Thirty two Australian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, and thousands of others from the US and numerous other countries. Some of these at least have been the victims of treachery by those they were there to help, by training and mentoring them.
Is it worth it?
You have to wonder when things like this continue to happen there.
A woman has been in jail for 2 years, having been imprisoned for adultery after having been raped by a relative at her home. She had a child by her attacker, and was raising it in her prison cell. And this wasn’t happening in some backwater far flung corner of the country – it was in the capital, Kabul.
Her case came to light when Afghan president Hamid Karzai intervened to have her released after receiving a petition with 5,000 signatures. Karzai called a meeting where judicial officials decided to pardon her. But there was a twist in this tail.
The officials also said that the woman should marry the man who attacked her, due to fears she could be in danger if released because of the stigma surrounding her attack in ultra-conservative Afghanistan. She agreed to this (no duress at all, right?) but only if her attacker’s (and future husband) sister married her brother. This was said to be a way to try to ensure she wasn’t attacked by her rapist/attacker/husband.
In another example of how women are treated in this fine example of civilisation, a 17-year-old girl was seriously injured when caustic liquid was sprayed on her face by masked gunmen who broke into her home in the northern city of Kunduz. Her mother and 4 sisters were also injured after being splashed with acid. Her father blamed a former militia commander who had proposed marriage to her but was rejected by the family.
"A man asked for her hand. We rejected [him] and our daughter was engaged to someone else. I suspect that man might be behind this,"
he said.
Violence against women in Afghanistan appears to be increasing rather than decreasing, despite billions of dollars of international aid that has poured into the country during the last 10 years.
About 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the charity Oxfam.
Last week, the United Nations said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had been used to prosecute just more than 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.
A wonderful civilisation isn’t it? And our soldiers are being killed just maintaining the level of barbarism where it is, the argument being it would be much worse otherwise. Worth it?
Maybe we should just all of those Afghans who want to join the 21st century to leave and go live somewhere else, then build a great big fence around those who want to go back to the 15th century, and let them kill each other off.
I’m listening to TISM – Greg! The Stop Sign