Women’s Rights and Afghanistan

Ann Friedman has an excellent piece in TAP on the problematic nature of invoking women’s rights as a rationale for military involvement in Afghanistan. Her trenchant critique is reaches its apex with the following claim, which I suspect will be too bold for some: “To me, the answer is tragically apparent: It doesn’t matter whether U.S. military intervention can be a force for humanitarianism because, in Afghanistan, it never has been and won’t become one.”

Gregg Carlstrom counters with the point that even though humanitarian is not going to be the objective of US forces in Afghanistan, their presence can still serve humanitarian ends. Spencer Ackerman also objects:

That’s not the case. The presence of NGOs in places currently held by the Taliban and potentially cleared by U.S. forces really is a force for humanitarianism, even if it’s at best a marginal or peripheral result of the war. I don’t dispute that it’s an emotionally manipulative and simplistic thing to keep saying, “But the Taliban are horrible!” But, you know, the Taliban are horrible, and there needs to be a way to balance the benefits for human rights — even if only by degree — of the diminishment of the Taliban with the horrors of war. And yes, ought implies can, and can is a debatable proposition to say the least. But I don’t want the debate to carom between multiple poles of simplicity.

That’s true, but I think Spencer ought to go back and read some of his own posts about the nature of the overall strategic plan for Afghanistan. The idea is to strengthen the Karzai government and deal the Taliban some military defeats in order to shift the incentives and make Taliban members or affiliates interested in political reconciliation. Our hoped-for endgame, basically, is a big meeting at which the US will demand certain things vis-a-vis al-Qaeda, Karzai’s crew will demand certain things regarding their power and perks of office, and Taliban affiliates will have demands of their own. Essentially (and perhaps literally) all the people around the table will be men, and protecting the rights of women will be on no one’s agenda.

It’s a recipe for a sellout. Afghanistan is a place where, as Mao said, political power grows from the barrel of a gun. And Afghanistan’s guns are basically all in the hands of men. To empower Afghan women, politically, would require either some kind of permanent NATO protectorate or else a deliberate effort to restructure Afghan politics in some much more fundamental way—either take power out of the hands of armed groups, or else to empower women to become militia leaders and warlords on their terms. We’re not seriously contemplating doing any of those things, for some pretty good reasons, but given those realities we shouldn’t kid ourselves too much about what we’re doing. The Taliban are horrible for women and the plan in Afghanistan is to entice them and their horrible views into a power-sharing agreement!