'What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan': A Response to TIME Magazine

The August 9, 2010 issue of TIME magazine featured a striking cover
photograph of an 18-year-old Afghan woman, Aisha, who was disfigured by
the Taliban last year. The cover title read, "What happens if we leave
Afghanistan." While Aisha's story and the stories of many other women
like her may depict some part of the reality of women's lives under the
Taliban, TIME's conclusion that continuing the U.S. occupation of
Afghanistan is necessary, is highly misleading and troubling.

Afghan
women, like women around the world, have lived under very oppressive
conditions for decades. Many women remain indoors, without education or
health care, or economic security, have early marriages, and are
unprotected from domestic violence. Today, after a decade of the
U.S.-led occupation, the lives of Afghan women have become worse, not
better: in addition to facing continued oppression under the Taliban and
the equally oppressive Northern Alliance, they also live in a war zone.

TIME's
statement echoes and resurrects the same justification for the war
given during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan: if U.S. forces withdraw
from Afghanistan, any rights gained for Afghan women will be reversed by
fundamentalist forces. However, this false logic grossly ignores the
history of the U.S. imperialist relationship and presence in the region
and its effect on women's rights. During the Soviet occupation in the
1980's, the U.S. armed the anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces, who were at
one point led by Osama Bin Laden. In subsequent years the Taliban rose
to power, with the Unitd States as its ally. In 2001, when the Bush
administration sought to topple the Taliban regime, the United States
armed and enlisted the help of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of
warlords with its own track record of human rights abuses. Indeed, the
United States has consistently chosen the side of fundamentalist allies
at the expense of Afghan women, and has always sought its own gains in
the region.

In its nine long years, the U.S.-led occupation of
Afghanistan has done nothing to improve the conditions for people in
Afghanistan, especially for women. As the classified documents recently
leaked by WikiLeaks.org corroborate, the coalition forces have been
killing hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. According to the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the 2009 civilian
death toll, close to 2,412 civilian deaths, was the highest of any year
since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, and an increase of 24%
from 2008. There has been a general increase in violence and civilian
deaths because of occupation. A Human Rights Watch Press Alert in 2005,
stated that up to 60% of law makers in the lower house of Afghanistan's
newly elected parliament are directly or indirectly connected to human
rights abuses. By 2009, the U.N. human development index ranked
Afghanistan 181 out of 182 countries. The maternal mortality rate in
Afghanistan reveals the highest ever documented. Over the past decade,
the immensely corrupt, U.S.-backed Afghan regime led by Hamid Karzai has
passed and maintained numerous misogynist laws, including the one that
put Aisha in jail after she fled from her in-laws.

For the last
decade, the occupying forces of the U.S. and its NATO allies have
nourished warlords and supported a corrupt government, leading many to
join the Taliban and increasing their influence across Afghanistan.
Increased civilian deaths, a fundamentalist resurgence, and deadly
bombing raids have led to a devastated country and a Taliban stronger
than ever before. TIME's claim to "illuminate what is actually happening
on the ground" falsely equates the last decade of occupation with
progress. The occupation has not and will not bring democracy to
Afghanistan, nor will it bring liberation to Afghan women. Instead, it
has exacerbated deep-seated corruption in the government, the widespread
abuse of women's rights and human rights by fundamentalists, including
Karzai's allies, and stymied critical infrastructure development in the
country. The question should not be "what happens if we leave
Afghanistan," the question should be "what happened when we invaded
Afghanistan" and "what happens if we stay in Afghanistan."

The
Afghan people are capable of creating their own democratic future.
Progressive groups and democratic parties in Afghanistan are fighting
to reconstruct the peace and safety of their country, and more often
than not, are forced underground for fear of their safety. Despite the
repression from the U.S.-backed Karzai government, thousands of brave
students and women have come out on to the streets of Kabul to protest
the bombings and the continued war. It is from these forces that a
larger progressive movement will emerge that could play a role in
bringing real democracy to Afghanistan. If the United States continues
the occupation, the space for progressive forces becomes increasingly
limited.

We must know and remember, that liberation never comes
from occupation. We must know and remember, that there will always be
resistance to occupation. Occupations, no matter where they take place,
from Iraq to Palestine to Turtle Island, are unjust. The American people
must come out in support and solidarity with the resilient peoples of
Afghanistan and elsewhere who are fighting for their own liberation, and
must call for the end of all U.S. wars and occupations.

Signatories:

South Asia Solidarity Initiative
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Derrick O'Keefe co-writer of the autobiography Malalai Joya -- A Woman Among Warlords
Veterans For Peace
Courage to Resist
Anjali Kamat, Producer, Democracy Now!
Robert Jensen, University of Texas, Austin, TX