No nation can liberate another

[IndianaGreen]

Malalai Joya is known around the world as a courageous opponent of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the corrupt regime presided over by President Hamid Karzai--and the Taliban and other conservative Islamist forces battling U.S. and Afghan government troops.

An uncompromising fighter for women's rights, Joya was elected to parliament in 2005, where she denounced the presence of representatives who she called "warlords" and "war criminals." In 2007, she was suspended on the grounds that she had "insulted" fellow members. An international solidarity campaign has rallied support for her

No nation can liberate another

November 3, 2009

Malalai Joya

The U.S. is occupying my country and making a military base there. They are not leaving my country because of their strategy and policies. They don't care about the wishes of my people--how much they are fed up by the situation. Now, my people are sandwiched between two powerful enemies.

Democracy is the alternative for the future of Afghanistan. But there are still many risks for us. Those who tell the truth, those who stand and praise the war against injustice, insecurity and occupation receive death threats. They get killed or they have to leave Afghanistan. The first casualty is the truth.

Let me say a few things about the role of troops first, since now Obama wants to surge with more troops in Afghanistan. His foreign policy is quite similar to the wrong policy of the Bush administration. It's even worse--according to officials statistics, even more civilians have been killed than during the same time period under Bush.

The worst massacre in Afghanistan from September 11 to now happened during the presidency of Obama. In May, in Farah province, a bombing killed 150 civilians, most of them women and children. They were even using white phosphorus and cluster bombs. On September 9, a bombing in Kunduz province--you may have heard about this through the media--killed 200 civilians, and again, most of them women and children.

Then, after all these crimes, White House says it apologizes, and Karzai's government--this puppet regime--says thank you. That's it. My people are so fed up that they want an end of the occupation--the end of this so-called war on terror--as soon as possible. As long as these troops are in Afghanistan, the worse the war will be. Through the mainstream media, they are telling you and democratic people around the world that civil war will happen if the U.S. withdraws, but nobody is talking about civil war today.

Eight years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan under the banner of women's rights. Today, the situation for women--half of the population of the country--is hell in most of the provinces. Killing a woman is as easy as killing a horse. A few days before I come here, in Sar-e Pol province in the north of Afghanistan, a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped and killed. The rape of women and kidnapping and acid attacks--all of this violence is increasing rapidly, even at historical levels. And all of these crimes are happening in the name of democracy, women's rights and human rights.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/03/no-nation-can-liberate-another

[jenmito]

1. The "Socialist Worker"??? Obama's not TRYING to liberate another country. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

2. Malalai Joya is an Afghan woman and member of their parliament

and she knows more about the situation in Afghanistan than any of us put together.

Vietnam destroyed the Johnson Administration. Afghanistan will do the same to the Obama Administration.

The political damage of those two wars pale in comparison to the human suffering and the deaths caused by political leaders incapable of admitting they made a mistake in getting us involved in far off conflicts.

[kiva]

3. You'd prefer another source? Here:

In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament. Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade, and the so-called liberation a big lie.

On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US government.

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

More at link (to The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/25/afghanistan-occupation-taliban-warlords

Edited to add text box

[inna]

6. what's your problem with the socialist worker?

[jenmito]

7. Obama is not a Socialist. He's a Democrat. And again, Obama is NOT trying to liberate Afghanistan.

That was Bush.

[IndianaGreen]

9. Killing Afghans is what he is doing by staying in Afghanistan

The Predator strikes have turned the people against us.

[jenmito]

10. "No nation can liberate another." THAT is what your OP is about. Obama is not TRYING to "liberate"

Afghanistan.

[IndianaGreen]

12. That's what Malalai Joya said, an Afghan woman

Obama is on his way to joining Lyndon Baines Johnson!

[jenmito]

15. For about the 4th time-Obama's not TRYING to liberate Afghanistan!

[IndianaGreen]

17. Why is he staying in Afghanistan?

There is no rational reason for staying in Afghanistan, none whatsoever!

[jenmito]

19. I answered you already below. n/t

[inna]

25. Who said that Obama was a socialist??

Straw man much? :shrug:


(I certainly *wish* he was a socialist, but... not in our lifetime, unfortunately.)

[IndianaGreen]

8. A better question is what his problem with Afghan women?

The Karzai narco regime's misogynist record is well documented.

[jenmito]

11. What's WHOSE problem with Afghan women?

[IndianaGreen]

13. Your problem with Afghan women!

[jenmito]

14. I'm not a "he." I'm female. I have NO problem with Afghan women. And as the woman in the article

said, "Eight years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan under the banner of women's rights." Again-that was BUSH-not Obama. He has said many times that it's NOT our place to force our values on other countries (including "democracy). Obama wants to stop the threat to our country.

[IndianaGreen]

16. May I point out that Al-Qaeda is not in Afghanistan

and that our staying there will accomplish nothing but more deaths and more sorrows.

How do you explain Obama's endorsement of Karzai narco regime, and his putting the peace option off the table?

Do you want Obama to end up like LBJ?

[jenmito]

18. They are not gone. There are drastically fewer of them and Obama wants to KEEP it so they

can't set up training camps there and have safe haven there.

Obama's dealing with the government they HAVE-not necessarily the govt. they WANT.

"Putting the peace option off the table" is your opinion. Others think if we leave right now, there will be much more violence there.

[IndianaGreen]

20. The Afghan people don't want us there anymore than the Vietnamese did

Putting the peace option "off the table" is not just my opinion, it is a fact! Obama never considered cutting bait in Afghanistan. He has surrounded himself with war hawks.

[jenmito]

21. Not true. There was an article from Code Pink a couple weeks ago that I'm sure you recall:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8689609

And what's an opinion is that taking all of our troops out would cause peace to break out. He has NOT surrounded himself with hawks.

[IndianaGreen]

22. The US is keeping the warlords like Rashid Dostum in power

From the OP:

I'm saying that as long as these warlords are in power along with these occupation forces, there is no hope to make positive changes in the lives of the men and women of my country.

It's not only women who are suffering. If I talked only about conditions for women, it would be all morning, but I wouldn't even be finished. All of this shocking news that the media never even gives to the people around the world. Women don't even have a human life.

But today, women and men don't have liberation. Millions of Afghans suffer from injustice, insecurity, corruption, joblessness, etc. Your government says that it sent troops there so that girls can go to school, but according to official figures from the government, more than 600 schools have been closed. When the girls go to school, they throw acid on their faces.

I think education is important--very important in my country. I always say that it's the key to our emancipation. But security is more important than food and water. They keep the situation dangerous like this so they can stay longer in Afghanistan because of their strategy and policies.

To know more about the deep tragedy of Afghanistan, during these eight years, they changed my country to the capital of the center of drug trade.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/03/no-nation-can-liberate-another

[jenmito]

23. Why are you totally ignoring the article I posted about how Afghans want our troops to STAY?

And why are you still quoting a woman who thinks Obama=Bush? It's not TRUE-Obama is NOT keeping troops there to "liberate" women.

[Dr Robert]

4. so are France and the rest of Western Europe still part of Nazi Germany?

[TxRider]

35. Or Kuwait, or the philipines, or...

[damntexdem]

5. Not true. But no nation can liberate another without that nation's desire to be liberated.

I'm thinking of France in WWII.

[MellowDem]

24. Would Joya be a member of the parliament...

without the US invasion? She is a woman, right? She obviously lacks perspective and seems fairly ignorant. Anyone with such a black and white worldview always is. I also love how she inserts "women and children". Children, I understand in terms of pointing out their deaths especially, but women? Is she really a feminist?

Personally, I want the US to leave, and personally, I think Afghans will suffer horribly and kill each other mercilessly for a while after, and Joya most likely won't be a member of parliament once the Taliban takes over again. But I hope her optimistic view holds out and us leaving will actually improve the situation.

[IndianaGreen]

32. She would have been a member of parliament under the Marxist government

The Afghan Marxist government was the one to liberate women and girls from the yoke of religion. Afghan women and girls attended university and school and were not forced to wear burqas or be under any kind of religious yoke.

Afghan women and girls have America to thank for having the religious wackos take power, just as today they have America to thank for having the misogynist Karzai rule over them.

[MellowDem]

33. Yes, I'm sure the marxists...

would be holding power today, just like they do in so many other places... :eyes:

And I don't buy your bullshit "religion is the only problem" theory either. The two countries that went full on secular and outlawed religion also have slaughtered the most people in the last century, that being China and Russia. It's a damn sight better to have lived in some theocracies than under those genocidal "atheist" regimes. Once again, someone who wants to see the world as black and white, simpleton form.

Religious whackos were going to take power no matter what in Afghanistan. Just look at the other places Russia actually stayed in and see how the religious backlash continues to occur. Aghanis have themselves to thank for a lot of the problems they have, whether they want to admit it or not. That's why I think we should get the hell out of there and let them find out just how fucked up their society is so maybe they'll one day fix it, but most likely they won't. Anyone who thinks American soldiers in Afghanistan are the biggest obstacle to creating a utopian democracy are delusional.

[AngryAmish]

26. Vietnam v. Cambodia

Maybe not free, but they did some good.

[grantcart]

28. They did a tremendous favor for the world - even though their motives were not pure.

[AngryAmish]

30. Cambodia was asking for it for years

Khmer Rouge thought they rightfully owned a lot of the Mekong Delta. PRV did not agree. Cambodia actually started the war.

[IndianaGreen]

34. It was odd to see the US publicly back the Pol Pot regime

just because we hated the Vietnamese so much for kicking our GAWD-anointed asses out of their country.

I still remember crying in joy at the news that Vietnam had gone into Kampuchea to overthrow the Pol Pot regime. It was Vietnam which brought to light the extent of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

In the fall 1997 issue, John Pilger writes that the US funneled $86 million in support of Pol Pot and his followers from 1980 to 1986. In addition, the Reagan administration schemed and plotted to have Khmer Rouge representatives occupy Cambodia's UN seat, even though the Khmer Rouge government ceased to exist in 1979. This was a sad effort to grant Pol Pot's followers international legitimacy.

Pilger also informs us that the US applied pressure to the World Food Program to ensure that $12 million worth of food targeted elsewhere in an international rescue effort would be handed over to the Thai army to be passed on to the Khmer Rouge. In addition, Washington set up the Kampuchean Emergency Group (which later morphed into the Kam- puchean Working Group), whose unspoken mission was to direct food to Khmer Rouge bases.

This helped restore the Khmer Rouge as a fighting force based in Thailand, which destabilized Cambodia for more than a decade, much like the US-backed Contras did in Nicaragua during the same period.

Of course, it should go without saying that the Reagan and Bush administrations covertly channeled weapons to the Khmer Rouge by using Singapore as a middleman. As with "Iran-Contra," Bush's military aid to the Khmer Rouge violated a law passed by Congress in 1989 that expressly forbade it.

The US also used its clout in the UN to get the UN Human Rights Sub-commission to drop from its agenda a draft resolution on Cambodia that would subject former Khmer Rouge leaders to international war crimes tribunals. Henry Kissinger was an important influence in this ignoble effort.

http://www.media-criticism.com/Washington_Post_Pol_Pot_1998.html

On the Side of Pol Pot: U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge

by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quarterly magazine, Summer 1990

For the last eleven years the United States government, in a covert operation born of cynicism and hypocrisy, has collaborated with the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More specifically, Washington has covertly aided and abetted the Pol Potists' guerrilla war to overthrow the Vietnamese backed government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which replaced the Khmer Rouge regime.

The U.S. government's secret partnership with the Khmer Rouge grew out of the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the U.S.-worried by the shift in the Southeast Asian balance of power-turned once again to geopolitical confrontation. It quickly formalized an anti-Vietnamese, anti-Soviet strategic alliance with China-an alliance whose disastrous effects have been most evident in Cambodia. For the U.S., playing the "China card" has meant sustaining the Khmer Rouge as a geopolitical counterweight capable of destabilizing the Hun Sen government in Cambodia and its Vietnamese allies.

When Vietnam intervened in Cambodia and drove the Pol Potists from power in January 1972, Washington took immediate steps to preserve the Khmer Rouge as a guerrilla movement. International relief agencies were pressured by the U.S. to provide humanitarian assistance to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas who fled into Thailand.

<snip>

During his reign as National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski played an important role in determining how the U.S. would support the Pol Pot guerrillas. Elizabeth Becker, an expert on Cambodia, recently wrote, "Brzezinski himself claims that he concocted the idea of persuading Thailand to cooperate fully with China in efforts to rebuild the Khmer Rouge.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_PolPot.html

[Odin2005]

27. Trotskyite Underground is down the street to your right.

[Better Believe It]

29. Is that anywhere near your Stalinist hangout?

:)

[timzi]

31. All Here Should Consider That War Is Generally Morally Wrong

It was true of Iraq under Bush. Afghanistan under Bush was only justifiable as a means for capturing Bin Laden. After that failed, we were wrong to stay. And Obama will be wrong to stay in Afghanistan if he does so.

[philly_bob]

36. UNREC Good article but misleading & overbroad headline

Headline misrepresents what article says. "I'm saying that my people can liberate themselves. But we need your helping hand," she says.

Not OP's fault. The headline is in original.