Oh, I got an idea. Let’s bomb the shit out of them, including a bunch of weddings, reinvade, and install another heroin kingpin as President.
Look, the Taliban is shit and these stories are truly horrific, but where was the coverage of Afghanistan the last 10 years?
Whenever I read these stories, all I see, aside from the obvious human misery and evil, is a media class that is continually trying to rewrite history to somehow justify the failure that was the 20 year occupation, and discredit the withdrawal.
I hope this woman gets justice and I hope things improve for women in Afghanistan. But I also want the Western audiences not to be the blinded by the sinister intent that is behind a lot of the Western Afghanistan media coverage.
Not because they should dismiss this women’s story, or those like hers, but so they don’t forget what a failure the NATO adventure in Afghanistan was. So they don’t believe that the next war, should go on forever, or that expeditionary military force and occupation can be used to improve women’s rights.
things wont improve for women in Afghanistan, as long as the Taliban are in power. I hope thats clear.
…and how many more years of military occupation would have prevented that?
A generarion or two. If you invade; you better be prepared to build the state as well.
I don’t even know where to begin with the levels of idiocy contained in your remark.
Like, do I start with the realities of how Western PMC mineral extraction fed into the cycle of extremism and poverty, the problems inherent with trying to use foreign military occupation to create a functioning centralized state out of a tribal society who’s only a nation because colonial powers drew lines on maps, or just the raw racism of believing that the white saviors should invade and occupy poor brown countries because we have to show those savages how to be better people.
Let’s start with how it’s racist to stop religious fundamentalists from abusing women. This should be fun.
Just a wild guess here, but I take it that you never got very good marks for reading comprehension. But whatever, I’ll answer your bad faith question:
The racism is ignoring all of the ways in which colonial powers have fucked, refucked, and then triple fucked, the collection of tribal regions known as Afghanistan, which only exists as a nation state because of colonial powers drawing politically convenient lines on maps.
All while pretending that religion, and not the colonial conflict legacy is the root cause of these problems. Because admitting that colonialism is why we’re here, isn’t a very good narrative for selling the next war.
So great, now it’s the white Savior’s moral obligation to fix the problems that these brown people created all on their own, and definitely did not happen as a result of over a century of colonial violence , resource exploitation, and constant warfare.
And not for nothing, but you also clearly don’t have a clue about the crimes against humanity level shit that happened during the occupation.
So stop and think, why all this coverage now, and not for the last decade of occupation?
Manufacturing consent for the next foreign war.
Unfortunately you’re basically highlighting the reason that propaganda like this works: immediacy bias.
This story, and the idea of the video, of the woman being raped is immediately visible.
The historical context surrounding this story, and the political context of its dissemination, is not visible. All the stories that were neglected by the media that is cynically using this current story are not immediately in front of us.
It’s hard for people to step out of that immediate reaction because it feels like the story they just heard is happening in front of them. We’re not mentally built for a global news environment where news stories can be cherry picked for their desired impact.
It’s ironic that something called “immediacy bias” is being exploited by the media, when immediate literally means “without media”. Maybe in this case it should be called the immediacy illusion.
You’re vastly oversimplifying.
Afghanistan as we know it was created by Pashtuns, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan back then in 1747 (A large chunk of Tajiks settled in North Afhghanistan fleeing the Red Army, that’s why they’re so numerous now). It’s already post-colonial, in the sense that it’s not part of Persia (or Greece) any more and avoided becoming Russian, it fought for its independence. Saying “it only exists because it’s convenient to colonial powers” is a fucking insult.
You’re erasing their own struggles and achievements for your own messed-up white saviour complex, “Oh poor brown people are poor and behave like assholes that must be because we did it”.
No, colonial conflicts did not instil misogyny in Afghanistan, least of all during the Soviet or US invasion. That’s a mixture of ancient tribal values reinforced by convenient interpretations of Islam. The US could certainly have supported nicer people than the Mujahideen to fuck with the Soviets trying to colonise but it’s not like Afghanistan was a beacon of progressivism before, on the contrary. Some enlightened absolutism in Kabul, yes, the Royals got around and studied abroad, everywhere else, very much not.
If you ask me the mistake the US made, big-picture, was to not arming women.
All while pretending that religion, and not the colonial conflict legacy is the root cause of these problems.
The taliban is a bunch of woman abusers because of…colonialism?
See I knew this would be fun, tell me another one
Afghanistan did not arise as a result from colonial powers. That’s false and completely ignores the self determination of Afghans.
Also, the stuff you’re saying about how the country was just a simple, tribal place is actually very hurtful. Borderline racist.
