Outrage over Afghan law legalizing rape in marriage

[jdobbin]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories

A new Afghan law that dramatically inhibits the rights of women, including reportedly legalizing rape within marriage, has raised the ire of Canadian politicians from all parties, who are demanding that President Hamid Karzai clarify his position on the legislation.

The new law, which conflicting reports say has either passed or is still under consideration, would apply to the country's Shia minority. It would reportedly make it illegal for a woman to refuse to have sex with her husband and forbid her from leaving home without her husband's permission.

This is what makes it so hard to convince Canadians that we can make a long term difference in Afghanistan.

This law pretty much violates every reason we want to be involved in Afghanistan or why we are supporting the present government.

[bjre]

Auntie NeoCon wrote: Posted 2009/04/01 at 11:24 AM E

The administration of President Hamid Karzai has approved a wide-ranging family law for the country's Shia minority.

Various reports say the legislation would make it illegal for Shia women to refuse their husbands sex, leave the house without their permission or have custody of children. -- taken from another CBC story.

My question is this: WHY THE HELL ARE WE THERE IF THIS IS THE LAW/POLICY?

It turns my stomach that my fellow citizens are being blown to bits for this!

My tax dollars are going to fund rapists!??!?

I guess it is democracy makes the president approved that for him to get more support.

So basically, the president has no difference with his Canadian countpart: He just want to get more support for his own interest.

That is why I said education is more important than democracy.

Because education changes people's mind, democracy only does according to people's mind.

War can not change people's belif of their religion, it can only spread hate, when more people killed, more people will be educated to be terrorists.

Edited April 2, 2009 by bjre

[August1991]

This law pretty much violates every reason we want to be involved in Afghanistan or why we are supporting the present government.

On the contrary.

We are in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission. Terrorists used Afghanistan as a base to launch an attack on the US. (New York's World Trade Center and other targets in 2001.)

Who cares whether Afghanistan becomes a "civilized" country? I don't... because I think that Afghanistan's civil society is a question for Afghans to resolve. Canada should not be involved in this directly. (Indeed, I suspect that Leftist, do-gooder Canadians would only make the rights of Afghan women worse. See Haiti.)

As a NATO member, Canada's interest in Afghanistan is simply to prevent Afghanistan becoming a place to breed flight-bound terrorists who will hurt Westerners. This is our first priority and in this, our troops are fighting a fundamental battle.

Second, we must make it possible for the Afghans to organize this themselves so our troops can come home.

[waldo]

On the contrary.

Who cares whether Afghanistan becomes a "civilized" country? I don't... because I think that Afghanistan's civil society is a question for Afghans to resolve. Canada should not be involved in this directly. (Indeed, I suspect that Leftist, do-gooder Canadians would only make the rights of Afghan women worse. See Haiti.)

As a NATO member, Canada's interest in Afghanistan is simply to prevent Afghanistan becoming a place to breed flight-bound terrorists who will hurt Westerners. This is our first priority and in this, our troops are fighting a fundamental battle.

Second, we must make it possible for the Afghans to organize this themselves so our troops can come home.

who cares? Why... Harper cares?

Harper 'deeply troubled' by Afghan move to limit women's rights

"This is antithetical to our mission in Afghanistan," Harper said in an interview with CBC News.

"Making progress on human rights for women is a significant component of the international engagement in Afghanistan."

"The concept that women are full human beings with human rights is very, very central to the reason the international community is engaged in this country."

[jdobbin]

As a NATO member, Canada's interest in Afghanistan is simply to prevent Afghanistan becoming a place to breed flight-bound terrorists who will hurt Westerners. This is our first priority and in this, our troops are fighting a fundamental battle.

Second, we must make it possible for the Afghans to organize this themselves so our troops can come home.

I think the law helps breed flight bound terrorists. You don't seem to.

[M.Dancer]

This law pretty much violates every reason we want to be involved in Afghanistan or why we are supporting the present government.

While it might fly in the face of what some hope would happen it is not why we are involved there. We are involved there so it does not become a breeding ground of international terrorists.....liberla democracy was always a long shot...

[MontyBurns]

[This is what makes it so hard to convince Canadians that we can make a long term difference in Afghanistan.

This law pretty much violates every reason we want to be involved in Afghanistan or why we are supporting the present government.

Let's cut and run like cowards.

[Moonbox]

I think it's fair to be upset about this law. We give far too little credit in the strength of women to shape society.

You can call me sexist all you want, but it's not the women who are committing terrorism. The overwhelmingly vast majority (almost all) of the terrorists are men and they come almost exclusively from countries where women have no rights.

Unless women have these rights, terrorism will continue to grow and breed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia etc...If the West is serious about turning this country around this is absolutely an area in which they need to fear. All they're doing otherwise is overthrowing a dangerous, rotten and backwards Taliban government and using our money to prop up and support an equally rotten and backwards government.

[jdobbin]

Let's cut and run like cowards.

You support those who rape? You support a reversion to Taliban conditions? You support the very conditions that led to terrorism in the first place?

[Moonbox]

You support those who rape? You support a reversion to Taliban conditions? You support the very conditions that led to terrorism in the first place?

I don't think that's what he was saying man. I think he was assuming that you're attacking the Afghan mission altogether.

For the record, I AM attacking the Afghan mission if this is the sort of thing we're supporting. This isn't a 'culture' that we need to respect. There is NOTHING cultural about abusing and subjugating women. They're valued like animals in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It makes me want to puke.

[jdobbin]

I don't think that's what he was saying man. I think he was assuming that you're attacking the Afghan mission altogether.

I supported the mission but I questioned from the beginning whether the government of Afghanistan would ever be able to take over and not simply create the conditions where terror flourished in the first place.

For the record, I AM attacking the Afghan mission if this is the sort of thing we're supporting. This isn't a 'culture' that we need to respect. There is NOTHING cultural about abusing and subjugating women. They're valued like animals in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It makes me want to puke.

At some point a new evaluation will have to take place about our involvement. I suspect even our own troops will not have the stomach for turning a blind eye to behaviour that ultimately makes them and the people they defend unsafe.

[eyeball]

I supported the mission but I questioned from the beginning whether the government of Afghanistan would ever be able to take over and not simply create the conditions where terror flourished in the first place.

I never supported the mission because there I never had any doubt it would be in vain.

At some point a new evaluation will have to take place about our involvement.

I think by far the more important thing is to evaluate why we should ever get involved in such an obvious quagmire in the first place ever again.

I suspect even our own troops will not have the stomach for turning a blind eye to behaviour that ultimately makes them and the people they defend unsafe.

I suspect they'll still be the last to admit it publicly.

[jdobbin]

I think by far the more important thing is to evaluate why we should ever get involved in such an obvious quagmire in the first place ever again.

It probably didn't have to be that way. Had the U.S. not been diverted with Iraq, the allies might have had a better handle on things and a faster withdrawal.

My personal opinion was that we should have stuck to a timetable and withdrew some time after the election with a promise to respond to any international threat coming from inside of Afghanistan. In other words, a close by rapid deployment force ready to drop the hammer on a training ground or base for international terrorism.

[Molly]

It's certainly an ugly setback.

Bottom line: Karzai isn't 'one of the good guys', so the task looks bigger and more intractable now than even a couple of weeks ago, when it was deemed unwinnable.

[Moonbox]

It's certainly an ugly setback.

Bottom line: Karzai isn't 'one of the good guys', so the task looks bigger and more intractable now than even a couple of weeks ago, when it was deemed unwinnable.

I really just don't even understand why we'd even stay there at this point. We're just establishing and supporting a draconic and primitive fundamentalist islamic government. Isn't that what we had there before???

[myata]

No, it could not be that we propped the wrong guy.. again... in our all cognsant wisdom of how these foreign and remote lands should be ruled ... such a tragic fault - and yet another one in the countless chain (shah, Noriega, Latin American dictators, Saddam (in his early years)...). Will we ever learn? I'm not very hopeful.

[eyeball]

Speaking of propping up the wrong guy again...what would Jesus have done?

[GostHacked]

This is what makes it so hard to convince Canadians that we can make a long term difference in Afghanistan.

This law pretty much violates every reason we want to be involved in Afghanistan or why we are supporting the present government.

Hey they are running with a good deal of the Sharia Law. Essentially the same set of Islamic rules that the Taliban governed by. We brought them Freedom !!!!! And they used that freedom to choose the same system they had been using.

And this is a shock to most ?? And you wonder why some of us crazy lefties wanted to get our troops out of Afghanistan like years ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Afghanistan.

They have a constitution, but Sharia Law fills in the gaps where the constitution does not specifically state anything about.

[Moonbox]

Afghanistan shouldn't have happened to begin with, the question is what do you do now that you're there?

[myata]

Surprising isn't it? Dress yourself into democratic robes, most importantly, put on that democratic hat - and you're still find yourself who you were yesterday, democratically inspired rebirth lost somewhere on the way. Mystery... Doesn't everybody on the planet want exactly what I want? Shouldn't everybody be just like me?

[eyeball]

Afghanistan shouldn't have happened to begin with, the question is what do you do now that you're there?

Evacuate as many Afghans, especially women and girls, who want to leave as we can. If we've learned anything at all about wading into quagmires its that the west's meddling and interferance always sets people up for slaughter in cases where it cut and ran.

Its probably the west's most dispicable trait next to actually feeding the monsters it creates.

[Topaz]

IF NATO thinks its going to bring freedom to the people there well maybe NATO needs education! Afg. isn't the only country in the Middle-East that think this way towards women. We can't bring western laws to this region, besides being their laws it part of their religion, women are looked down on, it can't going to change any time soon, although the Prez there is in a corner, if he doesn't he's in trouble with NATO and if he does, he's going against his own people, at least the men. This is the same Prez, that was going to kill one of his own people when they changed religion and turn Christian.

[DFCaper]

I am not sure how these new laws effect the ability of women to vote. As long as they have that right, I believe this issue will self correct over time (years or decades). I am in no way defending these disgusting laws. I don't believe will can enforce all of our morals onto these people. Until the government represents the will of it's people, it won't have the support of it's people, and it will need NATO to defend it. This maybe a step closer for us to be able to leave.

Anybody who believes Afghanistan is going to be a model society in the near future is dreaming. Aren't we just trying to make it a stable society???? Our goals need to be realistic. Unfortunately, reality sucks sometimes....

[August1991]

who cares? Why... Harper cares?

Waldo, I'm not Stephen Harper and so I can say what I think. Harper doesn't have that freedom.

I think the law helps breed flight bound terrorists. You don't seem to.

No, I don't Dobbin. Consider Malaysia - a sexist society of no threat to the West.

You support those who rape? You support a reversion to Taliban conditions? You support the very conditions that led to terrorism in the first place?

I don't support rape. But Dobbin, the world has 6 billion people. Do you have any idea how often injustice occurs everyday? We in the West (Canada) cannot deal with every injustice. Sometimes I feel that Canada's human rights commissions are like teachers trying to make students in a private school in Beirut in 1985 sit in straight lines while there is civil war outside the windows.

In Afghanistan, NATO should not worry about whether anyone is sitting in a school in straight lines. Whether students in a private school sit in straight lines or not is completely irrelevant to an ongoing civil war. NATO shouldn't even stop a civil war outside the windows.

Rather, we in the West must stop Afghanistan (or any other country) becoming a place for terrorists to attack us. That's our objective.

----

On this, Bush Jnr's invasion of Iraq - like Truman's decision to drop the A-bomb twice - made the point very clear.

Edited April 4, 2009 by August1991

[jdobbin]

No, I don't Dobbin. Consider Malaysia - a sexist society of no threat to the West.

This isn't just a sexist law. It is that allows for violence and fear to be tolerated.

I don't support rape. But Dobbin, the world has 6 billion people. Do you have any idea how often injustice occurs everyday? We in the West (Canada) cannot deal with every injustice.

We in west don't have to support a government that is no better than what it replaced if it leads back to conditions where terrorism is supported.

Rather, we in the West must stop Afghanistan (or any other country) becoming a place for terrorists to attack us. That's our objective.

And as analysts more wise than you and me have pointed out, this law sets for the conditions that can make Afghanistan dangerous again for the world.