Crooks & Liars: Moving the Goalposts In Afghanistan (Time Magazine cover GRAPHIC photo warning)

Moving the Goalposts In Afghanistan
By Nicole Belle Monday Aug 09, 2010 6:00pm

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/moving-goalposts-afghanistan



It's hard not to cringe at the face of 18 year old Bibi Aisha, whose nose and ears were sliced off under the orders of a Taliban commander for running away from her husband's home. It was a barbaric act, for which there is no defense or excuse.

And I'm sure that Aisha is not alone. The treatment of women in Afghanistan has been notoriously horrendous for centuries, even by Middle Eastern standards. Women have no rights to speak of: they cannot be educated, they must obey their father and then their husband, they have no rights to their children or self. They are secondary citizens.

There is no credible argument to be made that this is fair to Afghan women and that there shouldn't be some effort made to raise awareness of plight of women and work to overturn those attitudes.

But at the same time, it's also incredibly revisionist for Time Magazine to exploit Aisha's tragedy (although she is now living with a host family here in the US and about to undergo reconstructive surgery) and claim that the same fate awaits others if we leave Afghanistan.

Let's be absolutely clear: what happened to Aisha occurred while we were IN Afghanistan. Our presence did absolutely nothing to prevent it. So to claim that more women will meet Aisha's fate if we leave ignores the fact that we could do nothing to save Aisha and any other women who suffered similar abuses already.