Women's rights activists on Tuesday backed a US troop surge in Afghanistan but warned that hard-fought gains in women's rights will vanish without a long-term commitment to develop the country.
"If the US left, women would be back in their burkas," said Esther Hyneman, a member of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), a rights group advocating for Afghan women in the United States and Afghanistan.
....
"America must make a long-term commitment to Afghanistan. Countries cannot recover overnight from 30 years of war, chaos, destruction, subjugation," she said.
We must not abandon the Afghans, especially the women, but we must stop fighting the war there. A presence, perhaps, but not a fighting presence. What will happen in July of 2011? Should we occupy parts of the country forever? A UN presence?
According to the article by Seymour Hersh to which I linked in my previous post on Obama's address on the war in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis are more and more in sympathy with the fundamentalist anti-American Muslims, and they don't want us in their country. As fundamentalism spreads, women will be oppressed. We must search for solutions other than wars, and I don't know what those solutions are, but we can't occupy great swaths of the Middle East.
Thanks to Ann for sending the link.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Anonymous commenters, please sign a name, any name, to distinguish one anonymous commenter from another. Thank you.