Afghan Woman Speaks Out

Ok can we now drop all the platitudes about how we are fighting for women and girls in Afghanistan.

Canadian troops making things worse: Afghan legislator

Canada's troops are making matters worse for the Afghan people, a popular member of the war-torn country's national assembly told an NDP policy convention Friday.

With federal New Democrats debating a resolution to withdraw Canadian troops from combat in southern Afghanistan over the next six months, Malalai Joya, 27, the youngest elected Afghan parliamentarian, said efforts to fight the Taliban are helping warlords and drug lords take control of the country, suppressing the voices and rights of women and children.

"If (Canadians) want to prove themselves as real friends of the Afghan people, they must act independently," said Joya, who has escaped several assassination attempts since she was first elected in 2003. "They continued the policy of the U.S. and our people don't agree with U.S. policy, and this is why there is no positive results right now."

Also See:

The War For Women's Rights

Afghanistan

War

Feminism

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Brits Cut And Run In Afghanistan

For those of you who say we should not withdraw Canadian troops, I say why not the Brits have!

Nato reveals that Britain withdrew an offer of 800 extra troops, reports Michael Smith in Kabul

BRITAIN agreed to provide an extra 800 troops to allied forces fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan but later withdrew the offer, Nato officials disclosed last week. Lieutenant General David Richards, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, planned to use the 800-man force as troubleshooters, sending them into any area where fighting broke out. However, John Reid, then the defence secretary, was so angry at the reluctance of other Nato countries to supply troops that the offer was retracted. Reid, who famously said that he hoped British troops would leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot, indicated that the UK would send no more troops other than the 3,300 men to be based in Helmand province.

Meanwhile the NATO meeting in Warsaw has been a failure to get any agreement on more reinforcements.

WARSAW, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Defence chiefs from NATO's 26 nations agreed on Saturday they needed more troops and fewer limitations on the use of their forces to step up the fight against insurgents in the violent south of Afghanistan. No pledges of extra troops were announced after two days of talks in Warsaw but NATO officials said national defence chiefs had agreed to consult with their capitals on reinforcements to tackle fiercer-than-expected Taliban resistance.

Leaving Canada to reinforce this mission despite the comments to the contrary, or the contrary comments made by War Minister O'Connor who flip flops more than a trout out of water.

But O'Connor made it clear that the country would not contribute more troops, and said: We have more than met our commitment.

Defence minister changes his opinion from the day before
Hints that Canada may be sending more military resources

The NDP is right to say we withdraw our troops immediately leave this dirty war to the Americans who cut and ran to Iraq. They have twenty thousand troops still there, while we do the dying for them.

Also See:

Afghanistan

War

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Watch the NDP Convention On CPAC

Headline Politics: 8am ET / 5am PT
New Democratic Party of Canada Convention from Québec City, September 9, 2006.

Because the CBC and CTV are NOT covering the convention live, except to have camera men on the 'Con' mike during the Get Troops Out of Afghanistan resolution debate.

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NDP

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Afghanistan A Brit View

The Conservatives say this is the war on terror if that is the case it was lost when the Americans cut and ran from Afghanistan in the rush for war in Iraq.

For General Sir Michael Rose, who led the SAS and commanded British forces in Bosnia, it is simple. "Having defeated the Taliban in 2001, the West then mistakenly shifted its effort and resources to Iraq, leaving most of Afghanistan insecure," he said. "This has allowed the Taliban to return." In other words, not only have gains in the real "war on terror" been dangerously eroded, the reckless detour into Iraq has made things worse.

Far from hunting Bin Laden down, the West has been forced to prevent his allies re-establishing a foothold in Afghanistan. n many areas, Nato has found the populace incensed by what General Rose called "American search-and-destroy tactics".

The Afghan army, which has so far trained 42,000 men, is better regarded than the police, but is of very uneven quality. One report from British trainers with a unit in Musa Qala claimed Afghan soldiers refused to fight, extorted money from local people, spent much of their time high on drugs and even threatened to shoot their British allies.

For General Rose it is already too late. "Given the level of resources Nato has at the moment, and the strategy we are pursuing, we simply cannot win. The forces there can't achieve the objectives they have been given." 9/11 - A bloody legacy

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Afghanistan

War

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Rushton Is A Fascist

A recent study proves it is ''very likely'' that the reason women have difficulty rising to the top in their careers is because they are less intelligent than men, according to controversial University of Western Ontario psychologist J. Philippe Rushton.

The professor already criticized for claiming that whites are intellectually superior to blacks, and that higher AIDS rates in Africa are due to a more insatiable sexual appetite in the black community believes the ''glass ceiling'' phenomenon is probably due to innate ability rather than discrimination.Men smarter than women

Very likely is a weak statement. But Phil Rushton has never let that stop him from painting in broad strokes to justify his fascist ideology. And I don't use that term lightly.

Rushton has been associated with American Renaissance, a white nationalist monthly magazine. He has also written articles for VDARE, a right-wing anti-immigrant website.

I was at the Learned Socities meeting at UWO when Le Affaire Rushton occured. He is from UWO. He published his paper on blacks being stupid, whites smart, asians smarter causing an uproar in academia and in the MSM. Now he is attacking women, should make Real Women happy. This headline is telling;

Men Smarter than Women, Scientist Claims

Psychologists are NOT scientists, despite their attempt over the past three decades to pretend they are. Psychology is a social science, which has about as much in common with science as it does Art.

Rushton uses statistical data to prove his points, just as his American counterparts did with their book the Bell Curve. The ressurection of fascist psychology by Rushton and his American counterparts began with Arthur Jensen, whom Rushton adores. And lets make no bones about it Rushton is a fascist psychologist, all his work is directed towards differentiating humans by race and now sex. It is the political nature that underscores all his research.

His articles are published in defense of eugenics. He has supporters like this guy.
and well known Nazi supporters like Paul Fromm. And he is admired by the White Nationalists. No surprize that when we writes things like this.

American Renaissance News: Genes Contribute to Patriotism and Group Loyalty

Research showing the importance of genetic similarity to group loyalty and patriotism was published in the October issue of Nations and Nationalism, an academic journal of the London School of Economics.

The paper, entitled “Ethnic nationalism, evolutionary psychology, and genetic similarity theory” shows that genetic similarity is a “social glue” in groups as small as two spouses and best friends, or in those as large as nations and alliances.

The evidence comes from studies of identical and non-identical twins, adopted and non-adopted children, blood tests, social assortment, heritabilities, family bereavements, and large-scale population genetics.

For example, identical twins grieve more for their co-twin than do non-identical twins. And, family members grieve more for children who resemble their side of the family than they do their spouse’s side.

Also, spouses who are more genetically similar have longer and more satisfying marriages.

Based on their DNA, two randomly chosen individuals from the same ethnic group are found to be as related as first cousins.

Thus, two random people of English ancestry are the equivalent of a 3/8 cousin compared to people from the Near East; a 1/2 cousin by comparison with people from India; and like full cousins by comparison with people from China.

The study’s author, J. Philippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario said, “This explains why people describe themselves as having “ties of blood” with members of their own ethnic group, who they view as “special” and different from outsiders; it explains why ethnic remarks are so easily taken as ‘fighting words.’”

Rushton belongs to the a group of uptown intellectuals who cleverly cover their racism and fasicist ideology under the cover of science and academic respectability. Not unlike defrocked fascist David Irving.

His phoney science was exposed by Stephen J. Gould in his book The Measure of Man.

Here is a man who has power and authority and a teaching position but for that establishment standing would be considered as much of a crackpot as this guy.

The work of Philip Rushton at University of Western Ontario on the intelligence of Aryans, Asian, and Africans is no accident. It represents part of the backlash to the demand for inclusion. Many debates in the African Canadian community charge fields such as Psychology, Anthropology, Education, History, Sociology with advancing racist and sexist agendas. There is a challenge, therefore, to re-examine the content and the motives of these disciplines. Many feel that these disciplines attempt to appropriate and define people of African descent without their participation. To further exacerbate the situation, university professors have the power to deny authority to the voice of these groups. For example, books published by African scholars on the psychology or sociology of African people are rarely be used as texts in "White" institutions. Herein lies the challenge to our world view.Challenges of Teaching in the 90s

We should not now be surprised that Rushton would apply his fascist ideology towards women. For woman hatred is the core nature of the fascist ideology as Theweitweit observed in his work Male Fantasies.

Fascism is the political ideology of the little man, who wants to be in power and is also afraid of the powers of others, as radical psychologistWilhelm Reich pointed out.

Also See:

Fascism

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Blogging Tories Campaign Fails

The Bloginng Tories campaign to end funding for Status of Women is now online with a petition.

It is pathetic that since this campaign began last month their petition has a total of 592 signatures. And many of those signatures are from men. You know the guys these rightwhingblogs have been complaining about.

Ohh bestill my beating heart, the masses have spoken. Actually these dweebs deliberately confuse a federal department with a feminist organization, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which lobbies the department.

Be that what it may, this campaign is a tempest in a teapot, created by the ladies auxilary of the neo-cons.

The petition should have thousands of signatures the way they claim to speak for all Canadian women. Less than 600 signatures is pathetic and speaks the the failure of the right whing blogs to actually mobilize any grassroots support. They are only good at appearing to speak for a movement, enough to get them some press coverage. But when push comes to shove they are politically weak-tea.

When John Loney was held captive in Iraq, the petition to save our PeakeMakers got over thirty thousand signatures in a few days. 592 over a month is a dribble.

When it began the MSM that made a big deal out of this faux campaign. It should now be reporting on the failure of this campaign, but it won't. Moving on to other issues now. Ironically the campaign came to the attention of the MSM via Steve Janke's whitewhing blog. Anti-feminist Janke is a man. Surprise!

This is all about the Blogging Tory self promoting echo chamber sturm and drang signifying nothing. No real campaign of the masses, just right wing special interest politics.

It is also addressed to the wrong person. It asks the Finance Minister to end funding for the Status of Women.

Fine and dandy except that Status of Women is its own department and cabinet position under Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women - Bev Oda.
Whom BigBlueWave called a radical feminist. Really.

So it's a bunch of radical feminist bureaucrats consulting radical feminists to hear what they want to hear to promote more radical feminism on my dime.”

So they can't even get the who in the petition right and then they accuse Bev Oda of being a feminist bureaucrat. Hilarious.

Of course this is a simple case of misdirected misanthropic myopic mysoginist politics. There I got to use all the M words. Except mother. Ok, their mothers should be ashamed of them.



Also See:

Real Women

Feminism



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The War For Women's Rights

I was going to entitled this the Feminist War in Afghanistan but there are no real feminists fighting nor is this fight really about feminism, rather this is a patriarchcial war using womens rights as an excuse. By definition war is the domain of men in particular patriarchical societies based on caste; priests, warrior, farmers.

Canada and the US make a big deal out of women and girls in Afghanistan. How the war there is for them...to liberate them from the horrors of the Taliban, in particular the Burka, yet here is a photo comment from the Government of Canada's own Foreign Affairs web site on Afghanistan....uh hey they are still wearing Burka's....

A woman casts her ballot in Afghanistan’s
September 18, 2005, election, for which
Canada provided support.
Afghan voters elected the members
of the Wolesi Jirga (lower chamber
of the National Assembly) and
representatives of 34 provincial councils.

The government likes to talk about numbers too, in order to explain why we are at war in Afghanistan...

4.8 million
Number of Afghan children - one-third of them girls - that are back in school.

157,000
Number of recipients (78% women) of loans totaling US$12 million. Canada is a lead donor of microfinance to Afghans.

Microfinance in a region that has no banks.

Afghanistan

RAY SUAREZ: You are trying to run a business in a place that's also one of the most heavy opium cultivation belts in the world.

SARAH CHAYES: Yes.

RAY SUAREZ: What does all that money coming in do to the legitimate side of the -- of the ledger, whether you're a civil servant or a farmer or someone trying to run a business?

SARAH CHAYES: Well, one thing it does is raise property values. We would love to buy a piece of land and build a facility, a production facility, but it's totally out of reach. I mean, it would cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars to buy a decent -- I mean, we're talking an acre, less than an acre, in Kandahar, you know?

SARAH CHAYES: I mean, this is not New York City. And, so, that's one problem. I...

RAY SUAREZ: Because there's so much money in opium?

SARAH CHAYES: That's right.

There's so much money in -- washing around the economy in Kandahar that it -- I mean, the supply of money is greater than the supply of goods. And that means that the prices of goods go up. It's -- land is also a way to, you know, kind of salt your money away.

But I find that, actually, Afghan farmers are very interested in diversifying what they're growing. There are all sorts of reasons why they grow opium. One is that there's, you know, not such an efficient market for some of their other very valuable products, like pomegranates, that, you know, we have all been reading about recently, or almonds, or apricots.

They grow really valuable crops. But the issue is, how do you get them out of Afghanistan to places that can spend more money on them?

Also, imagine a place where there's no banking system. So, no one can take out a loan from a -- from an institution. They take out a loan from a -- from a trafficker. And they have to pay it back in opium. So, that's some of the ways that it -- that it really disturbs, you know, regular economic transactions.

The reason we are at war is to liberate the women and girls of Afghanistan. That was the rhetoric used by the Bush regime when they launched their war on the Taliban government in Afghanistan. At first it was a simple act of reprisal for 9/11.

But of course revenge is never an adequate excuse to start a war, once tempers cool down. Reason demands more. So the U.S. Government decided that the other reason to attack the Taliban government, besides their failure to hand over Usama bin Laden (which they were actually willing to do) was to free the countries women from oppression.

A very laudable goal. A very gentlemanly thing to do...Like Sir Walter Raliegh andthrowing his cloak down for Queen Elizabeth, the US would lay down carpet bombing of Afghanistan for the women and girls of the country oppressed by the Taliban.

But of course it has failed. The right likes to talk about girls going to school, women not wearing the Burka but as the photo above shows the patriarchs rule in Afghanistan still. And women wear Burka's and girls schools are burned down. Not by the Taliban but by the Afghani village mullahs.

"When the entire nation is living under the shadow of the gun and warlordism, how can its women enjoy very basic freedoms?" asked Joya. "Contrary to the propaganda in certain Western media, Afghan women and men are not 'liberated' at all."Malalai Joya, the youngest member of the Afghan National Assembly, today appeared at the NDP Federal Convention in Quebec City supporting Jack Layton and the NDP's criticism of the NATO led mission in southern Afghanistan.Afghan politician says NATO mission has not brought more peace to the region

Right on sister. Ironically it is the right whing who proclaim all this tripe about our need to liberate women in Afghanistan, the same right whing that attacks womens rights at home. Ironic that. But typical of patriarchical thinking. Women need to be protected. Not much different thinking from the Taliban or other patriarchs who see women as needing protection. And who are they being protected from? Other men.

Women historically oppose war. Just look at the current polling in Canada and the U.S.

As mothers, wives, sisters and daughters women have opposed mens war. It is they who have to tend the wounded, sick and dying. It is women who take care of the victims of war, including the wounded veterans.

When prairie tribes of Cree and others decided to go to war, they had to convince not the male elders but the women of the tribe. A telling story is the case of Poundmaker. Confronted by the RCMP at Batoche he told them the decision had to be made by the women of the tribe. The RCMP officer laughed at warriors taking direction from a squaw. Poundmaker replied; You take orders from the Great White Mother. Point made.

When women mobilize the do so because their very lives and their families depend upon it. Historically women become revolutionized when they see famine, starvation, deprivation. The bread riots in Europe and America were led by women. The Russian Revolution was ignited by mass womens protests against the war and its ensuing famine. The revolution in Iran began with masses of women protesting in the streets, and the ensuing oppression led to a general strike.

No one has asked the women of Afghanistan what they want. Despite having elected more women politicians than are currently in Ottawa. One cannot ask them anything since under Muslim law they have little access to public space.

I am tired of hearing patriarchical war mongers, left and right, speak in the name of women and girls to justify this war in Afghanistan. It is an opium war. It is an extension of the American Cold War Against the Soviet Union.

Women have not asked for you to fight. No one has asked the women of Afghanistan what they want, the very first step of empowerment. Our troops have done nothing to free women in Afghanistan to be public persons. That remains the domain of men.

The slogan of the anti-war movement appropriately applies to the women of Afghanistan in relation to those who claim this war is for them.

Not In My Name.

Also See:

Afghanistan

War

Feminism

Whose Family Values?

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