Afghanistan’s New Taliban Laws: A Veil of Silence and Invisibility for Women

[Cory1848]

13 hours ago, Dan747 said:

Ah, yes...the "religion of peace". Sharia law familiar tenets. The same sharia law that a vast majority of Muslims in the USA as well as in other western countries want implemented!!! In time as their numbers grow, they will succeed, and the liberals will call it progressive!

No, the “vast majority of Muslims in the USA as well as in other western countries” do not want to implement sharia law; they want the same things that you want, to raise their families and provide decent opportunities for their children. Have you ever met any Muslims?

[Stargeezr]

This is a true Muslim country with harsh rule.  If the Taliban cannot

govern the country and make it economical for the population, that is

their problem and fault. Next story, please.

[JemJem]

This is so sad and upsetting. And, what makes it worse is that it seems like more and more governments around the world have been normalising relations with the Taliban regime, which will probably never go away in the foreseeable future. Can any of us really see the Taliban ever holding proper, free and fair elections ?! 

 

Also, recently, on YouTube, I have come across several videos of some Western traveller YouTubers who had gone to Afghanistan. Their main message was like 'Hey, it is not so bad here in Afghanistan. The Taliban is mostly misunderstood. They actually care about their people, and the West should stop spreading lies and misinformation about them'. What is strikingly missing from their videos is any interaction with women there. In fact, women are rarely present in their videos. I don't know what to say about these naive, gullible people. Sad! 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26 by JemJem

[Presnock]

16 hours ago, Purdey said:

Weird that someone would sign a peace agreement with these animals. Shame. 

Yes, that "greatest" (self proclaimed) NEGOTIATOR worked out quite an invitation for the Taliban to return - and the current president and his generals seemed totally inept at the withdrawal of US forces.  Now, they are back to the stone age where they will stay and the rest of the world will probably send monies to that government.  SICK! 

[wombat]

replacing the Taliban with the Taliban after all those years of war is one of life's great mysteries

[wombat]

6 hours ago, JemJem said:

free and fair elections ?! 

surely you jest sir!

[thaibeachlovers]

20 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Nobody really knows what was spent in Afghanistan. The US figures are fake. Cheney had a resolution passed, back in the day, that essentially allowed the US to fight the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq "off the books". The real number is likely several trillion in Afghanistan, and a comparable amount in Iraq. For what? Though the intentions for Afghanistan were reasonable, in Iraq they were diabolical. 

 

So, what has been achieved? And why does the US continue with it's foreign policy blunders, and why does it not seem capable of learning from history? Sheer hubris? Arrogance? Ignorant neocon ideas?

 

So many lives lost. Few like the Taliban, and fewer liked Hussein. But, this? 

 

The blame has to be distributed equally. Bush Jr., (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and the other spectacularly ignorant men in that regressive group of idiots) Trump and Biden. At a minimum, it would have made sense to leave a few thousand specialists and some equipment in and around Kabul. After all, decades later, the US still has a presence in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. 

 

The Taliban are cowards. And they believe in a perverted form of Islam. It has little to nothing to do with the Koran, or the original teachings, and it is likely most of them are not religious anyway, but are in it for the money, the ability to be a heroin dealer without any of the legal consequences, the power, the girls, and the ability to kill, rape, steal or maim at will. That can be a heady amount of power for a young man without much direction in his life, nor any ethics. 

 

Much to agree with in that, but you and I do not know if Afghanistan and Iraq were failures, because we do not know what the real objectives were. The 1% did not get where they are by being social justice warriors, and a few hundred thousand deaths probably matter little to them.

 

The only thing I'm sure of is that they will trample on any that get in their way to achieving their objectives.

 

Something I like to remember when discussing the 1% are the sayings

 

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”—Charles Baudelaire
“The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy”—Ken Ammi”

 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8784723-the-greatest-trick-the-devil-ever-pulled-was-convincing-the

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, Presnock said:

Yes, that "greatest" (self proclaimed) NEGOTIATOR worked out quite an invitation for the Taliban to return - and the current president and his generals seemed totally inept at the withdrawal of US forces.  Now, they are back to the stone age where they will stay and the rest of the world will probably send monies to that government.  SICK! 

The west needed to get out of Afghanistan any way they could- IMO their entire campaign was a failure and achieved nothing except dead western boys.

 

The US should have gone in post 9 11, killed as many Taliban as possible and departed post haste.

Staying on for 20 years was a mistake, and IMO doomed to fail.

Seems certain US leaders learn nothing from history.

[Presnock]

27 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The west needed to get out of Afghanistan any way they could- IMO their entire campaign was a failure and achieved nothing except dead western boys.

 

The US should have gone in post 9 11, killed as many Taliban as possible and departed post haste.

Staying on for 20 years was a mistake, and IMO doomed to fail.

Seems certain US leaders learn nothing from history.

speaking of history, these problems exist because the west drew borders but these tribes have existed for ages before those borders were put up and they do not recognize them at all.  Besides that, they are are radical Islamic force and Islam is currently the fastest growing religion throughout the world.  Their own countries are usually %$#@holes so they illegally and legally move to the more developed countries and then begin to try to change the religion and life within their NEW homes.  Not a pretty picture.  I sure don't know the answer to fixing the current problems.

[spidermike007]

32 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Much to agree with in that, but you and I do not know if Afghanistan and Iraq were failures, because we do not know what the real objectives were. The 1% did not get where they are by being social justice warriors, and a few hundred thousand deaths probably matter little to them.

 

The only thing I'm sure of is that they will trample on any that get in their way to achieving their objectives.

 

Something I like to remember when discussing the 1% are the sayings

 

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”—Charles Baudelaire
“The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy”—Ken Ammi”

 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8784723-the-greatest-trick-the-devil-ever-pulled-was-convincing-the

 

 

I could not possibly agree more. 

 

Psychological research suggests that the super-rich, as a group, aren’t necessarily the role models we collectively need if our goal is to advance the common good and build a more decent society. In particular, one reason to be skeptical involves a constellation of interlinked personality traits — Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism — that psychologists call the “Dark Triad.” The originators of the term summarize it this way: “To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness.”

[thaibeachlovers]

30 minutes ago, Presnock said:

speaking of history, these problems exist because the west drew borders but these tribes have existed for ages before those borders were put up and they do not recognize them at all.  Besides that, they are are radical Islamic force and Islam is currently the fastest growing religion throughout the world.  Their own countries are usually %$#@holes so they illegally and legally move to the more developed countries and then begin to try to change the religion and life within their NEW homes.  Not a pretty picture.  I sure don't know the answer to fixing the current problems.

The history I referred to was that of the British and the Soviets that got a bloody nose in Afghanistan. 

 

I doubt there are any answers to the current problems that are not extremely unpleasant.

[Presnock]

13 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The history I referred to was that of the British and the Soviets that got a bloody nose in Afghanistan. 

 

I doubt there are any answers to the current problems that are not extremely unpleasant.

Until the locals decide that they dislike it so much so that they kick the radicals out, it will remain the same as it has since the stone age!  I mean, women have to cover their faces, no speaking, singing or reading out loud - Muslim males must be the most timid of all males and no confidence at all so they make up these rules, totally controlling the females - and of course that means NO EDUCATION whatsoever.  Have to love the one restriction - a female can be examined by a doctor - that must be a FEMALE yet they won't allow females to get educated.  So where are the female doctors to come from?  I have lived in a Muslim fundamentalist capital - had some male acquaintances that told me about a lot of their lives - feel sorry for the women but not the men!  

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, Presnock said:

Until the locals decide that they dislike it so much so that they kick the radicals out, it will remain the same as it has since the stone age!  I mean, women have to cover their faces, no speaking, singing or reading out loud - Muslim males must be the most timid of all males and no confidence at all so they make up these rules, totally controlling the females - and of course that means NO EDUCATION whatsoever.  Have to love the one restriction - a female can be examined by a doctor - that must be a FEMALE yet they won't allow females to get educated.  So where are theOur female doctors to come from?  I have lived in a Muslim fundamentalist capital - had some male acquaintances that told me about a lot of their lives - feel sorry for the women but not the men!  

I've offered wondered about that exact point, what kind of a civilization forces their women to endure such a level of subjugation, hiding behind veils with their entire bodies covered head to foot? And what would happen to a man who was exposed to a woman's skin, can you imagine such a thing? If he saw a woman's ankles would his head explode, would he lose all sense of self-control?

 

Where does all that fear come from, what is that all about it? It would make quite a sociological study, granted it's very not PC, and it would probably be canceled by the mob, but it would be quite a fascinating thing to analyze. 

 

From certain imams insisting that earthquakes are caused by women not wearing a hijab to muftis excommunicating Muslim women who do not consider wearing the hijab as a religious duty, the intellectual level of discourse that surrounds Muslim women is excruciating, and is more or less concerned only with notions of modesty.

 

This gives a gloomy insight – the obsession with the hijab is, in fact, a form of sexual objectification. Objectification, after all, involves the lowering of a person to the status of an object. By reducing Muslim women to their bodies and pretending that modesty is their primary religious duty, we strip them off their personhood and rob them off their agency as human beings.

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/11/muslim-man-i-am-sick-our-obsession-hijab

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I've offered wondered about that exact point, what kind of a civilization forces their women to endure such a level of subjugation, hiding behind veils with their entire bodies covered head to foot? And what would happen to a man who was exposed to a woman's skin, can you imagine such a thing? If he saw a woman's ankles would his head explode, would he lose all sense of self-control?

 

Where does all that fear come from, what is that all about it? It would make quite a sociological study, granted it's very not PC, and it would probably be canceled by the mob, but it would be quite a fascinating thing to analyze. 

 

From certain imams insisting that earthquakes are caused by women not wearing a hijab to muftis excommunicating Muslim women who do not consider wearing the hijab as a religious duty, the intellectual level of discourse that surrounds Muslim women is excruciating, and is more or less concerned only with notions of modesty.

 

This gives a gloomy insight – the obsession with the hijab is, in fact, a form of sexual objectification. Objectification, after all, involves the lowering of a person to the status of an object. By reducing Muslim women to their bodies and pretending that modesty is their primary religious duty, we strip them off their personhood and rob them off their agency as human beings.

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/11/muslim-man-i-am-sick-our-obsession-hijab

It's actually quite simple. Some Muslims believe that a man is not capable of controlling himself in the presence of women, and unfortunately they are in charge.

 

In Saudi I obtained a book about Islam as they believe it to be and one interesting point made in the book was that if a man and a woman are alone in a room, they WILL have sex. No doubt about it at all. The rules were made many centuries ( ? millenia ) ago to keep one man's women from being attractive to other men, and now, IMO it's to protect men from resorting to their basic instincts.

 

It's also noteworthy that while working in a ward with both male and female patients, male nurses were forbidden from being alone in a female patient's room ( as if I did that her husband would be allowed to kill me ).

[Presnock]

14 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I've offered wondered about that exact point, what kind of a civilization forces their women to endure such a level of subjugation, hiding behind veils with their entire bodies covered head to foot? And what would happen to a man who was exposed to a woman's skin, can you imagine such a thing? If he saw a woman's ankles would his head explode, would he lose all sense of self-control?

 

Where does all that fear come from, what is that all about it? It would make quite a sociological study, granted it's very not PC, and it would probably be canceled by the mob, but it would be quite a fascinating thing to analyze. 

 

From certain imams insisting that earthquakes are caused by women not wearing a hijab to muftis excommunicating Muslim women who do not consider wearing the hijab as a religious duty, the intellectual level of discourse that surrounds Muslim women is excruciating, and is more or less concerned only with notions of modesty.

 

This gives a gloomy insight – the obsession with the hijab is, in fact, a form of sexual objectification. Objectification, after all, involves the lowering of a person to the status of an object. By reducing Muslim women to their bodies and pretending that modesty is their primary religious duty, we strip them off their personhood and rob them off their agency as human beings.

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/11/muslim-man-i-am-sick-our-obsession-hijab

It isn't only the Taliban that live like this.  I spent a couple of years in Karachi, Pakistan, the center of the Muslim fundalmentalists.  I will give you two examples of what I experienced - 1.  a tuktuk driver would stand on his tuktuk to peer over the wall surrounding a reknown Koran scholar who had several teenage daughers and within the walls they didn't have to cover themselves the same.  Anyway the scholar had tarps put up on poles to block anyone peering over the wall so the tuktuk driver went to the police and said that he saw the scholar burning pages of the Koran.  The police immediately arresed the scholar...when the tuktuk driver went to his favorite coffee house, his buddies told him that since the scholar was well known, the court might believe him instead of the tuktuk driver.  So, the tuktuk driver got a mob together, they stormed the police station and hung the scholar in the courtyard for blasphemy!  Another story - an imam, claiming his wife was "thinking

about having sex with their neighbor" made her sit on the kitchen table, and shoved one of those old-type soldering irons into her body.  However, the power in Karachi is off more than on and they had a power outage but he made his wife sit there until the power returned.  During that time, their kids constantly begged their father to stop this but he persisted in "punishing " her or the evil thoughts.  Afterwards they took her to the hospital - he made his wife say that she bumped into the stove in the kitchen and got the injury.  But the female surgeon who examined her could easily tell that was a lie and eventually she got the true story out of her.  Final story of a much longer one, Benezir Bhutto the PM had the wife flown to England where she was treated, losing 5 body organs due to that torture.  The imam was sentenced to 3 years for that!  Sick.

One of the Rug owners, who  I got to know quite well, invited me to his house several times, each time he tried to get me to "adopt" his three teenaged daughters, all very pretty but I explained to him that the US govt wouldn't allow me to do that.  He kept insisting, begging even telling me what their lives would be worthless if they weren't in some other country.

He also mentioned as did others that the male children at age 4 would begin their indoctrination into hatred of the US in the mosque.   I had requested the tour in Karachi because I had formed opinions of Muslim fundamentalists and wanted to see for myself if they were really like that.  Now I know first hand - lots of stories some worse than these.  I do feel sorry for the women of ISLAM and realize that everywhere it is not like this.  I also have spent some time in Indonesia - totally different unless you go out to some of the islands.  I guess since Islam is the fastest growing religion, it must be the males and not the females making that choice.  Have a great Wednesday!

[Presnock]

On 8/26/2024 at 5:24 PM, Cory1848 said:

No, the “vast majority of Muslims in the USA as well as in other western countries” do not want to implement sharia law; they want the same things that you want, to raise their families and provide decent opportunities for their children. Have you ever met any Muslims?

Met many!  While some like western life, many others still want a change to sharia law - even in the US.

[Ralf001]

Women should be seen and not heard... the black bathrobe over the head is excessive IMHO.

[Cory1848]

1 hour ago, Presnock said:

Met many!  While some like western life, many others still want a change to sharia law - even in the US.

I was responding to someone else, who said that a “vast majority” of Muslims living in the West want sharia law; I would say, rather, that a vast majority simply want to lead normal lives under prevailing (Western) laws, and it’s only a handful who are radicalized and commit violence, as at the recent festival in Germany.

 

Unfortunately, it’s this radicalized handful who get all the headlines, thus causing an overreaction on the other side who are quick to blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few, and the problem spirals out of control.

 

As for the growth of Islamic radicalism in the Middle East, I would suggest that part of the problem is economic: young men there face limited prospects in their lives and thus become susceptible. Muslim countries that are better off and provide better prospects to their citizens (Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, perhaps Morocco, the Gulf states) seem to have fewer problems with homegrown radical Islamist movements.

 

I have many Muslim friends also, mostly assimilated into Western societies, but I’ve never lived in any Muslim countries as you have, so you would have a much better feel for this.

[Presnock]

28 minutes ago, Cory1848 said:

I was responding to someone else, who said that a “vast majority” of Muslims living in the West want sharia law; I would say, rather, that a vast majority simply want to lead normal lives under prevailing (Western) laws, and it’s only a handful who are radicalized and commit violence, as at the recent festival in Germany.

 

Unfortunately, it’s this radicalized handful who get all the headlines, thus causing an overreaction on the other side who are quick to blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few, and the problem spirals out of control.

 

As for the growth of Islamic radicalism in the Middle East, I would suggest that part of the problem is economic: young men there face limited prospects in their lives and thus become susceptible. Muslim countries that are better off and provide better prospects to their citizens (Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, perhaps Morocco, the Gulf states) seem to have fewer problems with homegrown radical Islamist movements.

 

I have many Muslim friends also, mostly assimilated into Western societies, but I’ve never lived in any Muslim countries as you have, so you would have a much better feel for this.

 

28 minutes ago, Cory1848 said:

I was responding to someone else, who said that a “vast majority” of Muslims living in the West want sharia law; I would say, rather, that a vast majority simply want to lead normal lives under prevailing (Western) laws, and it’s only a handful who are radicalized and commit violence, as at the recent festival in Germany.

 

Unfortunately, it’s this radicalized handful who get all the headlines, thus causing an overreaction on the other side who are quick to blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few, and the problem spirals out of control.

 

As for the growth of Islamic radicalism in the Middle East, I would suggest that part of the problem is economic: young men there face limited prospects in their lives and thus become susceptible. Muslim countries that are better off and provide better prospects to their citizens (Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, perhaps Morocco, the Gulf states) seem to have fewer problems with homegrown radical Islamist movements.

 

I have many Muslim friends also, mostly assimilated into Western societies, but I’ve never lived in any Muslim countries as you have, so you would have a much better feel for this.

I was in Djkarta for a while, it was like any western city.  Women wore western clothes.  People seemed happy.  The problems with that country are in the islands where radicals live and radicalize others.  As for radicalization - many blacks in US prisons also coming from very poor areas join these bad folks.  I sure have no fixes for anywhere nor any religions.  Just look at me, an American retiree living in what seems like Paradise most of the time.  Best of luck to all.

[spidermike007]

3 hours ago, Presnock said:

It isn't only the Taliban that live like this.  I spent a couple of years in Karachi, Pakistan, the center of the Muslim fundalmentalists.  I will give you two examples of what I experienced - 1.  a tuktuk driver would stand on his tuktuk to peer over the wall surrounding a reknown Koran scholar who had several teenage daughers and within the walls they didn't have to cover themselves the same.  Anyway the scholar had tarps put up on poles to block anyone peering over the wall so the tuktuk driver went to the police and said that he saw the scholar burning pages of the Koran.  The police immediately arresed the scholar...when the tuktuk driver went to his favorite coffee house, his buddies told him that since the scholar was well known, the court might believe him instead of the tuktuk driver.  So, the tuktuk driver got a mob together, they stormed the police station and hung the scholar in the courtyard for blasphemy!  Another story - an imam, claiming his wife was "thinking

about having sex with their neighbor" made her sit on the kitchen table, and shoved one of those old-type soldering irons into her body.  However, the power in Karachi is off more than on and they had a power outage but he made his wife sit there until the power returned.  During that time, their kids constantly begged their father to stop this but he persisted in "punishing " her or the evil thoughts.  Afterwards they took her to the hospital - he made his wife say that she bumped into the stove in the kitchen and got the injury.  But the female surgeon who examined her could easily tell that was a lie and eventually she got the true story out of her.  Final story of a much longer one, Benezir Bhutto the PM had the wife flown to England where she was treated, losing 5 body organs due to that torture.  The imam was sentenced to 3 years for that!  Sick.

One of the Rug owners, who  I got to know quite well, invited me to his house several times, each time he tried to get me to "adopt" his three teenaged daughters, all very pretty but I explained to him that the US govt wouldn't allow me to do that.  He kept insisting, begging even telling me what their lives would be worthless if they weren't in some other country.

He also mentioned as did others that the male children at age 4 would begin their indoctrination into hatred of the US in the mosque.   I had requested the tour in Karachi because I had formed opinions of Muslim fundamentalists and wanted to see for myself if they were really like that.  Now I know first hand - lots of stories some worse than these.  I do feel sorry for the women of ISLAM and realize that everywhere it is not like this.  I also have spent some time in Indonesia - totally different unless you go out to some of the islands.  I guess since Islam is the fastest growing religion, it must be the males and not the females making that choice.  Have a great Wednesday!

Shocking stuff and unbelievably pathetic. Such depravity. Such moral bankruptcy. The Prophet would no doubt roll in his grave if he knew how perverted his teachings had become. 

 

I was in India a long time ago and a Muslim man asked me if I had gotten with any of the local women, and I had said no. He had told me about an American woman that was visiting who he had gotten with. He then went on to proceed to tell me how depraved and immoral she was and I said to him well how do you feel about being immoral and a whore? He was utterly shocked and he said a man can't be a whore. I said of course he can be just like, you are a whore. He just could not comprehend anything I was saying. Total brainwashing and male dominated thinking. So sad to see.