And I've never met a woman there who said she was even neutral, much less happy, about it. In my experience, the only ones who defend it are Westerners of various backgrounds and ideological perspectives who are doing what you are doign now.
I'd be happy to put you in contact with a few. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I respect that folks don't agree with this, and in particular in this forum my view is a greatly minoritarian view.
But I would point out that it is not entirely true that force never effects positive change. While likely true that exogenous force does not, endogenous force often times can. For instance, the various waves of endogenous violence in Europe, in particular from 1789 to 1917, have made the world a better place.
And as a corollary, exogenous force can work when there is a substantial, willing constituency, though best a majority, within a society for it. If not, its hard to spread religion, and the history of the growth of Islam itself is instructive.
I'd also point out that, though admittedly a contrarian view again as regards Afghanistan, the violence which preceded and accompanied Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was not purely exogenous, and in fact had a heavily local, and positive, character to it as well. And I can guarantee you the plight of women (and not just of women) was far better under Najibullah than it has been since, first under the warlords and then under the Taleban before reverting back to the warlords (with a mayor of Kabul installed by the Americans and Nato).
And I keep seeing Massoud mentioned hereabouts when we talk about the warlords, but he's really the romantic, European image of Afghanistan. The real image of what the warlord's rule looked like is not Massoud, but Hekmatyar. The Taleban need to be set side by side with Hekmatyar, not Massoud, who was not a Pathan but a Tadjik and certainly represented only a minority slice of Afghanistan, one which if under Pathan/Taleban rule would certainly suffer.
As for the history of Afghanistan and the various waves of unrest there, it starts well before the Brits and Scots arrived (and maybe I'll diary on the many stories about this episode I heard back then - suffice to say it doesn't resemble Kipling); Toynbee devotes much fascinating space to this part of the world in "A Study of History," a very instructive backdrop against which to describe the state of affairs in this very particular part of the world. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
There may have been a time when the situation of women was better under Najibullah, but that concerned how much of the territory for how long? And the whole point is that this was yet another invasion that had to pull out.
As for Massoud, note that in a comment above I asked if the Northern Alliance was any more tender with girls and women than the Taleban. (On a point of fact, Tajiks, according to Wikipedia, are the second ethnic group in Afghanistan, with 27% after the Pashtun (Pathan) with 42%).
For this diary, I chose only to mention the invasions of modern history. Of course there were many before.
Sorry, this is messy...
But I can only counter your central proposition, which is that the suffering of females in those regions (which would include "tribal" Pakistan) is so great that the use of force is justified, by saying that I don't believe it will work. Change has to come from within.
I was obliquely pointing out that there was in fact a constituency for positive change a long time ago. Not sure of the potential now, because most of the reformers and supporters of modernization have been killed off, but thirty years ago this wasn't the case.
If you picture the way Nepal looked until not too long ago, Western tourists of an alternative type, locals vey tolerant of those...shall we say...alternative tourists traipsing around smoking alternative forms of cigarettes...a doddering, not particularly engaged in affairs of governance king...that's what Afghanistan was in the '60's and early '70's. It wasn't an Islamic fundamentalist koran thumping paradise fit for misogynists, though of course the "old ways" weren't unimportant for a large segment of the country. It's just that this large old-fashined segment was a mite bit more tolerant than it is now.
Then there was not one, but three coups from the 1970's, ending with Najibullah. These coups were not reactions to progress, but catalysts for it, including the first one which was pretty much a palace coup, with one of the kings relatives explicitly taking over and turning the country into a republic, and he was not unpopular in the country by any means. As elsewhere in this part of the world (including Iran) there was also a strong and vibrant communist party, which of course the Americans didn't like...
The orientation of Afghanistan towards the Soviet Union began well before the coup which brought the Communists to power in Afghanistan. Before the communists took over, you can think of Afghanistan's relationship with the SU as something like that of India's - arms length, but definitely very friendly. Washington saw Afghanistan as in their informal orbit then before the communist coup much the same way they saw india.
Keep in mind in all this two things - US ally in the region Pakistan surrounded by at best aggresively neutral nations on all sides save a small border over the silk route to the PRC, and what's more, a large portion of historical Afghanistan (the one the Brits actually held on to in the "great game" you describe, eg the NWFP) under nominal (and in the case of the tribals, very nominal) Islamabad control.
The dynamic here is very simalar in my view to the dynamic happening at the same time in enighboring Iran s well described by Tariq Ali in his book Clash of the Fundamentalism, which the exception that unlike Iran, Afghanistan at the time didn't have a pro-Washington tyrant in place.
Long and short? Without Saudi and US, with decisiven support from PK, propping up an Islamist "resistance" to the Soviet "occupation" (and I do mean those quotation marks sarcastically) I'm relatively confident that today, we would in fact be seeing the positive effects of modernization in Afghanistan. It wouldn't be perfect, perhaps far from it, but I would note that the status of women in neighboring Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tadjistan and Kirgizstan is quite different than in Afghanistan. To name but one measure of progress.
It's far too late for that now. The Americans, Pakistanis and Saudis succeeded. And today, only the Americans are having any second thoughts, and those only partially thought through...
Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
But it is not the same someone bombing you to save "woman".. than woman deciding to take a step ahead and be killed if necessary for a cause... it is the difference between good an evil.. if you ask me.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Women married with cousins (forced, not really smei-forced, for sure).. all dressed in burka style, always with male outside the house adn always subservent.
the only difference with the taleban areas were precisely on religious ground.
no army escort was needed, andthere were no pre-pubberty marriages (since it was religiously forbidden).
That was my point, if you take out the areas where taliban is stronger, and where religious hierarchical structures are dominant you have a very standard patriarchal society with patriarchal veto on matriarchal households.
I was in contact with a few.. my familiy. But let me stress, in no way I am saying that this is general to all Afganisthan, there are broad areas of Afganistan, Pakistan and overall, the main cities, were women live in hell. though I would never advovate to bomb... after all only the existence of our prisons would make all the cultures of the world want to bomb us for our barbarism (it's a Levi-Strauss idea.. bomb our prisons).
