Pentagon Enlists Feminists for War Aims

Over a decade ago a young woman approached me on the California Senate floor with a petition against the Taliban. Women are being repressed, tortured and killed by religious fundamentalists, she said. I signed on. The Taliban seemed like a Ku Klux Klan aimed at women. I was disgusted that the State Department and oil companies would negotiate with them over pipelines, with cursory regard for women's rights. I still feel that way.

But I had no idea then that I was joining The Feminist Majority in a coalition with the Pentagon to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Given the respect I have for Ellie Smeal and Kathy Spillar, among others, it's still hard to believe that they think Afghan women can be liberated by an invading, bombing, imprisoning American army. It's hard to believe that Predators, drones, Special Forces, detention camps and foreign occupiers are solutions to Taliban fundamentalism. Even the US-supported Kabul government showed its real character this year by passing a law requiring women to obey their husbands in sexual matters, in violation of the country's own constitution and international norms.

A top United Nations official this month told a Kabul audience "that violence against women is not being challenged or condemned." This was eight years following the Bonn Agreement which included human rights at its core. In northern areas under Western occupation, the UN report found that in 39 percent of rapes "that perpetrators were directly linked to power brokers who are, effectively, above the law and enjoy immunity from arrest as well as immunity from social condemnation."

It's safe to say the Kabul government will not be recognizing any NOW chapters among its local non-governmental organizations in the foreseeable future.

The Feminist Majority echoes Democratic Party hawks in claiming that the liberation of Afghanistan was well underway until the Bush Administration wandered off into Iraq. But Afghanistan was among the poorest countries in the world before and after the Bush years, and will continue to be left impoverished by a Pentagon budget that expends 90 percent of funds for military occupation. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is 174th of 178 countries in its human development index. One in every four children dies at birth, the fourth highest child mortality rate in the world. Half of Afghan children is malnourished, and an estimated 40 per cent of children die from diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections. Thirteen per cent of the population have access to safe drinking water and 12 per cent have access to adequate sanitation. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, children are growing up traumatized, malnourished, stunted and extremely stunted [the categories the United Nations uses]. Life expectancy for women in "peacetime" is 44, twenty percent below the global mean.

The Feminist Majority chooses to be uncharacteristically obscure in advocating more American troops as the solution. Its website speaks of more "peacekeeping forces" rather than an escalation of the occupation. They write that "virtually everyone knows that a military solution alone won't work. Yet, we cannot ignore that security and the Taliban are among Afghans' top concerns", whatever that means. They quote an Afghan human rights activist, Sima Simar, who obliquely says "security must be re-established until the Afghan army and police can take over." But they fail to note that the current Pentagon plan for establishing an Afghan security force will take at least ten more years. Meanwhile, the war continues under the direction of an American general, Stanley McChrystal, whose career in Iraq was in clandestine Special Ops, including the supervision of many extra-judicial killings [according to Bob Woodward's most recent book]. The real effect of the Pentagon's game plan is to kill Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects, round up and hold thousands more in detention camps with no due process, lock Afghanistan into the Western alliance, and obtain American military bases and pipeline projects in the region. Women's rights always will be secondary to military objectives. "Protecting the population", which the Feminist Majority supports, is counterinsurgency phrasing for keeping the population surrounded by barbed wire, floodlights, blast walls and subject to check points and retinal scanners while, a short distance away, the killing goes on.

As for women's rights, perhaps Condoleeza Rice could be named US ambassador to Kabul; after all, she's been on Chevron's board and already has an oil tanker named after her.

Seriously then, what to do about the fate of Afghan women? Ending a military occupation through a negotiated settlement among countries in the region, and parties in Afghanistan, is the only way out of this latest adventure in The Long War. Making any future economic or diplomatic assistance contingent upon women's rights to health care, child care, education and dignity should be among the terms for a US and NATO withdrawal. In all seriousness, top US officials in a future Kabul embassy could be feminists linked to Afghan women's groups. Hillary Clinton knows how to be relentless if she chooses. The struggle will be long and bitter, won in civil society, not on battlefields. Even if all the Taliban are killed, Afghanistan will be a deeply patriarchal Muslim country where change will emerge from outside and inside pressures.

These progressive initiatives could be advanced today by the Obama administration and Congress as civilian ones, not as cover to solicit support for deeper military occupation.

The Feminist Majority is being used by the Pentagon to advance its war aims. Perhaps they believe they are using the Pentagon, though they don't say it. One result is division and confusion within the peace movement. In soliciting support from genuine peace groups for Afghanistan, for example, The Feminist Majority is less than candid that the funds are linked to the escalation of the war.

The solution is more transparent and thorough discussion at the base of the peace movement, where the possibility of a feminist coalition with the Special Forces should be hard to defend.

Comments

[chaya]

1. I really don't see that you have made your case that the TFM is in cahoots with the Pentagon.

2. Of course no one is addressing womens' rights in Afghanistan. That is impossible to do. Womens' rights can only be addressed when people enter the modern world, and Afghans are a very, very long way from doing that. They might as well be Martians for all you understand them.

The only way to improve womens' rights in that country is by withdrawing all military forces and instead invading the country with money, materials, education, and goodwill, to help them modernize. Even then it would take perhaps 50 years or more, because these people are operating within an ancient, primitive culture.

But we can't withdraw the military and send in nice, helpful, peaceful people and money and materials, can we? First, we're seen as a "Christian country" and would be viewed with hostility. In truth, most of the help would probably come from Christian evangelists eager to convert, which would be the worst thing to do. Secondly, the money and materials will be "appropriated," the helpful people will be killed, the warlords will battle each other, and the Taliban will move right in to establish the peace. Then women can look forward to being executed for looking the wrong way.

Still satisfied you have the answers?

[ElkoJohn]

the majority of feminists are hawks Tom
why let the white male jingoists have all the fun?

[rocinante89]

Thank you, Tom Hayden, for this post. As a woman and as a Feminist, I appreciate your ideas. Most powerful is your sentence, "The struggle will be long and bitter, won in civil society, and not on battlefields." Those are very true words.

[instagladiator]

"The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Since its founding in 1966, NOW's goal has been to take action to bring about equality for all women. NOW works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society."

I fail to see what this organization has to do with other countries?

[NABNYC]

It's sad to admit, but the U.S. goverment does nothing for the purpose of helping women, the sick, children, the poor, or the needy. Everything our government does is in the service of the corporations who run this country and run much of the world. The corporations do not care that people in Africa die from Aids or starvation, or wars, or from having their environment destroyed. The corporations do not care that women all over the world are treated worse than mules and, in fact, who is it that profits from the sale of women and children for sexual purposes? That's right: it's the corporations.

The only thing we could demand fairly of our government is that they get the hell out of everywhere, shut down every base, stop the World Bank and IMF from their predatory neo-colonial resource-grabs, just get out. Then bust up every corporation inside the U.S., suspend their chargers or throw them out, and start over. And let the rest of the world get a chance to have a life.

[bighat]

I guess the start would be to stop bailing out the corporations

Who came uo with the slogan that corporations were too big to fail

[a6intruder]

These gals sound like the anti-Code Pink! What's your point?

[Callyson]

I certainly agree with Tom Hayden on the need to do more in terms of non-military assistance for the Afghani people, and I appreciate his forceful and genuine advocacy of Afghani women's rights.
But I am not as confident as he seems to be that the US can currently negotiate a settlement among the parties in Afghanistan (including the Taliban insurgents?) that will lead both to a safe withdrawal of US troops and a peaceful Afghanistan that is not overrun by the Taliban. I do not want to see a permanent US presence in the country, in the form of bases or troops, but until the Afghani people have stronger institutions (police, military) to defend their country from Taliban insurgents they won't be able to rebuild their country to provide health care & education and protect women's rights.

[Dan Forth]

Way back in 2001 I recommended that the US organize the Women of Afghanistan (and probably Pakistan) into the underground force that was RAWA. and might have been a lot more. It would take longer and be much harder after the 2001 invasion and would have to be not in the open but once done would not be undone by any force.