"Women's rights are nothing but human rights when women exercise them," notes Ann Jones, but Afghanistan has never been big on women's rights. Still, as highly-touted negotiations continue between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government, where are the women? Can real peace come when it's negotiated without women when, Matthew Hoh notes, the population of the country between the ages of 20 and 45 is four to one women to men?
Jones is the author most recently of War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, and Hoh was the first American official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and now directs the Afghanistan Study Group. They join Laura for a discussion of what real peace in Afghanistan would have to entail.
Well, it would be nice if women were 50% of all power circles,
but I don’t think that it’s going to happen either in an ”advanced” country like the US
or a tribal country like Afghanistan — short of the women of the world rising up to
throw off the shackles of male domination.
2nd best would be to insist that the women of Afghanistan have full equality of rights
to education and voting.
By elkojohn on October 23rd, 2010 at 9:57 pm
The Taliban have long been a part of the equation regarding peace negotiations in Afghanistan. As usual, most Americans swallow, hook, line and sinker the fairy tale that the United States involvement in the Middle East has everything to do with its own National security, and little to do with controlling energy reserves.
However, anyone who follows the history of oil in the world knows when, where and why the wars in the Middle East will begin and end. Among the thousands of sources for research, here are a few that may help illuminate the role of the Taliban in bringing about the end of hostility in Afghanistan:
“So women’s rights were introduced into Congressional testimony by Congressman Rohrbacher as the wedge for UNOCAL to build its pipeline through Afghanistan. Three years later CNN would be airing its acclaimed TV documentary “Under The Veil,” which displayed the oppressive conditions that women endure in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban (a propaganda film for the oil pipeline?).
Rohrbacher then went on to say that a democratic election should take place in Afghanistan and ‘if the Taliban are not willing to make that kind of commitment, I would be very hesitant to move foreward on a $2.5 billion investment because without that commitment, I don’t think there is going to be any tranquility in that land.’
Beginning in 1998 UNOCAL was chastized, particularly by women’s rights groups, for discussions with the Taliban, and headed in retreat as a worldwide effort mounted to come to the defense of the Afghani women. This forced UNOCAL to withdraw from its talks with the Taliban and dissolve its multinational partnership in that region…”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/sardi7.html
U.S. Interests and Central Asia Engergy Security
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2006/pdf/bg1984.pdf
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski: Obama’s Foreign Policy is Not a Change
http://rongstad.blogspot.com/2009/07/lieutenant-colonel-karen-kwiatkowski.html
A Pipeline Through A Troubled Land: Afghanistan, Canada, and the New Great Energy Game
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/2008/A_Pipeline_Through_a_Troubled_Land.pdf
Afghanistan and the new great game
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/679670
By hgovernick on October 24th, 2010 at 2:29 pm