Remember Afghanistan?

For me, the weeks after September 11, 2001 were filled with both sadness for the victims of the terrorist attacks and their families, and dread at what the response of the Bush administration would be.

On October 7, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan. While the primary reason, we were told, was to capture ("dead or alive") the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a secondary reason was to "liberate" Afghan women from the repressive Taliban regime. Many feminists I know pointed out that the policy of both major U.S. political parties up until that point had been appeasement of the Taliban. Besides, women (and children and men) are killed - not liberated - by war.

At the time (before Women for Peace's founding), there were peace rallies in Madison and throughout the country. Left-leaning activists and commentators often turned to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) as a legitimate voice of Afghan women - certainly more so than Laura Bush could ever be.

Where has that solidarity, that activism, that concern for the people of Afghanistan gone?

More than four years later, as concerned people everywhere closely follow developments in Iraq and advocate for an end to the U.S. occupation there (as they should), Afghanistan seems to be forgotten. Yet the need for awareness and action in support of the Afghan people continues.

The New York Times reported that last month's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan were "a victory for Islamic conservatives and the fighters involved in the wars of the past two decades." While women gained "slightly more than the 25 percent representation guaranteed under the new electoral system," their "moderating influence" is expected to be weak, due to regional and ethnic divides.

The U.S. military continues to kill and be killed in Afghanistan, as well. Perhaps the most shocking recent incident was when "U.S. soldiers burned the remains of Taliban fighters they had killed and then used the scene for propaganda purposes." The soldiers reportedly placed the bodies facing west and burned them - both abhorrent actions to Muslim people. Then members of a U.S. Army psychological operations unit made taunting remarks over a loudspeaker directed at a nearby village where Taliban fighters were suspected to be. The goal, according to the journalist who filmed the incident, was "so the Taliban could attack them. ... That's the only way they can find them."

What about Afghan women? Well, the (male) editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine was just sentenced to two years in jail for "blasphemy." The "objectionable" articles "criticised the practice of punishing adultery with 100 lashes and argued that men and women should be considered by Islamic law to be equals." And RAWA has written that the "'war on terrorism' has removed the Taliban, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. ... And in fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the U.S. is ultimately replacing one fundamentalist regime with another."

If you need another reason why the peace movement must remember Afghanistan, how about this article on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the "construction and agriculture sectors and exploitation of the natural resources of Afghanistan"?

It shouldn't be so hard to include Afghanistan regularly in protests, information sheets, media work and calls to elected officials. Give peace for both of the United States' post-9/11 wars a chance.