She's using double language, she's against the Taliban and against the invasion?
You really find this so difficult to understand?
What about Americans who were against Bush...
If America had been invaded to get rid of the Bush admin, would all those Americans have to be for the invasion? Of course not. And if the invasion had taken place against their wishes, would they then be hypocrites if they continued their opposition to the Bush admin and other political forces by running for political office? And, at the same time, still thinking that the invasion wasn't the best course of action? Of course not.
The reason you are confused is that you can see no solution to problems other than war/invasion. And, in this case, a war which put into power people who have an extablished reputation and history in Afghanistan -- now of course, to keep American support, they have to dress up in democratic cloth.
Alongside them, of course, (and also with some power) you have people who genuinely have Afghan's interests at heart. People like Malalai Joya, who went back to Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban (from Pakistan, where her family fled via Iran) to help educate girls. But where is the real power concentrated? In the hands of those who banned Malalai Joya from the Afghan parliament because she dared speak out.
Of course, Malalai Joya is not the only one. (The wiki article mentions she was shielded by some colleagues when she received death threats at the parliament. Shukria Barakzai is named in another context). But she is certainly one of the people in Afghanistan for whom you should have the greatest respect -- far more respect than Karzai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malalai_Joya
Hundreds of men and women put their lives on the line and die fighting for her freedom, and she's spitting on them.
Get a freaking clue Miss Joya.
Malalai Joya has more of a clue about Afghanistan than many people have about their own backsides. She is marginalised by warlords and drug traffickers. And you want to tell her she is free? Free to do what? Speak her mind in the parliament she was elected to? Err, no, she isn't.
Malalai Joya has had her life on the line in Aghanistan for longer than any American soldier. And she has not tuned her back towards any of the opportunities provided by the ousting of the Taliban. She has been elected to the Afghan Parliament.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/malalai-joya-the-woman-who-will-not-be-silenced-1763127.html
Independent said:
As soon as the Taliban retreated, they were replaced – by the warlords who had ruled Afghanistan immediately before. Joya says that, at this point, "I realised women's rights had been sold out completely... Most people in the West have been led to believe that the intolerance and brutality towards women in Afghanistan began with the Taliban regime. But this is a lie. Many of the worst atrocities were committed by the fundamentalist mujahedin during the civil war between 1992 and 1996. They introduced the laws oppressing women followed by the Taliban – and now they were marching back to power, backed by the United States. They immediately went back to their old habit of using rape to punish their enemies and reward their fighters."
The warlords "have ruled Afghanistan ever since," she adds. While a "showcase parliament has been created for the benefit of the US in Kabul", the real power "is with these fundamentalists who rule everywhere outside Kabul". As an example, she names the former governor of Herat, Ismail Khan*. He set up his own "vice and virtue" squads which terrorised women and smashed up video and music cassettes. He had his own "private militias, private jails". The constitution of Afghanistan is irrelevant in these private fiefdoms.
Joya discovered just what this meant when she started to set up the clinic – and a local warlord announced that it would not be allowed, since she was a woman, and a critic of fundamentalism. She did it anyway, and decided to fight this fundamentalist by running in the election for the Loya jirga ("meeting of the elders") to draw up the new Afghan constitution. There was a great swelling of support for this girl who wanted to build a clinic – and she was elected. "It turned out my mission," she says, "would be to expose the true nature of the jirga from within."
[...] When her turn came, she stood, looked around at the blood-soaked warlords on every side, and began to speak. "Why are we allowing criminals to be present here?
[...] These warlords – who brag about being hard men – could not cope with a slender young woman speaking the truth. They began to shriek and howl, calling her a "prostitute" and "infidel", and throwing bottles at her. One man tried to punch her in the face. Her microphone was cut off and the jirga descended into a riot.
[...] Her speech was broadcast all over the world – and cheered in Afghanistan. She was flooded with support from the people of her country, delighted that somebody had finally spoken out.
[...] But the US and Nato occupiers instructed Joya that she must show "politeness and respect" for the other delegates. When Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador, said this, she replied: "If these criminals raped your mother or your daughter or your grandmother, or killed seven of your sons, let alone destroyed all the moral and material treasure of your country, what words would you use against such criminals that will be inside the framework of politeness and respect?"
[...] So she ran for parliament.
[...] The fundamentalist warlords who couldn't beat Joya at the ballot box or kill her chanced upon a new way to silence her. The more she spoke, the angrier they got. She called for secularism in Afghanistan, saying: "Religion is a private issue, unrelated to political issues and the government... Real Muslims do not require political leaders to guide them to Islam." She condemned the new law that declared an amnesty for all war crimes committed in Afghanistan over the past 30 years, saying "You criminals are simply giving yourselves a get-out-of-jail free card." So the MPs simply voted to kick her out of parliament.
There's are members of your own parliament asking for her reinstatement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malalai_Joya
She sounds to me like exactly the kind of person you would normally support -- except for one thing.
Let's put it this way...
Not so long ago, the Iranians were about to go to war with the Taliban:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Iranian_diplomats_assasination_in_Afghanistan
Suppose they had. Suppose they had defeated the Taliban and set up exactly the kind of government which is in Afghanistan now. And suppose that Malalai Joya, as she most certainly would have done, had continued to speak out. ie: Everything the same, except it was the Iranians who took out the Taliban.
What would your attitude to her be then?
*You might want to search for Ismail Khan at HRW:
http://www.hrw.org/en/search/apachesolr_search/Ismail+Khan
