While President Barack Obama takes his time and really, really considers listening to the man he put in charge of winning the war in Afghanistan, the liberal wing of the Democrat party is desperate to get him to lose the war. So what happens if we refuse to accept the need for a larger military presence in Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to make more gains.
The Afghan women know all too well:
As an Afghan woman who for many years lived a life deprived of the most basic human rights, I find unbearable the thought of what will happen to the women of my country if it once again falls under the control of the insurgents and militants who now threaten it.
In 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, the liberation of Afghan women was one of the most important justifications for military intervention. Has the world now changed its mind about Afghan women? Is it ready to let them once again be killed and tortured by militants? Does the world no longer believe in the principles it supported in 2001?
Handing over Afghanistan to those who intend to keep the country centuries behind most of the world — to men who do not view women as human beings — would not only call into doubt the global commitment to human rights, it would also raise questions about the commitment of Western democracies to such rights and to democratic values. Bearing in mind how fragile the Afghan government is at this moment, it will not take long for the country’s women to come under attack again. The consequences will be even more bitter this time because no matter how limited our success, we have at least managed to act in the forefront of public life in Afghanistan. We have had a taste of what it’s like to have rights.
They remember life under the Taliban. It has not been that long that they were freed from the oppression of Sharia law:
Shah Mahmoud, described his first lesson from the Taliban. Soon after they took the city he was walking near his home, wearing trousers and clean-shaven, when he saw a group of Taliban men beating a woman with a length of cable. The woman was carrying a baby and screaming: “Oh God! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
The woman, who was taking her sick child to the doctor, had fallen foul of one of the Taliban’s early decrees, that woman should not leave their homes under any circumstances.
“I was astounded, and outraged that they’d hit her,” said Mahmoud. “I went up to them and asked them what right they had to do such a thing. They started to hit me, and two of them grabbed my hands from behind.” Mahmoud managed to struggle free and ran away. He resisted no more, so the decrees kept coming.
“I didn’t want to wear a beard. They said it was necessary. I didn’t want to wear a turban. It was the law. I didn’t want to paint my eyes. They said you have to paint your eyes. That one came right from the office of Mullah Omar.”
They beat a woman holding a baby with cable…because she left the house. I know the Obama administration says I simply misuderstand Sharia law, and that it really isn’t that bad, but that seems to be a little over the top. However, the Taliban have a place in the new Afghan government. Again, that’s what Obama says:
President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and appears inclined to send only as many more U.S. troops as needed to keep al-Qaida at bay, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The sharpened focus by Obama’s team on fighting al-Qaida above all other goals, while downgrading the emphasis on the Taliban, comes in the midst of an intensely debated administration review of the increasingly unpopular eight-year-old war.
That’s an interesting perspective. Fight al-Qaida, downgrade the Taliban. Here’s a different perspective, held by a man the Taliban kidnapped and imprisoned for over seven months:
Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.
Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.
What right wing rag is this drivel printed in? The New York Times.
It makes you wonder if Barry and Co. really understand there is more on the line here than his re-election. If he bends his knee to the lose at all costs of the left wing, or in other words the Democrat base, then he turns a now free Afghanistan back into subjects of the Taliban.
You may not like the United States having a presence in Afghanistan. That’s fine. I understand that. However, we cannot, in good conscience, abandon these people to living under persecution.
Give the general what he needs. Win the war.
