Moral crimes

June 30, 2010 4:29 AM

"Sixteen-year-old Sabera, with a pretty yellow head scarf, frets that she is missing school. 'I was about to get engaged, and the boy came to ask me himself, before sending his parents. A lady in our neighbourhood saw us, and called the police,' she explains. She was sentenced to three years but, in an act of mercy, it was shortened to 18 months . . ." The BBC reports from an Afghan women's prison.

According to Afghanistan's Ministry for Women's Affairs, "about half of Afghanistan's 476 women prisoners were detained for 'moral crimes'" -- a broad category that includes "running away from home" (often fleeing domestic violence), "refusing to marry," and "marrying against their family's wishes."

Reporting on a different Afghan prison in 2008, The Independent noted that most of the women there were in prison for being raped.

More: Al Jazeera video from 2007.

posted by Jaltcoh (57 comments total)

B-b-but the Crusades!

B-b-but Abu Ghraib!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:16 AM on June 30, 2010

I was surprised to see that the prison director at the prison featured in the first article not only enjoys the right to "Western" style dress (business suit and no head covering), but was outspoken about the unfairness of the very system she's working within:

"If these women were treated with justice, I don't think 50% of them would be in here. They are here because of problems in the family or personal vendettas."
posted by availablelight at 5:20 AM on June 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

B-b-but the Crusades!

B-b-but Abu Ghraib!

Arabia is not Afghanistan.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:32 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Whew! Good thing we went in there to eliminate the Taliban to preserve women's rights, then!

Money well spent!
posted by Michael Roberts at 5:47 AM on June 30, 2010 [9 favorites]

Arabia is not Afghanistan.

Exactly my point, thank you, The 10th Regiment of Foot. So now we hopefully won't have any obscure "b-b-but Americans do it too" threadjacking attempts like we did in, for example, the recent bush meat thread.

Unless you were a lurker you probably don't remember the extremely annoying "b-b-but Abu Ghraib!" phase Metafilter went thru a few years back.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:03 AM on June 30, 2010

B-b-but the Crusades!

B-b-but Abu Ghraib!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:16 AM on 6/30

Oh, come off it already. The fact that Afghan women are brutalized doesn't justify our laying waste to their entire country. Our occupation of their lands doesn't make their women any safer.

Although our Predator drones do blow women to pieces without regard to their sex, so maybe we really are bringing them equality?
posted by Avenger at 6:07 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

The fact that Afghan women are brutalized doesn't justify our laying waste to their entire country.

Justify??? Not at all what I was implying. And I'll think I'll leave it at that. As you were, Metafilter...
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:13 AM on June 30, 2010

Good thing we went in there to eliminate the Taliban to preserve women's rights, then!

You know we didn't actually go to Afghanistan with the purpose of liberating women or putting a stop to human rights abuses, right?
posted by lullaby at 6:22 AM on June 30, 2010 [4 favorites]

I've always wondered what happens in Afghanistan (and Iraq) when we establish democratic rule and elections and the Afghans turn around and democratically elect the Taliban. We operate on the presumption that everyone hates the Taliban like we do, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
posted by tommasz at 6:32 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

or that the people who show up to vote aren't coerced into the voting for the taliban. a lot of people don't go to vote because they are scared and there's lots of violence at polling stations.

or they don't care, much like in the US. they don't think their vote will make a damn difference because the people with guns will still decide things.
posted by sio42 at 6:34 AM on June 30, 2010

I've always wondered what happens in Afghanistan (and Iraq) when we establish democratic rule and elections and the Afghans turn around and democratically elect the Taliban.

Didn't they debate this during the occupation of Japan after WWII and fear that democratic Japan would either vote itself back into an empire or fall into the hands of the Reds by parliamentary means? In the end the occupying forces and de facto emperor MacArthur erred on the side of allowing the democratic will do more or less as it will (with the exception of the forced purge of some pro-Moscow radicals in the JCP) and neither feared outcome has yet come to reality.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:08 AM on June 30, 2010

I've always wondered what happens in Afghanistan (and Iraq) when we establish democratic rule and elections and the Afghans turn around and democratically elect the Taliban.

I've always wondered how many people think this is even remotely going to happen. It's not. Providing the material and financial support to take an entire country ingrained in the process of dictatorial rule and convincing them to establish democratic order, while not doing anything to actually promote democratic concepts (case in point: not sending women to prison for being raped), would have been out of our means even if we didn't invade Iraq a year later. If we actually allowed total democracy right after the invasion... yeah, the odds are high they would have voted in Taliban members. We are seeing the exact same thing in Palestine, where it is an open U.S. and Israeli government policy to block the importing of anything that the Palestinians could use to become self-sufficient. The result? They rely on Hamas because that's who can get things for them.

Our great failure is that the Taliban's rule was because they were able to provide for the country while also exerting command over it. We have done little to nothing to provide the Afghani people with means of self-sufficiency. This would require building infrastructure. Better schools. Telecommunications. You know, giving them things that they want to keep and ergo wouldn't want the Taliban to come back and take away from them.

This is pretty much why to this day I consider the people who pushed for the war with their fake "the Afghani people! Waaaah" mantras scoffing at stupid, stupid hippies and their silly ideas that this is about securing mineral rights the most vile and disgusting people in my lifetime. They knew they were full of shit and they knew that when it become totally clear they were wrong a few years later, no one would care, least of all them.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:10 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

The article makes the place sound less grim than U.S. prisons.
posted by kozad at 7:12 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Just for comparison's sake, the population of Afghanistan is about 28,000,000. Assuming half are women, that's 14 million women, giving you an incarceration rate of about 3.25 women per 100,000 women residents. The figure in the US, according to this page (citing BJS sources), is 113 women per 100,000 women residents.

So while the stories in articles like this are unremittingly awful, and represent a problem well worth fixing, I don't really think that we are in a great position to point fingers when we are incarcerating women (often for reasons that are just as petty as those in this article) at a rate several magnitudes above that of Afghanistan.
posted by Forktine at 7:19 AM on June 30, 2010 [4 favorites]

> Justify??? Not at all what I was implying. And I'll think I'll leave it at that. As you were, Metafilter...

Don't drop jokey turds at the beginning of the thread and then get frustrated when nobody gets what you're "implying" then.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:25 AM on June 30, 2010 [10 favorites]

You know we didn't actually go to Afghanistan with the purpose of liberating women or putting a stop to human rights abuses, right?

In 100 words or less, can somebody truthfully tell me why we currently are in Afghanistan? I promise this isn't a troll...I genuinely have no idea, given that nobody seems to be outlining how continued occupation would be beneficial to the people of Afghanistan or the United States over the alternative.

_{And believe me, I'd love to be proven wrong}
posted by schmod at 7:29 AM on June 30, 2010

I don't really think that we are in a great position to point fingers when we are incarcerating women (often for reasons that are just as petty as those in this article) at a rate several magnitudes above that of Afghanistan.

I don't understand your reasoning. You apparently think some criminal convictions (of women and men) in the US are "petty." OK. But I'm pretty sure that women in the US aren't being incarcerated for refusing to marry or for being rape victims. But you're saying that since you and I live in the United States, and we can see that our country has problems, we shouldn't call attention to the oppression of women in other countries? Since it's a pretty safe bet that our country is going to continue to have problems for a long, long time, that sounds like a recipe for ignoring the oppression of women in countries other than the United States.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:36 AM on June 30, 2010 [7 favorites]

Maybe countries such as the US and UK could arrange to take these 250 or so "moral crimes" women prisoners as political refugees? Would Afghanistan object to getting rid of them?
posted by pracowity at 7:37 AM on June 30, 2010

schmod - do you want the official reasons given in White House press releases or the reasons other people think?

Like, i would think we are there as part of plan to control natural resources like oil or access to those resources.

however, i'm not well versed on the subject because it makes my head hurt there are so many spins and angles.
posted by sio42 at 7:38 AM on June 30, 2010

You know we didn't actually go to Afghanistan with the purpose of liberating women or putting a stop to human rights abuses, right?

Yeah, I knew that back when the Republicans said it, too.

The real reason we're there is to stabilize the region for an oil pipeline (which isn't working because you don't fix an aquarium with a hammer), to make lots of money for people invested in military supply, to ensure that America feels sufficiently manly, and to remind everybody what will happen if they're small and defenseless and oppose American hegemony.

Also, at this point, because the morons in Washington have made military boosting a political third rail that nobody can ever ever threaten and survive - we're there because we're there, and cutting our losses would involve a certain loss of face for everybody who said it was a good idea. Which is everybody who counts, of course. Because only morons count in today's America.
posted by Michael Roberts at 7:58 AM on June 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

when we are incarcerating women (often for reasons that are just as petty as those in this article)

No.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:59 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

I guess their police and justice system have NOTHING BETTER TO DO IN AFGHANISTAN than arrest women who are seen with men.
posted by jabberjaw at 8:05 AM on June 30, 2010

I'm saying that women in Afghanistan have huge, enormous problems. Incarceration isn't one of them -- it's a manifestation of structural inequalities, but is so vanishingly rare (456 total women prisoners) as to be insignificant compared to other issues.

We, on the other hand, have made the decision to create a carceral society. We toss people in prison for years and years and years for being mentally ill, for self-medicating illegally, for having an addiction, for being poor and in the wrong place, and on and on and on. Just in my immediate circle of friends, I know three people with family members who are in prison because of untreated, or poorly treated, mental health issues. That's just as fucked up and heartless as the situations described in the article.
posted by Forktine at 8:14 AM on June 30, 2010 [5 favorites]

In 100 words or less, can somebody truthfully tell me why we currently are in Afghanistan?

There's no reason for us to be there IMHO, and there never was. Unless someone actually declares war on us and tries to invade us, or unless there's a full scale genocide going on within the country, I don't see how us invading a place is ever going to make anything better anywhere. It just makes a bigger mess.

The reason we start wars is because elements in our society like wars. Weapons/tech fetishists like to try out their new toys; contractors like to make big chunks of cash; energy interests like to control energy sources; religious zealots like to see their One True Religion (tm) spread far and wide. IMO, all of these reasons are dishonorable, morally indefensible, and gross.

I hate al-Qaida as much as the next guy, but the Afghan conflict stinks of collective punishment to me.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:21 AM on June 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

The real reason we're there is to stabilize the region for an oil pipeline (which isn't working because you don't fix an aquarium with a hammer),

yeah this - to control the supply/transport from oil-rich caspian sea border nations and emerging markets in south/east asia
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:25 AM on June 30, 2010

We, on the other hand, have made the decision to create a carceral society. We toss people in prison for years and years and years for being mentally ill, for self-medicating illegally, for having an addiction, for being poor and in the wrong place, and on and on and on. Just in my immediate circle of friends, I know three people with family members who are in prison because of untreated, or poorly treated, mental health issues. That's just as fucked up and heartless as the situations described in the article.

Those are serious problems that should also be discussed. But they're not the same issues as the oppression of women that this article raises. Only 500 Afghan women? I'd be interested in reading a report on just one Afghan woman if it reflects broader issues in the country.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:35 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, no one is incarcerated "for being mentally ill."
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:36 AM on June 30, 2010

Don't be a bunch of dinks, guys. The record is clear: Afghanistan was invaded in the wake of the 9-11 attacks because the Taliban government was sheltering the Al-Qaeda organization which was indisputably responsible for the criminal terrorist attacks on thousands of innocent civilians in NYC and and the US's military HQ in Washington, DC.

The idea that Afghanistan was invaded merely to punish the Taliban for "opposing hegemony," to gain control of the country's natural resources (which at the time of the invasion were negligible to the point of being laughably irrelevant), or to make way for an oil pipeline, is nothing short of insulting to the entire American people, and to the principle that countries have a right to self-defense.

Now that the invasion has occurred, and the Taliban are still poised to control the country in the absence of any opposing local military power, it only makes sense that the US military remain in-country until the nascent Afghan government can fend for itself. To leave at this time would be to resign that country to far worse dictatorial abuses than are described in the linked article, and to allow that country to once again become a staging ground for Al Qaeda or other extremist outlaw groups to train and prepare for further massive criminal attacks on innocent human beings.

The stated commitment to promoting an elected government and democratic principals is not a cover story - it's Realpolitik. Having a stable secular Afghan government with control of its borders and territories would be a huge gain for US (and global) security.

I tire of this reflexive anti-American bigotry that arises and is allowed to stand unchallenged. Don't confuse Iraq and Afghanistan. There could be no debate that the Taliban could not be allowed to protect the Al-Qaeda criminals, who had proven their ability to strike in powerful fashion.

The islamist extremists who you imply are "small and weak and oppose hegemony" are not the anti-heroes you seem to think. These murdering thugs oppose civilization, stability, human rights, and diversity; and will cheerfully and deliberately slaughter innocents in a bald-faced attempt to get the rest of us to cower and accede to their ridiculous demands. I don't at any point claim that the USA's government is true to its propaganda rhetoric, but that does absolve those attacking the USA's residents, and those allied with the attackers, of their sins. Nor does it mean the USA should not be hunting down the organizations and individuals who continue to threaten us, or ensuring that those groups are unable to recover after we go home.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 8:41 AM on June 30, 2010 [16 favorites]

*does NOT absolve*
posted by BigLankyBastard at 8:44 AM on June 30, 2010

Afghanistan was invaded in the wake of the 9-11 attacks because the Taliban government was sheltering the Al-Qaeda organization which was indisputably responsible for the criminal terrorist attacks on thousands of innocent civilians in NYC and and the US's military HQ in Washington, DC.

I remember. I just disagree now, as I did then, that invading Afghanistan was a good solution. Sympathizing/sheltering is a whole different ballgame than *being* the terrorists. It's not like the Taliban government declared war on the US and mobilized a whole bunch of Afghanis to attack us in droves. Frankly, and somewhat understandably, we were all very shaken by 9/11, and very very pissed off. But "someone has to pay, even if it's not the right someone" is just bad policy. And if we were trying to show our might in order to scare the terrorists off, we were seriously misunderstanding the nature of the threat.

The Taliban suck, but there are way, way more sucky governments in the world, and lots of other places where people hate us and sympathize with our enemies. Are we just going to attack everyone, or what?
posted by freecellwizard at 9:01 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, but there was no question that we were after the right someone. There still is no question on that point. The Taliban were (and still are) holding the Afghan people hostage, while cooperating with, and hosting, the organization who did, in fact, invade the USA.

To say the invasion was not a reasonable and necessary response to the 9-11 attacks is to be either uninformed or deliberately obtuse. Freecellwizard, do you suggest it would have been better to leave Al-Qaeda's infrastructure in Afghanistan unmolested and await further inevitable attacks?
posted by BigLankyBastard at 9:11 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Taliban suck, but there are way, way more sucky governments in the world

Would you care to name some of them? The Taliban looked about as bad as it gets to me. It was Saddam Hussein who was not the worst of the Middle Eastern dictators.
posted by orange swan at 9:16 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

The totalitarian character and internal crimes of the Taliban regime was utterly irrelevant to the invasion. The only reason they were ejected from power is they refused to hand over the leaders of the organization which had criminally attacked the USA. The reason we are still working to ensure they stay out of power is because they would continue to allow terrorist criminals to live and prepare in Afghanistan if they were to regain control.

The fact that they are women hating anti-humanity swine is frosting on the cake.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 9:25 AM on June 30, 2010

Would you care to name some of them? The Taliban looked about as bad as it gets to me.

I'd reckon the Burmese junta gives the Taliban a run for their money in that contest. After all, the Burmese government is currently engaging in genocide, which slightly beats out the Talibans brand of horrific human rights abuses.
posted by cmonkey at 9:31 AM on June 30, 2010

> The only reason they were ejected from power is they refused to hand over the leaders of the organization which had criminally attacked the USA.

This is a convenient narrative, but the US didn't mount a massive invasion and occupation just to topple the Taliban. The Taliban offered to negotiate, and the US categorically denied them every good faith opportunity and instead chose to escalate. It's about pipelines, arms, drugs, and long term strategies for resource wars by proxy with the Chinese. Having the thin veneer of toppling the people who offered Al Qaeda some space is really just a way to keep the average news media consumer from going mad with impotent frustration.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:35 AM on June 30, 2010

Burhanistan, what was there to negotiate? From the linked story I don't see any evidence that the Taliban regime had any moral ground on which to deny our demands, or were in any position to temporize.

The AQ thugs had to go. Any "negotiation" on that point would be ipso facto bad faith.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 9:42 AM on June 30, 2010

> Burhanistan, what was there to negotiate?

President Bush sternly rejected a Taliban offer to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a third country as U.S. jets began a second week of bombing yesterday. "They must have not heard. There's no negotiations," the president said.

The US violated the UN Charter pretty savagely. You can call "bad faith" all you want, but that doesn't change the facts. The Bush administration had no intention of doing anything else other than invading and occupying.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:46 AM on June 30, 2010

If the US retains a significant presence beyond the time which the Taliban organization is a real threat, those claiming a non-security agenda to exploit local resources might have a leg to stand on.

As the situation stands, the ongoing long-term security threat posed by the Taliban and their remaining AQ allies more than suffices as a motivation for the US's actions in Afghanistan. To imply more sinister agendas is to adhere to a "convenient," but baseless, anti-American narrative.

If you look at my posting history, you will see I am no pro-Government apologist. I am as skeptical of military action in general as anyone. However, to apply tired leftist tropes to the Afghan situation is to do an injustice to both countries, as well as to damage the credibility of leftist arguments in cases where they are actually valid. Like Iraq.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 9:55 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

BigLankyBastard eponysterically claims the prize for best troll I've seen today.

BLB, in the vanishingly small likelihood you're actually arguing in good faith, how do you explain our resounding success in Afghanistan with the notion that it was a good idea? My stance is not knee-jerk anti-Americanism, it's reality. You really don't fix an aquarium with a hammer, and when you break the damn aquarium it's not because the hammer was too small or there weren't enough hammers.

If you're a hammer salesman, though, well, your mileage will differ.

Also, I'm not sure how The only reason they were ejected from power is they refused to hand over the leaders of the organization which had criminally attacked the USA is different from opposing American hegemony.

Oy. I spent 2002 and ruined my last business trying to talk sense into morons like you, BigLankyBastard, so I'm going to flounce now. Enjoy your brave new world.
posted by Michael Roberts at 9:57 AM on June 30, 2010

> However, to apply tired leftist tropes to the Afghan situation is to do an injustice to both countries

I'm not following how what I'm saying is "leftist" but fine, whatever. Your opinion is clearly set and not of your own devising so you can continue on how you like.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:03 AM on June 30, 2010

oh right...i forgot that the loosely organized group spread out over several middel eastern countries gave us the need to invade afghanistan.

wasn't there something at the time about how the people we wanted weren't in afghanistan anyways but we went ahead with the invasion?
posted by sio42 at 10:19 AM on June 30, 2010

> wasn't there something at the time about how the people we wanted weren't in afghanistan anyways but we went ahead with the invasion?

It wasn't like Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were always texting each other. The latter merely tolerated the former.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:25 AM on June 30, 2010

I never said "resounding success." I never said "good idea." I am talking only of motives and rationales. You and others imply that the invasion was not due to the 9-11 attacks, and was not motivated by a desire to eliminate proven urgent security threats but rather was part of some secret conspiracy to control and exploit local Afghan resources.

If there is such a plot, where's our "resounding" economic benefit from the invasion?

And if you claim you don't know the difference between "eliminating criminal and terrorist threats" and "extending hegemony" you are not at one with the real world.

Nice straw-man attempt, though, MR.

B, the argument/accusation that the US military is a tool of corporate and economic interests is standard (though not universally baseless) leftist rhetoric. If the Taliban had acceded to US demands promptly and the invasion had still gone forward, then we'd be having a different conversation.

sio, if the "people we wanted" weren't in Afghanistan, why did Omar offer to turn them over to third parties? There were camps, and Afghanistan, was at the time, the primary base of operations for AQ.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 10:26 AM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Assuming that the thesis BLB enunciated is true - and I believe most people in the U.S. think so - it still does not mean it hasn't been executed in a spectacularly incompetent way. So incompetent, that I cannot help but wonder if the goals didn't shift at some point.

I followed that war very closely for the first few years (until Iraq), and I was deeply dismayed at how very clearly it was being mishandled. The breaking point was the lead up to the Tora Bora assault to capture OBL. What did the U.S. troops do? They did the one thing which to me said they were not serious - border control with Pakistan. That job, that crucial job, was left to the Pakistanis. Folks, anyone with half a brain, nay, quarter of a brain, knew that that leaky border is what was critical to the ability of the Taliban and AQ to remain an active force, as they could always flee to and recuperate and re-supply in Pakistan, and then come back at us. If we really believed (and I'm skeptical) that OBL was trapped in Afghanistan, (Tora Bora or elsewhere), we should have had the Pakistani border secured with our own troops, made airtight, and then slowly tightened the noose.

We knew back then, as we still know, that there are deep ties between Pakistani secret services and the Taliban. We also know that Pakistani military is unable to secure that border. To leave them at that job, to me indicates that we were not serious about Afghanistan and getting rid of the Taliban. The Tora Bora assault was also incompetent, but that's just icing on the cake.

The same situation prevails today. Unless you simply close down that border 100%, so not a mouse can get through, you are not serious about defeating the Taliban. Yes it's hard. But if you made that a top priority - I said top - you could do that. Because what would be left of the Taliban inside Afghanistan could then be systematically hunted down, in our own sweet time - the Taliban, deprived of their Pakistani base, are not a military threat. But that requires shutting down the border - and we should have done it, even if it took 200K troops. Allowing that border to be leaky while trying to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan is like trying to bail water with a spoon, while not trying to fix the huge gash in a sinking ship. Get your priorities straight - fix the gash - open border with Pakistan, and then you can take your time getting the remaining water out.

There wil be no security and no progress on security in Afghanistan, as long as the border with Pakistan is open. So close it 100%, no matter how hard - because to fail at that, means we fail in Afghanistan.
posted by VikingSword at 10:26 AM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

..then you can take your time..

At the very reasonable rate of two thousand dollars per second.
posted by clarknova at 11:08 AM on June 30, 2010

Name-calling aside, BigLankyBastard is right.
posted by Jaltcoh at 11:11 AM on June 30, 2010

> Name-calling aside, BigLankyBastard is right.

How so?
posted by Burhanistan at 11:19 AM on June 30, 2010

Scroll up...
posted by Jaltcoh at 11:23 AM on June 30, 2010

Although I'm not commenting, I want to say I concur 100% with BigLankyBastard. MR, calling his cogent explanations trolling is disingenuous to say the least. Arguing against the reasoning for the Afghanistan invasion is like arguing against the reasoning for the ability of the US to tax its citizens. You can create strawman arguments that might support your case, but those arguments fail when the overall context and history is accounted for.
The question of whether maintaining the US presence in Afghanistan is a good idea or not is an entirely different argument and the fact that the invasion was justifiable should not be conflated with whether or not the continued presence is justifiable. Just as it was incredibly annoying to see the neo-con conflation of 9/11 and Iraq, it is equally annoying to see the opposite conflation that because the US invaded Iraq on flimsy rationale, so must follow the Afghanistan invasion.
Also, keep in mind that justification for war, decision for war, and execution of that war are three different things. A war can be justified, but not elected (NK sinking of the Cheonan), as well as other comibinations. For Afghanistan the justification of the war was pretty sound, and arguing against that justification doesn't seem to be the most effective strategy if you're intent is to change hearts and minds on the topic of Afghanistan.
posted by forforf at 11:28 AM on June 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

Working to Help a Haven for Afghan Women Blossom
posted by homunculus at 1:38 PM on June 30, 2010

Considering what life is like for a lot of these women, life at home was a different sort of prison. I think I'd rather be in jail than at home waiting for my husband to beat me again.
posted by Foam Pants at 2:44 PM on June 30, 2010

BigLankyBastard wrote: "To say the invasion was not a reasonable and necessary response to the 9-11 attacks is to be either uninformed or deliberately obtuse."

I would agree with you, were it not for the Taliban's 11th hour offer to turn over bin Laden so long as we agreed to put him on trial in a neutral country. It may have not been a sincere offer, but we should have at least given them chance to prove their intentions one way or the other. It's not as if we couldn't have been busy parachuting special forces operatives in and working to secure the border while we waited.

It may have turned out that the threat of force was enough to coerce the Taliban into cooperating. And had they, we wouldn't be looking completely toothless right about now.

Also, while I feel bad for the Afghan women being mistreated, we are not the world's police. We cannot right every wrong in every country on the planet. We should work on solving our own problems before attempting to solve the problems of others through the barrel of a gun.
posted by wierdo at 3:58 PM on June 30, 2010

Don't drop jokey turds at the beginning of the thread and then get frustrated when nobody gets what you're "implying" then.

You really shouldn't be encouraging stupidity just because it's from the same team you barrack for. It was plainly obvious what I meant.

Whenever there is a FPP that wants to shine some light on another part of the world... every single time, within the first ten comments, someone posts the "b-b-but America does it too!" turd. It shits me up the wall. I happened to be lurking when the FPP popped up and I decided to pre-empt the obvious.

Don't fret, I won't make a habit of it. The hivemind doesn't like it.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:21 PM on June 30, 2010

Although I'm not commenting, I want to say

What the hell does that mean?

I'm sure glad you guys unzipped and waved your dicks at each other because god knows we certainly wouldn't want to have a discussion around the plight of the Afghan women being jailed because they've been raped. Yeah, I know we are not "the World's Police" but it so happens that right at the moment we seem to be Afghanistan; it's a shame we can't do anything about the way they treat their female citizens.....yeah I'm not commenting, either.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:31 PM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ceci n'est pas un comment.
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:44 PM on July 1, 2010

HRW report on the plight of women in Afghanistan: Keep Promises to Afghan Women: Extremist Threat to Women Increasing, Government Failing to Protect.
posted by homunculus at 1:38 AM on July 2, 2010

For what its worth the "I'm not commenting" was me forgetting to complete an entire thought before going to the next one. What I meant to convey was that I didn't intend to jump into the commenting fray because BigLankyBastard was explaining things well enough. It wasn't until he got called out as a troll with counter-arguments that conflated several issues that I posted. I should have said "jumping in late" or maybe nothing at all, and I should have previewed better. I cringed when I saw how it was posted, but didn't expect it to be the derailleur that it has become. The jabs are useful prod for me to work better at wording posts, but they probably aren't useful to anyone else participating in the thread.
posted by forforf at 6:33 AM on July 2, 2010