There was much support by Americans of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. However, it seems that the US has been losing its grip on the war torn country. As the Taliban are fighting their way back in, hopes for democracy are fading away. Just recently, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed into legislation a bill that would punish women if they were to leave the house without permission from their husbands.
Many critics of the bill even claim that this particular piece of legislation advocates the husband to rape his wife if she were to attempt to leave him. The law would only affect Shiite Muslims and not Sunnis. UNIFEM, or The United Nations Development Fund for Women, believes that this law is in direct violation of human rights. This bill could possibly reverse everything that Americans and Afghans have been fighting for since 2001.
There have been many positive political and societal changes in Afghanistan that have given women more power and freedom. This legislation could negate all of that. We cannot lose Afghanistan almost as much as they cannot lose themselves. Passing this bill would a be a victory for the very evil that was cast away from Afghanistan.
Stephen Mack's blog
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I might be completly wrong, but wasn't our invasion of Afghanistan primarily intended to rid any residual terrorist threats in the area (aka bin Laden)? I understand, it would be a nice side-task to instill a Western value system into the governing legislature of that region, but I don't recall that being our primary task at hand.
ReplyDeleteIt is scary that while so much of the world has come so far in woman's rights that some parts of the world are actually going to wrong direction. At the same time, if we ever want Afghanistan to function on it's own as a country we have to stop interfering in every piece of legislation they pass. I believe this would be a good place for the UN to get involved and for the U.S. to keep it's distance.
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