http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=E3A6C5FE-3F1C-410D-B19D-F57BE14B4034

You’re organized. You can get vocal. DO IT.

Some of the stuff those people do just makes me sick.

Bobby

I most likely am going to blasted for this, but don’t be angry at the way I see things. The most important thing is we all agree that this is wrong, and maybe soon, we can do something to help them.

I keep thinking about this. Durned stumble upon!

Your posting would have had much greater impact if you’d put you agenda aside and forgone the editorializing with this stuff:

Just a few things to think about today, and every time you hear politicians talk about how we “liberated” Afghanistan and Afghan women.

Bobby

Women are way way way way better off now than before. It’s far from perfect, but they are better off. So are the men. I may be reading something into this that’s not there, but it seems there is an implication that the US government has somehow decided that the women aren’t important and that nothing is being done. Any rational person knows better than that.

To al the US bashers: I’ve lived around the world, and for all it’s problem, I ultimately choose to live in the US because it is the best place there is (everyone loves their own country, right?).

We may make mistakes, but we act with good intentions and I believe the world is a far better place because of our interventions. The end results may not be perfect, but things are a whole lot better than they would have been if we’d just left well enough alone. Like Nicaragua (someone brought that up as an example of our mis-deeds) would be better off now if we’d left them alone. NOT! Or Europe would be better off if we’d just let the Soviets have their way. NOT!

Now here’ a idea that’s gonna a lot of you off, but it is true, it is history. Men have ruled the world (and even oppressed women) since forever. We are stronger and capable of complete domination if we so choose. That’s biology. (We’re capable of all kinds of badness.) Women have been given rights in the past few hundred years, but only because the men have let them. Think about that. If the men didn’t allow it, the women would not have been given the right to vote, own property, etc. Complain and protest all you want, but in the end, it was because the men decided it was the right thing to do. All men know this. I think most men agree that it is a good thing to involve the women, we love women, we respect them and their opinions and appreciate their contributions to society and our lives. We want them to be happy. I have known very few that feel otherwise. Men in some places are just slower than others to come around to this notion. And when you ask (or imply) that something be done to “fix” the woman problem in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, you are asking the men to do it, because the women of the world just can’t do it by themselves. No way. Even with a woman president, you are mainly going to be asking men soldiers to do most of the hard work, even give their lives (yeah, I know some woman will be involved, too, don’t go there, they are a minority of any war action, it’s mostly men who will die). And a war action is what it will take to force the changes you want.

For all of those opposed to US interventions, do you really think we should have just left the Taliban alone? Let them continue with their horrible abuses on women that were going on? Can you really not see that the women of Afghanistan are far better off and have better chance of a bright future than if we’d left it alone?

Bobby

This is EXACTLY this kind of po-mo infested culturaly-relative junk which gives fodder to those that say that the hard feminist left is killing itself by insufficiently criticising cultures which are disasterous to women simply because the American right has singled them out.

Sarah, did you read the fucking post? It was about how bad women have it in Afghanistan.

Just because things there are bad now doesn’t mean that a) things weren’t worse before and b) things aren’t getting better.

If you can provide any statistics or figures, I’d love to see them. Because things really aren’t much better. And no one denies that they were bad before.

I’ve posted here before saying that the feminist left all to often makes excuses for regimes with the worst records on gender and sexuality human rights, and each time I am asked to provide examples, as if no one has any idea what I’ve been talking about. Well, this post, and the aftermath of apologizing for the worst possible government for women says it all doesn’t it.

If you can point to where anyone made excuses for the Taliban, go for it. Opposing U.S. military intervention is not the same thing as apologizing for right-wing regimes in other countries. And perhaps your inability to grasp nuanced arguments is the reason people got tired of you last time.

We get it, you’re against war and intervention. Great. Don’t go trading in the good name of the feminist movement (what’s left of it that is) to further going after an argument you lost in 2001. Just because things there are bad now doesn’t mean that a) things weren’t worse before and b) things aren’t getting better. Changing decades of pre-historical views on women takes a bit longer than 6 years and a couple thousand GIs, doesn’t mean it isn’t a worthy prospect.

I’ve posted here before saying that the feminist left all to often makes excuses for regimes with the worst records on gender and sexuality human rights, and each time I am asked to provide examples, as if no one has any idea what I’ve been talking about. Well, this post, and the aftermath of apologizing for the worst possible government for women says it all doesn’t it. A bit late on the trigger at this point I guess, but the reception I received last time I mentioned this resulted in infrequent visits…

Thank you for your interesting post, and for your cold war scaremongering that is a few decades too late. The USSR collapsed under its own weight, get over it.

I am not American. I say what I say from the point of view of somebody from South America, which I am. Ever heard of September 11th, 1973? Ever heard of the myriad military governments, backed, trained and sponsored by the United States, which killed thousands of people across Latin America? Shit, ever heard of Nicaragua?

U.S. interventionism predates Afghanistan and Iraq, and it has been overhwelmingly negative to the world at large.

The Europeans seem to forget that a large reason why European countries manage to spend less on defense is that the US spends for them or they would have been rolled over by the Russians after the second world war. Ask the Eastern Europeans how they fared under the feet of Mother Russia.

It’s not so much that men use more “violent” methods as they use instantaneous methods, ie guns. Women more frequently attempt suicide via overdose, where they can change their minds and call 9-11. Many people who attempt suicide are frequently seized with regret and panic immediately doing so – read the chilling interviews of people who jumped off bridges and survived. I’m not an expert on the literature, but I believe if you take suicide method into account, the differences in attempt:success ratios for men and women become minimal.

This is pretty much what I have learned in every psychology and sociology class I took in college. The vast majority of people (men AND women) who survive their suicide attempt is glad that they did.

Now, back onto topic…

R.E. Silvera, I completely agree with you. And well said.

The only think I have to add is a quote from the brilliant Ani DiFranco’s poem Self-Evident.

get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else’s desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever