Afghan Women Should Be Free (But Not Rumsfeld)

I'm still bowled over by how much better a job the foreign press does at covering U.S. actions and policies. Scotland's Sunday Herald has a great report on that other ongoing occupation, in Afghanistan:

It was three years ago that George Bush triumphantly announced: "The mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school - today women are free."

However, most women still wear the all-encompassing burqa, through fear of attack and social pressure, a third of women in Kabul do not leave the house, forbidden from doing so by the male members of the family, and it is still almost impossible for women to get a divorce. ...

"When the Americans came I thought it would be better, but nothing has changed," says Sharifa, with a shy smile.

Sharifa's story is heartbreaking. She was forced to marry a 30 year-old man three years ago, when she was 12. He prostituted her, so she ran away from him -- twice. The first time she was captured and forced to return by the Taliban. But the second time, "her captors had been installed by the American-led coalition. In President Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan, women are still imprisoned for running away from home." And it doesn't matter what they're running away from.

On a lighter note, uber-hawk Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld isn't enjoying complete freedom of movement these days, either:

Last month, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld, accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with the Iraqi abuse scandal that first surfaced last April.

Right after the complaint was filed against him, Rumsfeld announced that he won’t attend the Munich conference [on global security issues] unless Germany cancels the legal action.

The Center for Constitutional Rights accuses the Secretary of Defense of violations of German legislation which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused. ...

The organization said it turned to German prosecutors "as a court of last resort" because the U.S. government "is unwilling to open an independent investigation" and had "refused to join the International Criminal Court."

Way to go, CCR! (And thanks to esp for the link.)

The story reminds me of a scene towards the beginning of the excellent documentary "The Trials of Henry Kissinger," where the interviewee (I forget who) says that Kissinger was afraid that his buddy Augusto Pinochet's arrest in Britain might mean the end of his frequent flyer accounts. Damn, that's the least that should happen to people guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Aceh Assistance and U.S. Accountability

Since the Indonesian military is increasingly inserting itself into (and therefore delaying, restricting and politicizing) much-needed assistance from large international agencies and foreign governments to Aceh, the area hardest hit by last month's tsunami, I think this bears repeating:

Please donate through two U.S.-based organizations who relay donations directly to grassroots groups in Aceh, the East Timor Action Network and Nonviolence International. Also stay tuned, as the United States is seeing the tragedy as an opening to resume military assistance to Indonesia, one of the world's most brutal militaries.

Polls, Peace and Providing for Those in Need

Activist, journalist and author Rahul Mahajan has an excellent blog, Empire Notes. In a recent posting on the need for progressives to challenges themselves, he writes:

The left must come to terms with American public opinion, and, in particular, with polls. ... Let me share with you results of the Communications Omnibus Survey, funded by the Media and Society Research Group at Cornell. It first came to my attention because of an AP story reporting that in this poll, 44% of respondents favored some form of restriction of civil liberties for Muslims.

The poll actually contains some even more amazing results. Only 63% of respondents felt that people should be allowed to criticize government policies in times of war or crisis, and only 60% felt that people should be allowed to protest. 33% believed the media should not cover protests and 31% that it shouldn’t report criticisms. These numbers fly in the face of any comfortable suppositions about Americans and their respect for individual freedom or for informed policy debate in a democracy. Not much over half of people even believe they should be legally allowed, let alone engaged in.

Other striking statistics: Although 70% favored, somewhat or strongly, the so-called "war on terrorism," only 42% believe its primary purpose is protecting the United States from attack. 22%, more than one in five people, believe the primary purpose is controlling Middle East oil. Most interesting, of that 22%, 43% still favored the war on terrorism – with a margin of error of close to 8%.

Since those 22% are likely to be of the more oppositional sort of people, it’s entirely plausible that even if the whole American public knew that control of Middle East oil and U.S. imperial hegemony is the primary reason, half or more might still support the "war on terrorism."

That’s the kind of thing you need to know when you’re doing activism with an eye toward mass mobilization and major policy victories, like, say, ending the occupation. There’s no need to pander to that kind of opinion, but you should be aware of its existence and it should inform your strategies.

Indeed.

In other news, Margaret Hassan will be posthumously recognized for her decades of work in Iraq with the Tipperary Peace Prize, her native Ireland's most pretigious peace award.

Also on Iraq, Al Jazeera is reporting that the Baiji Higher Electoral Commission has quit following death threats to its members. Baiji, a northern city, is home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. This comes after "the entire staff of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission in the northern city of Mosul - around 700 employees - resigned last week." How can the U.S.-imposed elections be perceived as anything but a sham?

Lastly, if you would like to contribute to relief efforts for the Asian earthquake and tsunami, the East Timor Action Network is channeling aid to grassroots groups in Aceh, the Indonesian province at ground zero of the disaster.