people of Afghanistan must choose their own destiny. The more
clearly we reject the brutality of “our own” country’s occupations (and
airstrikes against countries the U.S. hasn’t declared war on, like
Pakistan), the more clearly we can show the people of Afghanistan that
the choice for them isn’t between death from above and puppets in Kabul
vs. the known vicious repression of the Taliban; that there is <a href="http://revcom.us/avakian/anotherway/">another way</a> for the people to fight, and another goal to fight for. </span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The women of
Afghanistan cannot be liberated as the whole nation is subjugated,
ground up, and bombed. As the Revolutionary Association of the Women of
Afghanistan (RAWA) <a href="http://www.rawa.org/events/sevenyear_e.htm">courageously wrote</a>
on the anniversary of the invasion last year: “The path of the
freedom-fighters of our country without doubt, will be very complex,
difficult and bloody; but if our demand is to be freed from the chains
of the slavery of foreigners and their Talib and Jehadi lackeys, we
should not fear trial or death to become triumphant.” <br>
<br>
This is not a time to “wait and see” what happens. It has been far too long, and far too many have died. </span></div>
<p> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><br><br><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div><strong> </strong><em></em><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Stop</span> thinking like an American, <br>Start thinking about humanity!<br></span>Read <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Revolution</span> at www.revcom.us</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 127, 64); font-weight: bold;"></span></div></div></div><br><br>--- On <b>Sat, 10/10/09, Mike Kirk <i><mjkirk12@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Mike Kirk <mjkirk12@yahoo.com><br>Subject: [CitizensTruth] Peace - Nobelian or Orwellian?<br>To: citizenstruth@six.pairlist.net<br>Date:
Saturday, October 10, 2009, 1:04 PM<br><br><div id="yiv704939782"><style type="text/css"><!--#yiv704939782 DIV {margin:0px;}--></style><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Nobel War Prize </span>
Posted By <span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul Craig Roberts</span> On October 9, 2009 @ 11:00 pm<br><br>
It took 25 years longer than George Orwell thought for the slogans of 1984 to<br>
become reality..<br>
<br>
"War Is Peace," "Freedom Is Slavery," "Ignorance Is Strength.."<br>
<br>
I would add, "Lie Is Truth."<br>
<br>
The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the<br>
person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and<br>
continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government<br>
demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation<br>
treaty.<br>
<br>
The Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjørn Jagland said, "Only very rarely has a<br>
person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its<br>
people hope for a better future."<br>
<br>
Obama, the committee gushed, has created "a new climate in international<br>
politics."<br>
<br>
Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead<br>
ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the<br>
Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama's "war of necessity"<br>
drones on indeterminably.<br>
<br>
No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantánamo torture<br>
prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring.<br>
Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil<br>
liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania's "war on<br>
terror."<br>
<br>
Apparently, the Nobel committee is suffering from the delusion that, being a<br>
minority, Obama is going to put a stop to Western hegemony over darker-skinned<br>
peoples.<br>
<br>
The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama's rhetoric<br>
to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war. We can all hope that it<br>
works. But the more likely result is that the award has made "War Is Peace" the<br>
reality.<br>
<br>
Obama has done nothing to hold the criminal Bush regime to account, and the<br>
Obama administration has bribed and threatened the Palestinian Authority to go<br>
along with the US/Israeli plan to deep-six the UN's Goldstone Report on Israeli<br>
war crimes committed during Israel's inhuman military attack on the defenseless<br>
civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto.<br>
<br>
The US Ministry of Truth is delivering the Obama administration's propaganda<br>
that Iran only notified the IAEA of its "secret" new nuclear facility because<br>
Iran discovered that US intelligence had discovered the "secret" facility. This<br>
propaganda is designed to undercut the fact of Iran's compliance with the<br>
Safeguards Agreement and to continue the momentum for a military attack on Iran.<br>
<br>
The Nobel committee has placed all its hopes on a bit of skin color.<br>
<br>
"War Is Peace" is now the position of the formerly antiwar organization, Code<br>
Pink. Code Pink has decided that women's rights are worth a war in Afghanistan.<br>
<br>
When justifications for war become almost endless — oil, hegemony, women's<br>
rights, democracy, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to al-Qaeda, and protecting<br>
against terrorists — war becomes the path to peace.<br>
<br>
The Nobel committee has bestowed the prestige of its Peace Prize on Newspeak and<br>
Doublethink.<br>
</div></div></div><br>-----Inline Attachment Follows-----<br><br><div class="plainMail">_______________________________________________<br>CitizensTruth mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:CitizensTruth@six.pairlist.net" href="/mc/compose?to=CitizensTruth@six.pairlist.net">CitizensTruth@six.pairlist.net</a><br><a href="http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth" target="_blank">http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/citizenstruth</a><br>website: <a href="http://citizenstruth.info" target="_blank">http://citizenstruth.info</a><br></div></blockquote></td></tr></table><br>