OK. Lets keep this real simple brutalizing women is bad,war is worse.

The former is no excuse for the latter and the latter is no excuse for the former.

"America needs to go to war, It's a militaristic-capitalist plutarchy, it can't keep up growth if it isn't stealing oil from somewhere."

I'm sure it can grow just fine without war, witness the millions of people who apply for immigration to America.

Yes indeed the US is a "militaristic-capitalist plutarchy" which is why a community organizer like Obama became President. But then again you probably think North Korea or Venezuela (a militaristic-socialist fascist oligarchy) are utopia, what with their press censorship laws and land nationalization programs redolent of Nazi Germany and The Great Leap Forward.

I think it is unethical to reproduce that TIME cover, whilst criticising how it was used as 'propoganda'. By reposting it here you are using it as propoganda for your own position.

Using Women's Rights To Justify War? Or Using horrific images of women's torture to justify criticism of a war?

As far as I am concerned it is the same technique and just as indefensible.

I'm going to be terrible here: but first I'll find agreement; I'm never quite sure what the criteria for deportation is in our home office, where we deport homosexuals and send them away with the message "just keep yourself quiet now" but give amnesty to others for seemingly trivial reasons. I certainly think the way in which we approach this subject should change.

I also worry that all international campaigns must solely be down to whichever issue gets the loudest shouters; a few people have said on here that people are stoned all the time (which didn't mean it was excusable, it just meant why do our ears perk up at Ashtani - it's a fair question; I've done the same regarding the Ashtani case ) and their fate should not rest on the fact that governments worldwide have to wait until a shotuing crowd overthrows their complacency.

Where I don't agree with Laurie: as I say I think the system of deportation is mangled, but it would be hard to substantiate the claim that a dismissal of women's rights informs it, so where I do think there is hypocrisy, it's achieved by a stupid system that listens to the loudest voice rather than a sexist one.

In our stupid world of binaries I would like to remind us all of two things: just because you were against this war, doesn't mean you aren't throwing your weight against laws that are sexist. By which I mean, look at the non-grilling George Galloway, foremost UK anti-war campaigner, gives President Ahmadinejad here ( about four minutes in ) - I seriously question Galloway's sincerity here, contextualising his question by calling those against the stoning as "enemies".

The second thing: there is no reason why individuals cannot be for the war in Afghanistan for instance, with, in the back of their mind, women's rights which should be given to all women, and not just be given importance in the West. A woman's right is not a decadent thing of rich nations, but should be bestowed across the world, and it will not come from Ahmadinejad and the like.

For the reasons given above, I'm not won over by the article - however I still regard the debate that Laurie is instigating as important.

Nothing is worth fighting for today not even if it where to save Laurie being stoned!

Tommy Danger
"irrespective of religious belief - that is just a cover for insecure macho bigamists whose lack of any emotional dialectic results in an expression of physical violence."

"irrespective of religious belief"
anyone giving that statement a moments thought will see it to be false,many of the customs that are oppressive to women are in fact perpetuated and reinforced by women for religious reason FGM for one.

"insecure macho bigamists whose lack of any emotional dialectic"

first 'bigamists' are all men that are oppressive to women illegally married to more than one woman ?

As for "insecure macho who lack of any emotional dialectic" you will find in fact that this is not the case,What you will find is a set of religious values and cultural values supported by women.that maintain these abuses.
Mothers will often hold down daughters wile their own brother suffocates or more often slits their throats in 'honour' killings.

To try and dismiss religions involvement (in this case Islam)in this process is the height of lazy minded Islamic apologetics.
For instance the Palestinian Authority, sometimes carry out honour killings.

Women in the family tend to support the honor killing of one of their own, agreeing that the family is the property and asset of men and boys. Alternatively, matriarchs may be motivated not by personal belief in the misogynistic ideology of women as property, but rather by pragmatic calculations. Sometimes a mother may support an honor killing of an "offending" female family member in order to preserve the honor of other female family members since many men in these societies will refuse to marry the sister of a "shamed" female whom the family has not chosen to punish, thereby "purifying" the family name by murdering the suspected female.

Over 80 Iraqi women in Diyala province committed suicide, to escape the shame of having been raped. They chose to become suicide bombers to escape the shame; their rapes were planned in advance by 51-year-old Iraqi woman Samira Jassim, who confessed to Iraqi police that she organized their rapes so she could later persuade each of them to become a suicide bomber to escape their shame.

Homosexuality can also be a ground for honor killing by relatives.
Men can also be the victims of honour killings.

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

hyperlinks obviously don't work for me
[http://raincoatoptimism.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/a-reply-to-laurie-penny-on-womens-rights-and-war/]

Laurie

I agree with Matthew Taylor that you have made a limited point well re immigration and asylum cruelly undermining our position on women overseas.

However, I do not think there is anything fishy about fighting to improve the lot of women, even if ISAF/NATO don’t “mean it”. I think your article contains a few sleights of hand, by you and Ms Joya, in order to say that there is.

Malalai Joya is an inspiration, but she was inaccurate in her insinuation that Aisha’s treatment happened under the watchful gaze of ISAF forces. ISAF sadly do not claim to have control of Uruzgan, where Aisha was mutilated. They prevent NGOs going there for security reasons. The mainly Dutch force there is small and under constant siege. Aisha’s family dragged her to the province as they knew the Taliban prosecuted their own brand of justice there without risk of reprisal.

The idea that, because Aisha’s mutilation happened last year when ISAF troops were somewhere in the field, it portends nothing about what’ll happen on a wider scale when troops leave, is not a serious one. Pro-interventionalists constantly consider (and are made to consider) their ambitions and policy against the horrors of war and the implications of action/inaction. Anti-interventionalists should do the same thing. Saying in summary “well, women over here get rough treatment too, but I don’t see anyone doing anything about it” is a defeatist non-sequitur.

Ms Joya’s use of "arguably" is a rhetorical tool that perhaps says little more and a little less than you or she would like. We can only “argue” about the levels of capital and corporal punishment of women under Taliban Sharia because the country was for a long time shut off from the outside world, and the population governed by a stone-age regime that made gathering empirical evidence about women’s welfare impossible. I don’t think Ms Joya would argue with that.

Given the known proclivities of the Taliban and the population that has grown cravenly misogynistic under them, it is a leap of faith to then “argue” that the frequency and ferocity of the abuse of women was lower when the Taliban controlled the whole country with than it is now. This unfalsifiable (and therefore specious) “argument” does not refute or challenge that (1) the Taliban’s treatment of women before the occupation was abhorrent (2) the Taliban are in control of large parts of the country, the Afghan police and army are still a long way from the size and competence to repel them or keep them at bay and so (3) were ISAF troops to leave now, the Taliban – in a vengeful, misogynist mood - would re-take lost areas and reapply their abhorrent jurisprudence.

Faced with this grim triangulation the lesser evil, certainly for women, is clearly the continuing ISAF occupation, propaganda war here or no propaganda war here. For Ms Joya to want both ISAF and the Taliban out now is sadly mere wish-thinking, and as such plays no credible part in a debate in whether and why ISAF should be there. It’s incredible that a feminist would “argue” that life for women under a Taliban state was better than it is now, or could be, under Western occupation.

Military planning based on the protection of women in Sharia countries is not to me somehow “sinister”. There is plenty of evidence that ISAF forces are strongly motivated by a desire to improve the lives of women in Afghanistan and do not mind being in harm’s way to do so (an eloquent example: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/08/dissent-of-...). Even if this is insincere, I think the ends for the Afghan people justify the means.

The real question about Afghanistan is whether the stated ends can be accomplished. Buts that’s another discussion.

Your link between Aisha and the storm gathering over Iran is specious, and I think your heavily qualified diction here (“it could well be construed that” and so on) tacitly acknowledges as much.

You surmise “if even one person can be saved from fascistic, fundamentalist woman-haters, an international campaign is more than justified. However, if, as seems likely, Iran executes Sakineh Ashtiani anyway, it would be beyond distasteful for NATO governments to cannibalise her corpse as part of the moral groundwork for further bloodshed.” Does Ashtiani’s treatment justify intervention, or doesn’t it? Are you claiming that the just determination to intervene or not hinges on whether this one woman is executed? Really?

A conversation may be going on about Iran (and Jeffrey Goldberg’s article http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-point-of-no-retu... may – whatever you make of it or him - be the watershed piece that inures us to military action) but the issue is not going to be decided on how women are treated there, however many women are stoned to death on spurious testimony before or after Mrs Ashtiani. Perhaps it should.

A more interesting set of questions for feminist consideration might be: Is the treatment of women like Sakineh Ashtiani a good reason (or even an acceptable prime reason) to depose theocracy in Iran? If so, who do we support? If not, are we implicitly legitimating anyone? What do women in Iran want? Can they get it on their own?

Why shouldn’t state-mandated abnegation of women’s rights justify war?

@swatantra

There is a clear nexus between a society that harbours al-Qaeda and one that treats women like Aisha as they do. So to say the war is “about” terrorism and not “about” women is to make a distinction without a difference.

"This is simply a false statement!! I was there two weeks ago and experienced the contrary. The author should distinguish between fact and opinion." P Kazemi

So, your opinion is what the above, lean 'facts' are based on? You were able to discern them absolutely through your visit?

No-one has any idea regarding context, the extent of your experiences or whether they were representative of anything at all, surely?

The report of the Special Rapporteur... concerning cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women (E/CN.4/2002/83), indicated that honour killings had been reported in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Yemen, and other Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries, and that they had also taken place in western countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, within migrant communities.In 2005, Der Spiegel reported: "In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members". The article went on to cover the case of Hatun Sürücü, who was murdered by her brother for not staying with her husband of forced marriage, and of "living like a German"
see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

Women are oppressed EVERYWHERE

not just in Muslim countries

True. But they are more oppressed in Muslim countries.

Why is that fact so difficult for the self-proclaimed feminist intelligentsia to deal with?

This is the embarrassment of modern leftism. Stoning a woman to death is bad but if want to actually do something about it- then that's worse. Blinded by an irrational anti-americanism, you would rather support the sadistic mullahs of Iran than the human rights of its citizes. Absolute embarrassment to this magazine.

Wile we all interpret history in whichever way suits us best I have some symmpathy with Madame Miow's assertion.
Under the marxist government in the seventies, women did indeed enjoy a far greater degree of freedom than now.
The west were only too happy to encourage the USSR becoming embroiled in an economically amd morale sapping war, and at least six months prior to the marxist government calling on the USSR for help were encouraging the inserrection.
The subsequent withdrawal by the USSR after fighting the western backed mujhaddin left the power vacuum filled by the Taliban.

While no doubt given Afghanistan's tribal history, such factional fighting would likely have broken out anyway, I think it is disingenious to say the west had nothing to do with the current situation.

The problem here is the west learned nothing from the USSR defeat and are employing the same tactics, defending populated centres and leaving vast swathes of the counttry under the control of the Taliban.

That is how these atrocities and subjegation of women can still take place.

Agree a bit there Sam Dale, but we must not forget the awful things done by "our" side as well. that is why when it comes to power politics, this issue is so difficult.
One of the positions that the sane left used to hold was that Human Rights are an absolute, along with the belief that an injury to one is an injury to all (you'll find it on Union banners).
Now no one is perfect, but on balance, we simply must come down on the side of those fighting the greatest evil. On that basis, in Iran today, that would be the Theocracy/Military dictatorship.

""AMY GOODMAN: But so often in this country, the argument is actually used that it’s the women of Afghanistan who benefit most from the US occupation and the war.
MALALAI JOYA: They’re betrayed more. Opposite. Quite opposite. The first casualty in my country is the truth. Still they betray the truth, especially mainstream medias, put dust on the eyes of the people around the world. As after 9/11 that they occupied Afghanistan, they say women for the first time do not wear burqa and they are free, while it’s a big lie. And today, most of women are wearing burqa because of security. I wear a burqa just to be alive, this disgusting burqa, which is symbol of oppression, I think. And it’s like a shroud for life body most of women are wearing to be alive. Rape cases, domestic violences and also [inaudible] on the face of the girls and killing of women increasing rapidly. ""

Malalai Joya on Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/28/a_woman_among_warlords_afghan_dem...

I just do not get a feeling that we are about to go to war with Iran.
The treatment of women is the easiest way to judge a society. It may noty be a justification for war, but there really is no defence to be made for oppression or repression wherever it occurs in the world.

Eh? Are you trying to create a tariff of punishment for something that in a just state would not be a crime?
At the end of the day, it gets dark...

@ felix

"Many people get stoned to death in Iran"

SO THAT'S OK THEN ?

EERRRR
no I didnt say its ok I was merely wondering why has THIS case suddenly sparked interested from everyone

I SAY AGAIN,SO THAT MAKES IT O.K ?

No
I didnt say it was
Can you not read

AS HUMAN BEINGS WE HAVE A SHARED DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS EVERYWHERE.

I FOR ONE ONE WILL NOT GO AWAY AND CRAWL UNDER A ROCK OVER THIS ISSUE, JUST SO AS NOT TO OFFEND MUSLIMS.

HA
oh really?????
u contradict yourself; u say we have a shared duty towards humanity yet ur quick to start demonisin Muslims and spewing hate

ur a bunch of hypocries, u pick and choose which battles u want to fight
there r millions homeless in Pakistan yet I doubt u care about that
BUT Im guessing when Haiti was struck by a disaster u were sooo willing to help

@ Des Demona / MADAM MIAOW:

Interpretation of history my foot .. get the facts. There are facts it is not all interpretation.

Read something about the damage that USSR did to Afghanistan. So what if some women went around wearing mini-skirts? The Soviets killed up to one million people and totally destroyed some towns. Face facts. Do not assume because the USSR was 'socialist' that it did good things. There was widespread killings and rapes, not to mention the economic damage that was caused. Yea the Afghan women were free to wear mini-skirts!!

you know what,when i watch the news it is not the news because the reality of war and abuse of women and innocent people in the world is hidden away and censored even by the likes of channel 4,i prefer to see the reality of life no matter how disturbing it is than this sanitised crap the media feeds us everyday, go visit the theync.com and witness what the media would prefer you not see...

"That the state of Iran hates and fears women is not up for debate and if even one person can be saved from fascistic, fundamentalist woman-haters, an international campaign is more than justified."

This is simply a false statement!! I was there two weeks ago and experienced the contrary. The author should distinguish between fact and opinion.

"Nothing is worth fighting for today not even if it where to save Laurie being stoned!"

I suspect that may her condition most of the time.

very good point buckskins,but your flogging a dead horse in this blog with the head in the sand leftys who in my opinion protect and defend the very people who if in power would string them up from a crane and feed there bodys to the vultures,but thats the feeble left for you all around this damm country.

@ swantantra: "Thats what happens when the West decides to interfere in the sovereignity of Nations. The Soviets had mangaged to push religion into the background and not allow it to dominate peoples lives."

Great, one question though: in what way is the West not freeing Afghanistan from the grip of religion?

And before you answer that, answer this: during and after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, life in Afghanistan became markedly better than pre-Soviet occupied Afghanistan, true or false? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Afghanistan#Damage_to_Af...)

i just cant imagine laurie penny being buried up to her neck in the desert with crowds of religious lunatics screaming allah hu akbar while pelting her with stones,i just cant imagine that scenario.