Malalai Joya: Afghanistan's Bravest Woman
If this [CIA funding war-lords] isn't bad enough, [President Karzai] appointed Izzatullah Wasifi as Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief [in 2007]. Wasifi is a convicted drug trafficker who spent almost four years in Nevada state prison for selling heroin, but he was an old friend of the Karzai family. As Afghans often say, "Karzai assigned a rabbit to take care of the carrot."
Malalai Joya is called the "bravest woman in Afghanistan." She is a member of Afghanistan's parliament however she is currently suspended for "insulting fellow members of parliament" and has spent much time in hiding. How did she insult fellow members? She pointed out the war lords and drug traffickers in that very same parliament. She also is a strong supporter of women's rights. She has pressed the Obama administration to pull the military out of her country. She says nothing could be worse for women than what she sees as the current civil war.
by Amy Littlefield
(WOMENSENEWS)--Surrounded by powerful men twice her age, Malalai Joya, then 27 and the youngest person elected to the Afghan parliament, raised her hand to speak. She denounced the warlords and drug traffickers in the government and stood up in favor of women's rights.
That was 2005, four years after the United States invaded Afghanistan.
Two years later, Joya was expelled from parliament for criticizing the warlords who she says remain in control of the country under U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.
Multiple times, her enemies have tried to kill her, forcing her to hide in safe houses and wear a burka.
Now, 31-year-old Joya, known widely as "the bravest woman in Afghanistan," has come to the United States to promote her new book and deliver a message to the U.S. government as the Obama administration, according to widespread press reports, considers some level of troop buildup.
On tour from Oct. 23 to Nov. 12, she's made the following demand in some two dozen engagements from New York to Los Angeles: "Leave my country as soon as possible."
Joya is one of a handful of Afghan women speaking out against the occupation of Afghanistan and drawing attention to the worsening condition of women. Following the end of her U.S. tour, she will head to Canada for another round of speaking engagements.
Liberation for Afghan Women?
The United States billed the invasion of Afghanistan as a liberating moment for Afghan women.
"The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school," President George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union address. "Today women are free and are part of Afghanistan's new government."
Joya said the violence of occupation and the misogyny of the country's current political leaders have made life worse.
"Woman's situation is like hell," said Joya in a speech at Brown University, as part of her tour, noting that a single hospital in Kabul reported more than 600 attempted suicides, primarily by women from 2008 to 2009.
Joya called the current regime under the recently re-elected President Karzai "mentally similar to the Taliban," saying the government "only physically has been changed."
As reported from Eric Garrison AntiWar.com
“The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan,” Malalai Joya did two CNN interviews on Thursday. Joya is an elected member of the Afghanistan parliament who has been suspended for “insulting fellow members of parliament” in a television interview. She is articulate and firm in her position that the Western occupation is feeding the violence.
The first interview was broadcast on CNN (US). In the middle of the interview, as Joya made clear she opposed US occupation, interviewer Heidi Collins said “occupation would certainly your word, a lot of people would take great issue with you calling the US presence in your country an ‘occupation’.” Joya went on to defend her position as Collins’ interrupted snidely. As Joya tried to respond to Collins, she was cut off.
The second interview took place on CNN International. Joya’s anti-occupation position was highlighted up front and the interviewer was polite and respectful.
US Government and NATO, they waste their taxpayers' money and the blood of their soldiers by supporting such a mafia ___ system of Hamad Karzai. My message to Mr. Obama is end this occupation which is war on innocent civilians not war on terror. And also if obama honors(?) for my people must, with UN, must to stop neighbor countries like Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, etc. who support Taliban and also war lord so no nation can donate liberation to another nation. If these troops do not leave voluntarily Afghanistan, I'm sure with the passage of time they will face more ? resistance of my people.
So what do you think? Do you agree with Malalai Joya or not and why?
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Comments: 31
I agree with you and I find empire building pitiful. I thought we have come further than that but I guess we haven't. :(
There is a video out on women's soccer where one of the members of one of the teams was videoed as being very abusive. She didn't get very much correction from the referees or even much fight back from the opposing team. It took putting the video on YouTube and it going "viral" before anything was done. But the point I'm trying to make here was from the comments I saw under the video. Chicks fighting are hot, and other similar comments. Sad.
That would be Elizabeth Lambert of New Mexico Lobos.
From my perceptions of President Obama, I see him as a clearer thinker, a more experienced internationalist, with a stronger moral compass than LBJ. I like to think he will do much better with his inherited war.
And as far as the inherited war, I've said before, I wouldn't want to be in Obama's shoes. And I do hope for the best possible outcome, though it might not be the most desired. {sigh}
In retrospect, if we had spent our resources doing that first, we might not have had to invade Iraq. Who really knows?
War is always worse for the civilian population.
As for the President of the U.S. or of any other country for that matter, we have to keep in mind that they're just the "figurehead" or sometimes "patsy" of their government. As you know, the President is not necessarily the policy maker and they're only as good (or bad) as the intel they're fed. It seems that every advisor to a president has his or her own agenda.
You couldn't pay me enough to take that bloody thankless job.
-R.
You couldn't pay me enough to take that bloody thankless job.
Double Dog Ditto! I couldn't agree more!
We go to Afghanistan when by her own account things are so bad women fear for their lives and are prisoners to their husbands and fathers. Things get better and now, before we exit all those war lords and drug traffickers from parliament. she thinks its time for us to go???
What will happen when the neighboring countries see us leave and come across the borders, or even the current members in parliament are not being watched by our/the UN forces?
From Malalai Joya: The woman who will not be silenced:
As soon as the Taliban retreated, they were replaced – by the warlords who had ruled Afghanistan immediately before. Joya says that, at this point, "I realised women's rights had been sold out completely... Most people in the West have been led to believe that the intolerance and brutality towards women in Afghanistan began with the Taliban regime. But this is a lie. Many of the worst atrocities were committed by the fundamentalist mujahedin during the civil war between 1992 and 1996. They introduced the laws oppressing women followed by the Taliban – and now they were marching back to power, backed by the United States. They immediately went back to their old habit of using rape to punish their enemies and reward their fighters."
The warlords "have ruled Afghanistan ever since," she adds. While a "showcase parliament has been created for the benefit of the US in Kabul", the real power "is with these fundamentalists who rule everywhere outside Kabul". As an example, she names the former governor of Herat, Ismail Khan. He set up his own "vice and virtue" squads which terrorised women and smashed up video and music cassettes. He had his own "private militias, private jails". The constitution of Afghanistan is irrelevant in these private fiefdoms.
If she's right then we have had so many of our own military and those of our allies die for a fascade. There's already clear concern regarding Karzai and his cabinet, Karzai and his brother have been connected with opium trafficking, his brother has been connected with receiving CIA money AND opium trafficking. If she's wrong, there are still numerous questions here.
Is there a way to remove all of the war lords and drug traffickers in parliament? Karzai also promised clear reforms for women, yet he infuriated women's rights activists when he used a constitutional loophole to enact a law that allows minority Shiite Muslim husbands to refuse food and money to their wives if they refuse to "submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment." Afghan Marriage Law That Lets Men Starve Wives Who Deny Sex Infuriates Activists
If you wouldn't mind, read through the links in this article and within the thread. I'd like to hear back from you no matter what you decide. :)
life is a catch 22
U.S. officials have said a key issue for the president is the credibility of Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a partner in his country's war.
Mr. Obama said on the eve of Mr. Karzai's inauguration that he is less concerned with trustworthiness of one individual than he is with trustworthiness of a government as a whole. He said a government has to provide basic services to its people in a way that confers legitimacy.
On Tuesday, NATO's secretary-general said he is confident allies will send "substantially more troops" to Afghanistan, giving new momentum to the mission.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a NATO parliamentary assembly in Scotland he expects more forces for the war-torn country, but only as part of a wider strategy to eventually hand over security to Afghans.
The question isn't whether there will be a civil war if we pull out because there is a civil war now, while we're there, and we're propping up the wrong side.
It's about drug profits, oil and natural gas. Other natural resources come into play as well, like the recently admitted huge supply of copper under the ground. The multinational corporations are using our armed forces to acquire the earths last resources. That's the truth behind all current wars, whether one cares to believe so or not. Obama's decisions have little to do with reality on the ground. Greed makes war inevitable.
Now there is no hope of paying our bills. So . . . I am glad Iraq has a chance to make it. Good luck to them.
I love this girls boldness and strength. I heard her on TV also. I don't understand her position at all. I don't believe any country has been able to overcome the Taliban on their own. I certainly don't think Afghanistan or Pakistan will be able to. I wish for her sake as well as all the citizens they could do it. But it seems they would be glad for us to help them overpower the Taliban and then leave. They know we aren't going to try to take over their nation. I don't quite get her reasoning. But Yaaaa for her boldness.
Excuse me, we already have. The Afghan government is a puppet of the US military propped up entirely by US dollars doing whatever bidding the US chooses. The US has no interest in disposing of the Taliban. We've replaced one brutal regime, the Taliban, with another brutal regime, Karzai and Co.