I am so angry over this I actually feel physically ill.

[Brigid]

And here is the article:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007238,00.html

Sadly, our continued presence in Afghanistan does nothing to prevent this sort of thing. Granted her life was saved because US troops found her before she bled to death, but still it happened. I hate feeling so helpless . . .

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I am right there with you.

[virgogal]

2. Lots of people were unhappy about the cover. The treatment of

this woman was awful.

[Brigid]

3. That's what first brought this to my attention.

About a week ago, I saw a more recent issue of TIME in which people were writing about this cover. Then yesterday I saw it -- in a doctor's office, of all places. Absolutely horrific. :(

[Chulanowa]

4. I would argue that our presence does plenty to stop this sort of thing

Not enough, obviously. But I'm certain that were we to roll up and leave, putting Afghanistan back into the hands of the same people who did this to Aisha, what happened to her will happen to thousands more. And thousands beyond that will simply be killed.

Not that a lot of DU'ers care; it's an election year! No doubt we'll see another couple threads over how dead Afghans are totally worth it, before the year is out.

[yellowwood]

5. So what should we do?

I heard several people refer to this photo and the treatment of women in Afghanistan say that this is why we have to stay there. We have to "save" women. Unfortunately, we have to kill a lot of people in order to "save" them.
And our continued presence in these countries has made them more fundamentalist, not less.

[femrap]

7. Why don't we just arm them?

Send money to RAWA...and they will take care of fighting for women's rights. We can't do it. I wish we could.

F*cking fundie Taliban assholes.

[deaniac21]

16. Everybody in Afganistan is armed.

[femrap]

28. Not the women. nt

[demosincebirth]

34. Arm the women

[Lilith Velkor]

39. Hell yes!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Expect more of this if we pull out.

Things will only get worse for Afghanistan if we pull out. There's an argument to be made that nothing in Afghanistan is worth the price of American blood, but not that things will get better for Afghanistan if we pull out.

[Whisp]

25. you may be right, I was just steaming mad at how manipulative TIME is by doing that cover

seedy and lowdown. they most likely have their own reasons to want to continue the war - like selling arms and junk to the gov.

[another saigon]

30. Just like in Vietnam, Right?

some, NEVER learn from history.

:eyes:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. And for others, everything is Vietnam.

No matter how poor the analogy.

[another saigon]

33. really?

Then I am in excellent company. You? RWers and pro-war idiots? Not so much.

-snip-

Woe betide a president who believes his own stump speeches. In his campaign Obama outflanked charges from McCain that he was a peacenik and a wimp by declaring week after week that Iraq was the wrong battlefield, that the enemy was al-Qaeda and their sanctuary Afghanistan. An excited vibrancy coloured the community organiser's rhetoric as he spoke of his determination to "kill bin Laden".

Most people thought this pledge would get lobbed into the trash can the moment McCain conceded. But no. Last Friday I drove down Interstate 5 through the early spring blossom in Oregon's Willamette Valley, listening to Obama on the radio marching through his schedule for escalation and victory in Afghanistan.

-snip-

Obama is being pushed into actions similar to those JFK took in Vietnam. Maybe Biden forgot to point out to his boss that this was the Afghanistan model espoused by the leftist Noor Taraki in the late 1970s, setting off US alarm bells which duly led to Taraki's murder and the CIA's huge covert and successful intervention in support of the drug barons and warlords, whose feudal offspring are now America's actual or prospective allies in the war on the Taliban.

As Obama proudly flourished his alliterative triad ("to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan"), I listened with the same dismayed frisson as I did - more than four decades ago - to Kennedy's similarly childish rhetoric of intervention, whose dark underbelly was the murder of the Diem brothers, and the birth of the Phoenix assassination programme of "Viet Cong infrastructure".

-snip-

The fantasy of America’s healing kiss flares in Obama's heart just as it did in Kennedy's. It was General Douglas McArthur who told Kennedy in 1961: "Anyone wanting to commit American ground forces to the mainland of Asia should have his head examined." True then, true now.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/46914,news-comment,news-politics,afghanistan-will-prove-to-be-barack-obamas-vietnam-alexander-cockburn,2#ixzz0zYCXQdnz

[Donald Ian Rankin]

44. ...you're saying that things like this *won't* become more common if the Americans pull out?

Why do you think that? It seems to me a deeply implausible claim at best.

[another saigon]

51. um, HELLO!

this despicable shit will continue regardless of who occupies Afghanistan. Why does the US have Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others as allies when they do the same damn thing to women? Better yet, who the fuck is the US to decide what is right or wrong with any country given the millions killed in war and tortured, sometimes to death, in our names? USA = World Wide Hypocrisy.

[AngryAmish]

55. What happened after we pulled out of VN was terrible

Don't fool yourself. But it happened to dark people on the other side of the world so it didn't really matter to us.

[another saigon]

58. how am I fooling myself?

do tell

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. It is incredibly brave of her to allow herself to be photographed.

I hope she one day gets a chance to get the damage repaired. She is, as the article noted, an otherwise beautiful girl.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. women are brutalized regardless of their looks.

And it's no less horrific, inhuman, wrong and hateful whether perpetrated against the pretty or the homely.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. That is true - but the fact remains they did this to her because she was

pretty and they were doing it as a message - that even a beautiful woman who should have everything going for her is not immune. There is not a culture on earth where those who are attractive do not have an edge over those who are not. This was done to destroy her attractiveness and ruin any chance of future marriage or, if she should escape to the relative safety of the city, a job.

It is not more brutal done to an attractive woman, but it is more of a message.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

54. hmmm, yes I see what you mean.

And, as women are very blatantly regarded as property in that culture, pretty women are more valuable goods; devaluing them strikes at the men who "own" her.

I do still dislike the fact that there generally seems to be more sympathy and attention given when female victims are pretty; in fact, for women, that seems to be the only thing that matters. :(

[Ozymanithrax]

9. This type of thing has gone on for a thousand years and more...

Either we work to change it or let boys be boys. Is it a greater immorality to fight a war or to leave women to this kind of brutality?

[datasuspect]

20. but we aren't there fighting for womens' noses in afghanistan

our military is there to provide a feeding trough for defense contractors. It's a for-profit business, not a freaking charity, fer chrissakes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. Ah. You caught the real message of the cover, didn't you?

The cover appears to indicate we are in Afghanistan to save women from that fate.
And if we leave, more women will suffer.
Thus : " What happens if we leave Afghanistan"

How many covers did Time put up of the Iraqi women and children we murdered?
Or dead members of the various wedding parties that our missiles somehow seem to find as targets?

I am not disagreeing that women face a horrible existance in many Middle Eastern countries.
They have for thousands of years.

Our military imperialism is NOT going to make that stop.

[Ozymanithrax]

38. An expanded role for women in a government we support will be part of Afghanistan.

The idea that we are there to save women and bring Jeffersonian Democricay is the other siplisitic side of the arugment, and equally wrong.

The question is whether we should be involved or just let it be the way it is.

[sabrina 1]

48. The leaked CIA documents by Wikileaks

revealed that in order to get support for the war in Afghanistan they 'should the women of Afghanistan'.

The fact is that the Women of Afghanistan have been trying to get the attention of the world to let them know, that their plight is worse, not better, since this invasion.

We have been there for nearly ten years. How has our presence there helped women?

Maybe if NATO'S mission was to do something about the plight of women there, this would not still be happening. But the truth is that the brave women who have been standing up against these horrors have been largely ignored by NATO.

It really upsets me to use women to get support for a war that has killed so many of them, and their children. In fact it is disgusting.

So, we see this photo and now what? What is being there doing to stop this?

[Ozymanithrax]

37. Your statement is too simplistic.

The government we support will give more powr to women, though not equal power. The world is a much more complex place.

[Enthusiast]

53. Sad but true. nt

[Exultant Democracy]

10. We have always had the wrong stategy, we should have air dropped porn, xboxes, iphones and nikes

and then convinced the local war lords to accept free wifi for their towns and as a bonus toss in a lifetime of free 2 year leases to the American car of their choice to each warlord.

edit to add: and if we were really smart we would have a tv channel like the Muslim American version of telemundo where sexy Muslim youths would glorify the freedoms they enjoy as american's like being able to get laid without getting stoned.

[w4rma]

26. Yeah, but stopping this type of treatment isn't why we are over there.

It's the oil and the raw resources.

[seabeyond]

52. ah, just shift the male subjugating women to w****s for men. that is your answer

virgin/w***** is the only two answers for women

interesting perspective.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. Argh. Again? And with no warning? This is the political equivalent of Goatse. Alerting.

[slackmaster]

12. Not all cultures are equal.

Some are just plain evil.

[cliffordu]

13. After we leave they can blow her brains out in the Sports Stadium

kick it old skool

[FiveGoodMen]

19. Your alternative proposal is?

[joeybee12]

14. This is not journalism, but propoganda....

...this sucks what happens there, and it sucks that we've killed hundreds of civilians "by accident" over there.

[nashville_brook]

42. heard something on NPR about the timing of this cover story wrt Afghanistan policy.

the gist was that it was most definitely intended as propaganda.

then again...maybe it's not. maybe next week there will be a cover story on female genital mutilation in Africa.

[mike_c]

17. no, that's what's happening because we INVADED Afghanistan...

...and created social movements that Afghans are apparently not ready for yet.

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. The hell of it is, at one point they WERE ready for it.

Afghanistan was a relatively enlightened country even during the reign of the last monarch. When he was deposed and they experimented with democracy they made the error of looking to the Russians, with whom they had a long history, instead of the west - resentment about British colonialism, presumably. During that time women had careers, education, and incidents like these were treated as crimes and were prosecuted. But because the Russians supported the reformist government, the US had to oppose it - never mind that it WAS democratic and reformist. We stirred shit up, introduced Wahabism through the ISI, and proceeded to destabilize the country. To re-stabilize it, the Russians sent in troops, we sent in the Jihadists and...well, you know the rest.

WE DID THIS TO HER.

[Whisp]

18. that is really really shoddy journalism. I don't blame you for how you feel.

it's just over the line by about 180,000 million fucking miles.

why don't they put a picture of a gay person beat up in Kansas somewhere just for being gay, or a pregnant woman killed by her husband. Who is there to come and save the U.S. from that?

fucking assholes.

--I posted before I let it sink in was so mad, but for different reason angry. ;)

[bobbolink]

21. And homeless people set on fire.

Yet, where is the outrage for that?

You make a very good point.

It wasn't journalism.

[Whisp]

23. its propaganda put out by a corporation that makes money off of war

I'm sure Time has their stubby little dirty fingers in tanks and missiles somewhere in all their labyrinth of interests.

fuck them

and fuck anyone who falls for this cheap trick

I am just over the top boiling mad now. lol

[mstinamotorcity]

22. This in my opinion

is another form of suppressing women and their ability to think for themselves. It is sad to see it anywhere. It happens in homes and towns and villages around the world. The only way that violence against women will ever stop is when all men view women as human beings and not personal property.

[chrisa]

29. Fucking misogynist bastards.

While I do not advocate violence anywhere, I would not cry if the person / people who did this to her died a horrific, painful death.

[Emit]

35. Here's a link for you and others ~~ Half the Sky

The best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women and girls.Half the Sky lays out an agenda for the world's women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. We know there are many worthy causes competing for attention in the world. We focus on this one because this kind of oppression feels transcendent – and so does the opportunity. Outsiders can truly make a difference.

So let us be clear up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts. It is a process that transforms bubbly teenage girls from brothel slaves into successful businesswomen. You can help accelerate change if you'll just open your heart and join in.

http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

Here's an article that summarizes their book: The Women's Crusade: How changing the lives of
women and girls in the developing world can change everything
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?_r=1#

My daughter just read the book of the same title for her women's study class. Afterward, she closed the book and went online to donate what little she could to one of the grassroots organizations suggested by the authors.

[G_j]

49. +1000

[bdamomma]

36. terrible

especially to those who don't deserve it.

[mitchum]

40. Time has been in the propaganda business for a long long time

This is really nothing new

[lonestarnot]

41. We need a movement to arm the women.

[Hannah Bell]

43. war porn. "if we don't leave women will be attacked by their families"

but

"if we don't leave we're going to kill women too"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

45. Not all religions are equally bad.

Photos like this really drive home just how stupid it is to try to compare the American Christian right with the Islamic right.

[Lance_Boyle]

59. Gerri Santoro would disagree with your stupid comment,

but she can't since the American Christian right killed her.

Seriously - this has to be the dumbest comment I have ever seen you post here.

[applegrove]

46. I know. I so don't want the taliban to be back in power.

[Tsiyu]

47. Here in America

Which army fights for us?












http://gothamist.com/2008/06/28/feds_accuse_yonkers_cop_of_police_b.php


Read this great funny stuff, here....


snip

"There is so much bologna on TV these days, I think Lifetime can find an hour where men just punch woman followed by canned laughter. OK, so if I had to pitch this idea to a television executive, most likely some man-hating, pants wearing lesbian CEO type, I would need some pretty good reasons why I would want to punch a girl. This is what I could come up with within the past 5 minutes:

10. She changes 'When Animals Attack IV' to 'Grey's Anatomy'.

9. They snore.

8. They describe you perfectly to the police sketch artist.

7. The (sic) complain about 38 second sex"


snip


read more of this lovely AMERICAN misogyny here:




http://www.thefreckledfinger.com/rants/2008/3/4/march-4th-time-when-punching-a-girl-is-warranted.html


And how about the guy who made his son videotape dad beating up mom?

A blog and the video here....(after you watch the video, realize that, if not for others' testimony, he would have only faced TWELVE months for what he did on camera.)

http://onemansblog.com/2007/09/15/wife-abuse-caught-on-video/

America needs to get the beam out of its own eye, and set an example, but not this kind.

[McCamy Taylor]

50. This is why we can be like Enron and Bush--we can not do business with the Taliban.

They are sadists and murderers.

[lunatica]

56. We are definitley skewered on the horns of a dilemma aren't we?

Ah! But the profits are worth the small price! :sarcasm:

[Dover]

57. I guess their meme about being there to prevent/contain terrorism isn't working.

So let's now use the abuse of women and children as our excuse, even though so many have already died at our own hands during this invasion and the two Iraq "wars"/invasions. Certainly more lost than Sadam Hussein was thought to have murdered. WE are just as brutal, although we can afford to do our damage by firing weapons from a distance.

I've said it again and again like a broken record. We have had a policy called The Silk Road Strategy for many years now that is all about our
economic interests in the area from infrastruture building, to arms, to oil/gas and other resources. The deterrence of abuses such as this are not even on their radar except as a rallying cry.

[JCMach1]

60. This happened while we are already there...