OMNI
AFGHANISTAN NEWSLETTER #26,
OCTOBER 14, 2021.
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice
(#8 April 15, 2011; #9 June 10, 2011;
#10 July 3, 2011; #11 July 13, 2011; #12
Sept. 5, 2011; #13 Oct. 2, 2011; #14 Oct. 15, 2011; #15 Feb. 14, 2012 ; #16
April 27, 2012; #17 May 3, 2012; #18 Oct. 20, 2012; #19 Jan. 14, 2013; #20
August 17, 2013; #21, Feb. 4, 2014; #22, Feb. 22, 2015; #23, August 22, 2017;
#24, Dec. 27, 2020; #25, August 22, 2021)
Contribute
to OMNI: www.omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS #26, October 14, 2021
Historical
Timeline of Afghanistan
Farah
Stockman. What was the War about? Profiteering and Corruption.
UN
News Wire 10-13, Taliban and Women
Julie
Hollar, Failure of US Mainstream Media in Reporting on Women
Brian
Terrell, US’ Longest War Not Over
Tom
Engelhardt, Fall of the US Empire
TEXTS
Historical Timeline of Afghanistan 9-1-21
From PBS forwarded by Justice Initiative
hmcgray+earthlink.net@ccsend.com via uark.onmicrosoft.com
Published by PBS on May 4, 2011 12:00 PM
EDT, Updated on Aug 30, 2021 5:27 PM EDT
Note: Below please find a timeline from PBS
regarding the history of Afghanistan. This will be followed by a history of the
United States' 20 year war in Afghanistan.
Heather Gray, September 1, 2021, Justice
Initiative
The land that is now Afghanistan has a
long history of domination by foreign conquerors and strife among internally
warring factions. At the gateway between Asia and Europe, this land was
conquered by Darius I of Babylonia circa 500 B.C., and Alexander the Great of
Macedonia in 329 B.C., among others.
Mahmud of Ghazni, an 11th century
conqueror who created an empire from Iran to India, is considered the greatest
of Afghanistan's conquerors.
Genghis Khan took over the territory in
the 13th century, but it wasn't until the 1700s that the area was united as a
single country. By 1870, after the area had been invaded by various Arab
conquerors, Islam had taken root.
During the 19th century, Britain,
looking to protect its Indian empire from Russia, attempted to annex
Afghanistan, resulting in a series of British-Afghan Wars (1838-42, 1878-80,
1919-21).
1921
The British, beleaguered in the wake of
World War I, are defeated in the Third British-Afghan War (1919-21), and
Afghanistan becomes an independent nation. Concerned that Afghanistan has
fallen behind the rest of the world, Amir Amanullah Khan begins a rigorous
campaign of socioeconomic reform.
1926
Amanullah declares Afghanistan a
monarchy, rather than an emirate, and proclaims himself king. He launches a
series of modernization plans and attempts to limit the power of the Loya
Jirga, the National Council. Critics, frustrated by Amanullah's policies, take
up arms in 1928 and by 1929, the king abdicates and leaves the country.
1933
Zahir Shah becomes king. The new king
brings a semblance of stability to the country and he rules for the next 40
years.
1934
The United States formally recognizes
Afghanistan.
1947
Britain withdraws from India, creating
the predominantly Hindu but secular state of India and the Islamic state of
Pakistan. The nation of Pakistan includes a long, largely uncontrollable,
border with Afghanistan.
1953
The pro-Soviet Gen. Mohammed Daoud Khan,
cousin of the king, becomes prime minister and looks to the communist nation for
economic and military assistance. He also introduces a number of social reforms
including allowing women a more public presence.
1956
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agrees
to help Afghanistan, and the two countries become close allies.
1957
As part of Daoud's reforms, women are
allowed to attend university and enter the workforce.
1965
The Afghan Communist Party secretly
forms. The group's principal leaders are Babrak Karmal and Nur Mohammad Taraki.
1973
Khan overthrows the last king, Mohammed
Zahir Shah, in a military coup. Khan's regime, the People's Democratic Party of
Afghanistan, comes to power. Khan abolishes the monarchy and names himself
president. The Republic of Afghanistan is established with firm ties to the
USSR.
1975-1977
Khan proposes a new constitution that
grants women rights and works to modernize the largely communist state. He also
cracks down on opponents, forcing many suspected of not supporting Khan out of
the government.
1978
Khan is killed in a communist coup. Nur
Mohammad Taraki, one of the founding members of the Afghan Communist Party,
takes control of the country as president, and Babrak Karmal is named deputy
prime minister. They proclaim independence from Soviet influence, and declare
their policies to be based on Islamic principles, Afghan nationalism and
socioeconomic justice. Taraki signs a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union.
But a rivalry between Taraki and Hafizullah Amin, another influential communist
leader, leads to fighting between the two sides.
At the same time, conservative Islamic
and ethnic leaders who objected to social changes introduced by Khan begin an
armed revolt in the countryside. In June, the guerrilla movement Mujahadeen is
created to battle the Soviet-backed government.
1979
American Ambassador Adolph Dubs is
killed. The United States cuts off assistance to Afghanistan. A power struggle
between Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin begins. Taraki is
killed on Sept. 14 in a confrontation with Amin supporters.
The USSR invades Afghanistan on Dec. 24
to bolster the faltering communist regime. On Dec. 27, Amin and many of his
followers are executed. Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal becomes prime
minister. Widespread opposition to Karmal and the Soviets spawns violent public
demonstrations.
By early 1980, the Mujahadeen rebels
have united against Soviet invaders and the USSR-backed Afghan Army.
1982
Some 2.8 million Afghans have fled from
the war to Pakistan, and another 1.5 million have fled to Iran. Afghan
guerrillas gain control of rural areas, and Soviet troops hold urban areas.
1984
Although he claims to have traveled to
Afghanistan immediately after the Soviet invasion, Saudi Islamist Osama bin
Laden makes his first documented trip to Afghanistan to aid anti-Soviet
fighters.
The United Nations investigates reported
human rights violations in Afghanistan.
1986
The Mujahadeen are receiving arms from
the United States, Britain and China via Pakistan.
Withdrawal of six Soviet regiments from
Afghanistan began October 15, 1986. This official Soviet picture shows units of
the first tank regiment to leave the country beginning their withdrawal. Photo
provided by REUTERS/APN
1988
In September, Osama bin Laden and 15
other Islamists form the group al-Qaida, or "the base", to continue
their jihad, or holy war, against the Soviets and other who they say oppose
their goal of a pure nation governed by Islam. With their belief that the
Soviet's faltering war in Afghanistan was directly attributable to their
fighting, they claim victory in their first battle, but also begin to shift
their focus to America, saying the remaining superpower is the main obstacle to
the establishment of a state based on Islam.
1989
The U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the
Soviet Union sign peace accords in Geneva guaranteeing Afghan independence and
the withdrawal of 100,000 Soviet troops. Following Soviet withdrawal, the
Mujahadeen continue their resistance against the Soviet-backed regime of
communist president Dr. Mohammad Najibullah, who had been elected president of
the puppet Soviet state in 1986. Afghan guerrillas name Sibhatullah Mojadidi as
head of their exiled government.
1992
The Mujahadeen and other rebel groups,
with the aid of turncoat government troops, storm the capital, Kabul, and oust
Najibullah from power. Ahmad Shah Masood, legendary guerrilla leader, leads the
troops into the capital. The United Nations offers protection to Najibullah.
The Mujahadeen, a group already beginning to fracture as warlords fight over
the future of Afghanistan, form a largely Islamic state with professor
Burhannudin Rabbani as president.
1995
Newly formed Islamic militia, the
Taliban, rises to power on promises of peace. Most Afghans, exhausted by years
of drought, famine and war, approve of the Taliban for upholding traditional
Islamic values. The Taliban outlaw cultivation of poppies for the opium trade,
crack down on crime, and curtail the education and employment of women. Women
are required to be fully veiled and are not allowed outside alone. Islamic law
is enforced via public executions and amputations. The United States refuses to
recognize the authority of the Taliban.
1995-1999
Continuing drought devastates farmers
and makes many rural areas uninhabitable. More than 1 million Afghans flee to
neighboring Pakistan, where they languish in squalid refugee camps.
1997
The Taliban publicly executes
Najibullah.
Ethnic groups in the north, under
Masood's Northern Alliance, and the south, aided in part by Hamid Karzai,
continue to battle the Taliban for control of the country.
1998
Following al-Qaida's bombings of two
American embassies in Africa, President Clinton orders cruise missile attacks
against bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. The attacks miss the Saudi
and other leaders of the terrorist group.
2000
By now considered an international
terrorist, bin Laden is widely believed to be hiding in Afghanistan, where he
is cultivating thousands of followers in terrorist training camps. The United
States demands that bin Laden be extradited to stand trial for the embassy
bombings. The Taliban decline to extradite him. The United Nations punishes
Afghanistan with sanctions restricting trade and economic development.
March 2001
Ignoring international protests, the
Taliban carry out their threat to destroy Buddhist statues in Bamiyan,
Afghanistan, saying they are an affront to Islam.
September 4, 2001
A month after arresting them, the
Taliban put eight international aid workers on trial for spreading
Christianity. Under Taliban rule, proselytizing is punishable by death. The
group is held in various Afghan prisons for months and finally released Nov.
15.
September 9, 2001
Masood, still head of the Northern
Alliance and the nation's top insurgent, is killed by assassins posing as
journalists.
September 11, 2001
Hijackers commandeer four commercial
airplanes and crash them into the World Trade Center Towers in New York, the
Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands.
Days later, U.S. officials say bin Laden, the Saudi exile believed to be hiding
in Afghanistan, is the prime suspect in the attack.
A fireman walks amongst the rubble and
the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center 11 October 2001 in New York.
An interfaith ceremony was held at ground zero in conjunction with the one
month anniversary of the attacks, marked by the short prayer service and a
moment of silence at 8:48am. Photo GARY FRIEDMAN/AFP/Getty Images
WATCH: President George W. Bush's
address to the nation after September 11, 2001 attacks
October 7, 2001
Following unanswered demands that the
Taliban turn over bin Laden, U.S. and British forces launch airstrikes against
targets in Afghanistan. American warplanes start to bomb Taliban targets and
bases reportedly belonging to the al-Qaida network. The Taliban proclaim they
are ready for jihad.
November 13, 2001
After weeks of intense fighting with
Taliban troops, the Northern Alliance enters Kabul. The retreating Taliban flee
southward toward Kandahar.
December 7, 2001
Taliban fighters abandon their final
stronghold in Kandahar as the militia group's hold on Afghanistan continues to
disintegrate. Two days later, Taliban leaders surrender the group's final
Afghan territory, the province of Zabul. The move leads the Pakistan-based
Afghan Islamic Press to declare "the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan
has totally ended."
December 22, 2001
Hamid Karzai, a royalist and ethnic
Pashtun, is sworn in as the leader of the interim government in Afghanistan.
Karzai entered Afghanistan after living in exile for years in neighboring
Pakistan. At the U.N.-sponsored conference to determine an interim government,
Karzai already has the support of the United States and by the end of the
conference is elected leader of the six-month government.
Afghanistan Interim Authority Chairman
Hamid Karzai (2nd from R) speaks while the Afghanistan flag blows in the wind
during the official flag raising event at the Afghanistan Embassy in
Washington, January 28, 2001. Joining Karzai are U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage (far L) and Afghanistan Charge d'affairs Haron Amin (far R).
Photo by Larry Downing LSD/ME/REUTERS
2002
In June, the Loya Jirga, or grand
council, elects U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai as interim leader. Karzai chooses the
members of his government who will serve until 2004, when the government is
required to organize elections.
2003
Amid increased violence, NATO takes over
security in Kabul in August. The effort is the security organization's
first-ever commitment outside of Europe.
January 2004
The Loya Jirga adopts a new constitution
following input from nearly 500,000 Afghans, some of whom participate in public
meetings in villages. The new constitution calls for a president and two vice
presidents, but the office of prime minister is removed at the last minute. The
official languages, according to the constitution, are Pashto and Dari. Also,
the new constitution calls for equality for women.
October 2004
Presidential elections are held. More
than 10.5 million Afghans register to vote and choose among 18 presidential
candidates, including interim leader Karzai. Karzai is elected with 55 percent
of the vote.
2005
The nation holds its first parliamentary
elections in more than 30 years. The peaceful vote leads to the parliament's
first meeting in December.
2006
Amid continuing fighting between Taliban
and al-Qaida fighters and the Afghan government forces, NATO expands its
peacekeeping operation to the southern portion of the country. After the forces
take over from American-led troops, Taliban fighters launch a bloody wave of
suicide attacks and raids against the international troops.
2007
The Afghan government and NATO confirm
that Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah was killed during a U.S.-led operation
in southern Afghanistan.
2008
The international community pledges more
than $15 billion in aid to Afghanistan at a donors' conference in Paris, while
Afghan President Hamid Karzai promises to fight corruption in the government.
2009
President Barack Obama names Richard
Holbrooke as a special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Obama announces a
new strategy for the Afghanistan war that would dispatch more military and
civilian trainers to the country, in addition to the 17,000 more combat troops
he previously ordered. The strategy also includes assistance to Pakistan in its
fight against militants.
2010
President Barack Obama accepts Gen.
Stanley McChrystal's resignation as the top commander in Afghanistan, over
critical comments he made in a Rolling Stone article, and nominates Gen. David
Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, as his replacement.
2011
U.S. forces overtake a compound in
Abbottabad, Pakistan, and kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on May 2 local
time. President Obama Announces Osama
Bin Laden Killed in Pakistan
2012
President Hamid Karzai calls for
American forces to leave Afghan villages and pull back to their bases after a
U.S. soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians inside their homes.
2013
The Afghan army takes over all military
and security operations from NATO forces.
May 2014
Obama announces timetable for
significantly reducing U.S. troop sizes in Afghanistan by 2016.
September 2014
Ashraf Ghani becomes president of
Afghanistan in September after two rounds of voting, claims of election fraud
and a power-sharing agreement with main rival Abdullah Abdullah.
December 2014
NATO officially ends its combat mission
in Afghanistan. U.S.-led NATO troops remain to train and advise Afghan forces.
October 15, 2015
Obama abandons plan to withdraw U.S.
forces by the end of his presidency and maintains 5,500 troops in Afghanistan
when he leaves office in 2017.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (R)
listens as President Barack Obama announces plans to slow the withdrawal of
U.S. troops from Afghanistan, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington
October 15, 2015. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS
August
21, 2017
Trump commits to continued military
involvement to prevent emergence of "a vacuum for terrorists."
February
2019
U.S. and Taliban sign agreement on a
peace deal that would serve as the preliminary terms for the U.S. withdrawal
from the country by May 2021.
September
2019
Trump calls off peace talks after U.S.
soldier is killed in a Taliban attack.
November
2020
U.S. announces plans to cut U.S. troop
size in half - down to 2,500 by January - days before Biden was inaugurated
April
2021
Biden announces aim to complete U.S.
troop withdrawal by 9/11.
July
5, 2021
U.S. leaves Bagram airfield without
telling the base's new Afghan commander.
August
10, 2021
White House says Taliban takeover
"is not inevitable" following the U.S.' speedy withdrawal from the
country.
A Taliban fighter walks past a beauty
salon with images of women defaced using a spray paint in Shar-e-Naw in Kabul
on August 18, 2021. Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images
August 15, 2021
The Afghanistan government collapses as
the Taliban takes over Kabul.
August 26, 2021
Two suicide bombings occur outside the
Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans try to flee the country following the
Taliban's takeover. The bombings killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S.
troops. The extremist group ISIS-K, the affiliate of the terror group ISIS,
which uses the "K" to reference an old name for Afghanistan,
Khorasan, claimed responsibility for the explosions. That group first appeared
in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014. Aug. 26 is the deadliest day for American
troops in the country since 2011.
In a speech from the White House that
evening, President Joe Biden does not reverse course on the Aug. 31 withdrawal
date. In a speech, he vows to retaliate against the perpetrators of the attack:
"We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to make
you pay."
August 30, 2021
The U.S. transports a final contingent
of troops from Kabul Airport, officially ending America's longest war.
The Pentagon says some Americans were
unable to leave and will have to rely on "diplomatic channels" to
exit the country.
Gray & Associates, PO Box 8291,
Atlanta, GA 31106
Fwd: NY Times: Who
"won" the U.S war on Afghanistan?
|
Thu,
Sep 16, 8:55 PM (22 hours ago) |
|
||
|
||||
Date:
Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 9:24 PM
Subject: NY Times: Who "won" the U.S war on Afghanistan?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/opinion/afghanistan-war-economy.html
Farah Stockman. “ The War on Terror Was Corrupt From the Start.” The New
York Times (September 13, 2021).
The war in Afghanistan wasn’t a failure. It was a massive success
— for those who made a fortune off it. Instead of a nation, what we really
built were more than 500 military bases — and the personal fortunes of the
people who supplied them.
Consider the case of Hikmatullah Shadman, who was just a
teenager when American Special Forces rolled into Kandahar on the heels of
Sept. 11. They hired him as an interpreter, paying him up to $1,500 a month —
20 times the salary of a local police officer, according to a profile of him in
The New Yorker. By his late 20s, he owned a trucking company that supplied U.S.
military bases, earning him more than $160 million.
If a small fry like Shadman could get so rich off the war on
terror, imagine how much Gul Agha Sherzai, a big-time warlord-turned-governor,
has raked in since he helped the C.I.A. run the Taliban out of town. His
largeextended family supplied everything fromgravel to furniture to the military
base inKandahar. His brother controlled the airport.Nobody knows how much he is
worth, but it isclearly hundreds of millions — enough forhim to talk about a
$40,000 shopping spree inGermany as if he were spending pocketchange.
Look under the hood of the “good war,” and this is what you see.
Afghanistan was supposed to be an honorable war to neutralize terrorists and
rescue girls from the Taliban. It was supposed to be a war that we woulda
coulda shoulda won, had it not been for the distraction of Iraq and the
hopeless corruption of the Afghan government. But let’s get real. Corruption
wasn’t a design flaw in the war. It was a design feature. We didn’t topple the
Taliban. We paid warlords bags of cash to do it.
As the nation-building project got underway, those warlords were
transformed into governors, generals and members of Parliament, and the cash
payments kept flowing.
“Westerners often scratched their heads at the persistent lack of
capacity in Afghan governing institutions,” Sarah Chayes, a former special
assistant to U.S. military leaders in Kandahar, wrote recently in Foreign
Affairs. “But the sophisticated networks controlling those institutions never
intended to govern. Their objective was self-enrichment. And at that task, they
proved spectacularly successful.”
Instead of a nation, what we really built were more than 500
military bases — and the personal fortunes of the people who supplied them.
That had always been the deal.
In April 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dictated a
top-secret memo ordering aides to come up with “a plan for how we are going to
deal with each of these warlords — who is going to get money from whom, on what
basis, in exchange for what, what is the quid pro quo, etc.,” according to The
Washington Post.
The war proved enormously lucrative for many Americans and
Europeans, too. One 2008 study estimated that some 40 percent of the money
allocated to Afghanistan went back to donor countries in corporate profits and
consultant salaries. Only about 12 percent of U.S. reconstruction assistance
given to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021 actually went to the Afghan
government. Much of the rest went to companies like the Louis Berger Group, a
New Jersey-based construction firm that got a $1.4 billion contract to build schools,
clinics and roads. Even after it got caught bribing officials and
systematically overbilling taxpayers, the contracts kept coming.
“It’s a bugbear of mine that Afghan corruption is so frequently
cited as an explanation (as well as an excuse) for Western failure in
Afghanistan,” Jonathan Goodhand, a professor in conflict and development
studies at SOAS University of London, wrote me in an email. Americans “point
the finger at Afghans, whilst ignoring their role in both fueling and
benefiting from the patronage pump.”
Who won the war on terror? American defense contractors, many of
which were politically connected companies that had donated to George W. Bush’s
presidential campaign, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a
nonprofit that has been tracking spending in a series of reports called the
Windfalls of War. One firm hired to help advise Iraqi ministries had a single
employee: the husband of a deputy assistant secretary of defense.
For Mr. Bush and his friends, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
achieved a great deal. He got a chance to play a tough guy on TV. He became a
wartime president, which helped him win re-election. By the time people figured
out that the war in Iraq had been waged on false pretenses and the war in
Afghanistan had no honorable exit plan, it was too late.
What stands out about the war in Afghanistan is the way that it
became the Afghan economy. At least Iraq had oil. In Afghanistan, the war
dwarfed every other economic activity, apart from the opium trade.
Over two decades, the U.S. government spent $145 billion on
reconstruction and aid and an additional $837 billion on war fighting, in a
country where the G.D.P. hovered between $4 billion and $20billion per year.
Economic growth has risen and fallen with the number of foreign
troops in the country. It soared during President Barack Obama’s surge in 2009,
only to plummet with the drawdown two years later.
Imagine what ordinary Afghans might have done if they had been
able to use that money for long-term projects planned and executed at their own
pace. But alas, policymakers in Washington rushed to push cash out the door,
since money spent was one of the few metrics of success.
The money was meant to buy security, bridges and power plants to
win hearts and minds. But the surreal amounts of cash poisoned the country
instead, embittering those who didn’t have access to it and setting off
rivalries among those who did.
“The money spent was far more than Afghanistan could absorb,”
concluded the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction’s final
report. “The basic
assumption was that corruption was created by individual Afghans
and that donor interventions were the solution. It would take years for the
United States to realize that it was fueling corruption with its excessive
spending and lack of oversight.”
The result was a fantasy economy that operated more like a casino
or a Ponzi scheme than a country. Why build a factory or plant crops when you
can get fabulously wealthy selling whatever the Americans want to buy? Why
fight the Taliban when you could just pay them not to attack?
The money fueled the revolving door of war, enriching the very
militants that it was meant to fight, whose attacks then justified new rounds
of spending.
A forensic accountant who served on a military task force that
analyzed $106 billion worth of Pentagon contracts estimated that 40 percent of
the money ended up in the pockets of “insurgents, criminal syndicates or
corrupt Afghan officials,” according to The Washington Post.
Social scientists have a name for countries that are so reliant on
unearned income from outsiders: rentier states. It is usually used for
oil-producing countries, but Afghanistan now stands out as an extreme example.
A report by Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network
outlined how Afghanistan’s rentier economy undermined efforts to build a
democracy. Since money flowed from foreigners instead of taxes, leaders were
responsive to donors rather than their own citizens.
I knew the war in Afghanistan had gone off the rails the day I had
lunch in Kabul with a European consultant who got paid a lot of money to write
reports about Afghan corruption. He’d just arrived, but he already had a lot of
ideas about what needed to be done — including ridding the Afghan civil service
of pay scales based on seniority. I
suspect that he never could have gotten an idea like that passed in his own
country. But in Kabul, he had a shot at getting his ideas adopted. To him,
Afghanistan wasn’t a failure, but a place to shine.
None of this is to say that the Afghan people don’t deserve
support, even now. They do. But far more can be achieved by spending far less
in a more thoughtful way.
What does the Taliban takeover say about the war? It proves that
you cannot buy an army. You can only rent one for a while. Once the money
spigot turned off, how many stuck around to fight for our vision of
Afghanistan? Not Gul Agha Sherzai, the warlord-turned-governor. He has
reportedly pledged allegiance to the Taliban.
[Farah Stockman is a member of The New York Times editorial board,
which she joined in 2020]
|
|
AUGUST 23, 2021
Media
Rediscover Afghan Women Only When US Leaves
In a December 3, 2001, cover story, Time asked about
Afghan women: “How much better will their lives be now?” Spoiler: not very much
better.
Just as US corporate news media “discovered” Afghan women’s rights
only when the US was angling for invasion, their since-forgotten interest
returned with a vengeance as US troops exited the country.
After September 11, 2001, the public was subjected to widespread
US news coverage of burqa-clad Afghan women in need of US liberation, and
celebratory reports after the invasion. Time magazine (11/26/01), for instance, declared that “the
greatest pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage” was
occurring, as “female faces, shy and bright, emerged from the dark cellars” to
stomp on their old veils. In a piece by Nancy Gibbs headlined “Blood and Joy,”
the magazine told readers this was “a holiday gift, a reminder of reasons the
war was worth fighting beyond those of basic self-defense” (FAIR.org, 4/9/21).
The media interest was highly opportunistic. Between January 2000
and September 11, 2001, there were 15 US newspaper articles and 33 broadcast TV
reports about women’s rights in Afghanistan. In the 16 weeks between September
12 and January 1, 2002, those numbers skyrocketed to 93 and 628, before
plummeting once again (Media, Culture & Society, 9/1/05).
Suddenly remembering women
Now, as the US finally is withdrawing its last troops, many
corporate media commentators put women and girls at the center of the analysis,
as when Wolf Blitzer (CNN Situation
Room, 8/16/21), after referring to “the horror awaiting women and
girls in Afghanistan,” reported:
President Biden saying he stands, and I’m quoting him now,
squarely, squarely behind this decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan,
despite the shocking scene of chaos and desperation as the country fell in a
matter of only a few hours under Taliban control, and the group’s extremist
ideology has tremendous and extremely disturbing implications for everyone in
Afghanistan, but especially the women and girls.
This type of framing teed up hawkish guests, who proliferate on TV
guest lists, to use women as a political football to oppose withdrawal. Blitzer
guest Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.-Illinois), for instance, argued:
Look at the freedom that is being deprived from the Afghan
people as the Taliban move into Afghan, or moving into parts of Afghanistan
now, and you know how much freedom they had. Look at the number of women that
are out there making careers, that are thought leaders, that are academics,
that never would have happened under the Taliban leadership…. The devastation
you are seeing today is why that small footprint of 2,500 US troops was so
important.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R.-Iowa) gladly gave Jake
Tapper (CNN Newsroom, 8/16/21) her take on the situation after CNN aired
a report on the situation for women:
As you mentioned, for women and younger girls, this is also very
devastating for them. The humiliation that they will endure at the hands of the
Taliban all around this is just a horrible, horrible mar on the United States
under President Joe Biden.
‘America rescued them’
Charity Wallace claimed in
the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21) that Afghan “women and girls…made
enormous progress over the past 20 years.”
Such analysis depends on the assumption that the US invasion and
occupation “saved” Afghan women. In the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21), an op-ed by former George W. Bush
staffer Charity Wallace ran under the headline : “The Nightmare Resumes for
Afghan Women: America Rescued Them 20 Years Ago. How Can We Abandon Them to the
Taliban Again?”
Two days later, a news article in the Journal (8/19/21) about the fate of women in
Afghanistan explained: “Following the 2001 invasion, US and allied forces
invested heavily to promote gender equality.”
The Associated Press (8/14/21), in a piece headlined, “Longest War:
Were America’s Decades in Afghanistan Worth It?,” noted at the end that “some
Afghans—asked that question before the Taliban’s stunning sweep last
week—respond that it’s more than time for Americans to let Afghans handle their
own affairs.” It continued, “But one 21-year-old woman, Shogufa, says American
troops’ two decades on the ground meant all the difference for her.” After
describing Shogufa’s experience for five paragraphs, the piece concludes with
her “message to Americans”:
“Thank you for everything you have done in Afghanistan,” she
said, in good but imperfect English. “The other thing was to request that they
stay with us.”
Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan
(8/19/21): “The United States military made it
possible for those women to experience a measure of freedom. Without us, that’s
over.”
Perhaps the most indignant media piece about Afghan women came
from Caitlin
Flanagan in the Atlantic (8/19/21), “The Week the Left Stopped Caring
About Human Rights.” Flanagan argued:
Leave American troops idle long enough, and before you know it,
they’re building schools and protecting women. We found an actual patriarchy in
Afghanistan, and with nothing else to do, we started smashing it down. Contra
the Nation, it’s hard to believe that Afghan women “won” gains in
human rights, considering how quickly those gains are sure now to be revoked.
The United States military made it possible for those women to experience a
measure of freedom. Without us, that’s over.
Flanagan pointed to Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, whom she accused “critics of
the war” of forgetting, saying Yousafzai “appealed to the president to take ‘a
bold step’ to stave off disaster.”
Next to last in women’s
rights
Such coverage gives the impression that Afghan women desperately
want the US occupation to continue, and that military occupation has always
been the only way for the US to help them. But for two decades, women’s rights
groups have been arguing that the US needed to support local women’s efforts
and a local peace process. Instead, both Democrat and Republican
administrations continued to funnel trillions of dollars into the war effort,
propping up misogynist warlords and fueling violence and corruption.
It’s hard to read an essay (New
York Times, 8/17/21) that addresses “the countries that
have used Afghans as pawns in their wars of ideology and greed” and says that
the Afghan people “have been trapped for generations in proxy wars of global
and regional powers” as a call for unending military occupation.
Contra Flanagan’s insinuation, Yousafzai didn’t ask Biden to
continue the occupation. In an op-ed for the New York Times (8/17/21) that most clearly laid out her
appeal, she asked for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and for refugees fleeing
the country. In fact, her take on the US occupation’s role in women’s rights (BBC, 8/17/21)
is much more critical than most voices in the US corporate media: “There had
been very little interest in focusing on the humanitarian aid and the
humanitarian work.”
As human rights expert Phyllis Bennis told FAIR’s radio
program CounterSpin (2/17/21), Malalai Joya, a young member of
parliament, told her in the midst of the 2009 troop surge that women in
Afghanistan have three enemies: the Taliban, warlords supported by the US and
the US occupation. “She said, ‘If you in the West could get the US occupation
out, we’d only have two.’”
Things did get better for some women, mostly in the big cities,
where new opportunities in education, work and political representation became
possible with the Taliban removed from power. But as Shreya Chattopadhyay pointed
out in the Nation (8/9/21), the US commitment to women was little
more than window dressing on its war, devoting roughly 1,000 times more funding
to military expenses than to women’s rights.
Passive consumers of US corporate news media might be surprised to
learn that Afghanistan, in its 19th year under US occupation, ranked
second-to-last in the world on women’s well-being and empowerment, according to
the Women, Peace and Security Index (2019).
As the Index notes, Afghan women still suffer from discriminatory
laws at a level roughly on par with Iraq, and an extraordinarily low 12.2% of
women reported feeling safe walking alone at night in their community, more
than 4 points lower than in any other country. And just one in three girls goes to school.
Wrong kind of ‘help’
In 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman named Farkhunda Malikzada was
killed by an angry mob of men in Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a
Quran; US-backed Afghan security forces watched silently (Guardian, 3/28/15). The shocking story spread around the
world, but the only US TV network to mention it on air was PBS (7/2/15),
which offered a brief report more than three months after the murder, when an
Afghan appeals court overturned the death sentences given to some of the men
involved.
FAIR turned up no evidence of Caitlin Flanagan ever writing about
Malikzada, either—or about the plight of any Afghan woman before
last week.
According to a Nexis search, TV news shows aired more segments
that mentioned women’s rights in the same sentence as Afghanistan in the last
seven days (42) than in the previous seven years (37).
The US did not “rescue” Afghan women with its military invasion in
2001, or its subsequent 20-year occupation. Afghan women need international
help, but facile and opportunistic US media coverage pushes toward the same
wrong kind of help that it’s been pushing for the last two decades: military
“assistance,” rather than diplomacy and aid.
For more than 20 years, US corporate media could have listened
seriously to Afghan women and their concerns, bringing attention to their own
efforts to improve their situation. Instead, those media outlets are proving
once again that Afghan women’s rights are only of interest to them when they
can be used to prop up imperialism and the military industrial complex.
Research assistance: Elias Khoury
The report was published in
slightly different form in more than one magazine. I read the version originally in Extra! Pub. by FAIR (October 2021). The source of this online version was not
identified. --D
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
CONTENTS Afghanistan Newsletter #25,
August 22, 2021
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/08/omni-afghanistan-newsletter-25-august.html
AFGHAN
HISTORY
Reza
Behnam, Pashtun
Mustafa
Ariaie, an Afghan
David
Swanson, US Antiwar
DECISION
TO INVADE
Tariq
Ali, International Consensus
Medea
Benjamin and Nicholas Davies, Opposition
Array,
Opposition: Criminal
OCCUPATION
Margaret
Kimberley, 40 Years of US in Afghanistan
RETREAT
Jack
Rasmus, Why?
Roger
Harris, New Stage
Kathy
Kelly, We Must Leave
FUTURE
Rashida
Tlaib, Help the Refugees
Ann
Wright, Keep US Embassy Open
M.K.
Bhadrakumar, Continue Aid
Kathy
Kelly, Reparations to the Afghan People
END AFGHANISTAN
NEWSLETTER #26
No comments:
Post a Comment