Afghan Woman's Right's Activist: "No Difference Between Bush And Obama"

By Steve Hynd

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is the oldest woman's rights advocacy and humanitarian assistance group in Afghanistan, founded in 1977 in response to the Soviet occupation. RAWA runs schools, orphanages, hospitals and women's business projects. Peace Action West's Rebecca Griffin recently interviewed on of their activists on a speaking tour to the U.S.

What is your take on the Obama administration�s approach? Are there aspects you support? What are the ones you oppose?

RAWA thinks that there is no difference between the policy of Bush and Obama because they both follow the same warmongering policy. The new strategy for Obama to send another more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, we think this is bad news for the Afghan people because the troops who are in Afghanistan, for eight years they couldn�t bring peace and security, and instead they increase the number of sufferings and bombings and killing ordinary people. They are committing crimes as the warlords and the Taliban are doing, and we think that they are not there to secure us. They are giving us more suffering, and they have made their puppet regime, and they want control over Afghanistan. They have made bases for themselves, and they have their own interest for Afghanistan. They never care about Afghan people.  We think that they should leave Afghanistan. This is occupation, and they can�t bring peace and security because occupation is never liberation, and because no country can give all these values to another country as a gift. The past wars have proved that always they have been failed in their mission, like in Iraq and Vietnam, they were failed, and the situation of Pakistan and Afghanistan is the same as other countries. We think that they should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.

What do you think about some of the development and aid aspects, and the �civilian surge� the Obama administration is talking about?

In the past eight years and also now, billions and billions of dollars have been given to Afghanistan, and they have invested in the military, and 80% of the aid is going back to the contractors, these big NGOs. Most of the money which is going toward the military is wasted, and ordinary lives are being wasted, the money is wasted, and some few local things and private things are being built in Afghanistan. We never see any construction or reconstruction work because it�s all wasted and it goes to the pockets of the warlords who are in power in Afghanistan, and even Hilary Clinton and Obama are talking about corruption in Afghanistan, and they�re not going to the right place.

There�s some debate within progressive circles and among women�s rights groups about Afghanistan. There are some people who care about women�s rights in Afghanistan and believe that the US military needs to stay to protect women and make sure the Taliban doesn�t come into power. What do you say to people who make that argument?

People who are not inside Afghanistan and who are talking these things from very far away, they can�t see what�s really going in Afghanistan. People who are living in Afghanistan like I am living inside Afghanistan, I can tell you the real situation, what�s going on. From 2001 up until now there is no positive change for women. There are crimes against women, as it was during the Taliban. The rapes of women of 75 years old, children of 3 years old and 4 years old. Self-immolation among women has increased and acid attacks, kidnaps, shooting and poisoning of teachers and girls on the way because there is no security, has increased. There is danger from Taliban side, they are increased in different areas, and the warlords who are in power, they have commanders, they have the support of the US and Karzai with them and they are committing crimes. Eight years is enough for a country, for a superpower to prove you can do something or you can�t, with the power that you have, with the money that you have, and with the military that you have. But after almost eight years we still have a catastrophic situation.

The RAWA viewpoint is strong confirmation of what COIN skeptics have been saying for a while now based on international media reports. Almost all the rationales for a long COIN-based war rather than a disengaged counter-terrorism strategy denied and rebutted by a group that works with the Afghan people at the sharp end. An occupation can't bring peace or security no matter how "people-oriented" the occupiers say it is. The much-vaunted but still non-existant civilian surge, if they ever find enough civilians to launch it, will mostly enrich US companies and the narco-warlord elite. Women's situations are still just as catastrophic as they ever were despite interventionists falsely claiming humanitarian and egalitarian motives for continuing the occupation.