…and it's not going to be over any time soon, it seems.
President Obama invoked eerily W-like rhetoric in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech today. Granted, his inflections were more subtle than Bush's; one sees easily that Obama's view of the word "evil" is not accompanied by a loop of "Night on Bald Mountain" playing in his head. Obama's definition of a "just war" is not one that rests on the shoulders of inflated white-American entitlement/hubris, but rather on the history of the species. Still, it's unsettling to know that Obama was granted the world's most important and significant and historic prize ever only a week after he announced a shift into fifth gear in the Afghan war.
But Obama has always said Afghanistan is the war we should have been fighting instead of the war in Iraq. It is the was that should have logically focused our country's attentions swiftly after the attack on 9/11. This is the opinion he maintained throughout his campaign.
I agreed with that position, which is one of the reasons I voted for him. I don't know if I agree with the rhetoric "just war," but logical war certainly sits well with me. Especially considering the way of life that terrorists fight their "jihads" to maintain.
That way of life includes the appalling treatment of women under Taliban rule. Other feminists support Obama's commitment to the surge for many of the same reasons.
But the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan, according to "Zoya," (her name has been changed to protect her) a member of The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has remained largely unchanged since the American and NATO occupation of Afghanistan. Says Zoya,
[…]rape and domestic violence against women, [is happening] under the domination of the United States. It's a time when thousands of troops are present. It's a time that [troops and groups from] more than 40 foreign countries are inside the country. […]These things are [still] happening daily. This is the proof that America cannot do anything. The only solution – that RAWA was always saying – is that domestic violence [always depends] on political situations. It very much depends and relates to that. So as long as we don't have a democratic government, who cares for women's rights, how can we expect rights and the liberation of women?
Hopefully, leaving a lasting, sustainable democratic government in Afghanistan, one that would protect the rights of women, is one goal of this war. But Zoya reminds us that the American government empowered the extremist factions that perpetuate the mistreatment of women and terrorism in her country. Disarming them is the first step:
If you cannot to help us, leave us. But if you want to help us, the first help is to take all these fundamentalists, these viruses that the United States government created for Afghanistan.
Watch Zoya's interview on Grit TV here:
