Time Magazine cover ignites debate over Afghan War... [View All]

[cynatnite]

Reaction to the Time cover has become something of an Internet litmus test about attitudes toward the war, and what America’s responsibility is in Afghanistan. Critics of the American presence in Afghanistan call it “emotional blackmail” and even “war porn,” while those who fear the consequences of abandoning Afghanistan see it as a powerful appeal to conscience.

The debate was fueled in part by the language that Time chose to accompany the photograph: “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan,” pointedly without a question mark.

“That is exactly what will happen,” said Manizha Naderi, referring to Aisha and cases like hers. An Afghan-American whose group, Women for Afghan Women, runs the shelter where Aisha stayed, Ms. Naderi said, “People need to see this and know what the cost will be to abandon this country.”

As Ms. Naderi would be the first to concede, however, things are already bad enough for women in Afghanistan without a return to a government run by the Taliban. Noorin TV in Kabul has been running what it has called an investigative series suggesting that the shelters, all operated by independent charities, are just fronts for prostitution. The series has offered no evidence, and the station never sent anyone to visit the principal shelters.

snip:
“Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify occupation is a cynical ploy,” wrote Priyamvada Gopal in The Guardian, a liberal British newspaper, on Wednesday, “and the Time cover already stands accused of it.”

BagNews, a left-leaning Web site about the politics of imagery in the media, saw the matter in conspiratorial terms. “Isn’t this title applying emotional blackmail and exploiting gender politics to pitch for the status quo — a continued U.S. military involvement?” wrote Michael Shaw.

Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, said he thought not. “The image is a window into the reality of what is happening — and what can happen — in a war that affects and involves all of us,” he wrote in a statement on Time’s Web site.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?_r=1&hp

I've never viewed the photograph of this girl as propaganda. To me, it's a reality of what is currently happening now and how much worse it can still continue to get. I will never forget the videos of women being executed in a soccer stadium when the Taliban was in charge. That was not propaganda. That was reality.

We're damned either way when it comes to Afghanistan. Bush never did right by that country in the first place. That's why the Taliban has been able to come back as strongly as it has. Unfortunately, things are so bad now that winning seems very unlikely.

Let's face facts here. America made promises to Afghanistan and has failed to keep them. Not only that, this country is supporting a corrupt Afghan government.

It disgusts and outrages me that we might leave girls like this one to fend for themselves. The theocratic butchers of the Taliban are heartless bastards who mutilate and murder women without the least bit of guilt. To think of these types running a country is completely unnacceptable to me.

At the same time, I know the problems that we face in this war and as it drags on more lives are lost. No real progress is made.

There is only one outcome that I can see happening here for everyone involved and it's not a good one. :(