Thanks for taking the time to comment AH. It's hard for me to respond to your posts though because I just don't have enough background knowledge to fully understand them.
I'll take a stab at asking a couple of questions anyway though.
OK -- dumb question. Is what happened between 2002 - 2012 worse than what most Afghanis experienced when their country was under Russian influence? Has weakening the Taliban strengthened leaders who are even worse than the Taliban as opposed to strengthening leaders who are less cruel and perhaps more inclined to running things in a more democratic manner?
What I'm driving at is the hypocracy of things. Materially, these Afghan's lives have improved - they embrace aspects of 'Westernization' (particularly the internet porn part.) They embrace the ability to get a salary beyond the wildest dreams of most Afghans - schoolteachers received $165 USD a month when I left. But while they're gazing at porn & enjoying comforts that a reasonable salary allows, they will still say 'the lives of Afghans haven't improved since the West got involved'. They will still say 'I liked it when the Taliban was in control because it was safe, and they respected Islam.'
The reality is that outside of Kabul & major centers (Jbad, Herat, Kandahar, Mazar etc...), the West hasn't been able to improve the lives of the average Afghan very much, if at all. Afghans don't connect (semi)democratic elections with any sort of a 'win'. They want to see running water, sewage, schools, hospitals, roads, a live outside of subsistence agriculture. Or perhaps for many of these remote Afghans, really they just want to carry on with their simple existences and be left alone.
When do you expect that will happen for most of them?
Hard to say. The peak of aid spending in Afghanistan has definitely been reached. Unlike other post-conflict places I've been (East Timor for example), I think there is some caution about pulling the pin too soon. Because if this fragile middle-class where there is at least SOME progress collapses, they will likely become extremely disenfranchised.
My personal opinion is that any US politician who tells you they are 'pulling out' of Afghanistan is lying. The infrastructure built there is clearly built with a long-term view. Kandahar and what has been put in place there is staying - and the US/NATO will patrol Central Asia from that location for years to come - no question.
So, how did Afghanistan end up with laws on the books that say that honor killings are illegal despite the fact that it appear to be OK with the their patriarchal/tribal power structure? Is this a legacy from the Russians?
I am not an Afghan legal expert - however I will say that 'murder' is definitely against the law, and I am unaware of any legal statute on the books that permits the notion of an 'honor' killing. My understanding of the situation is that in cases of an honor killing, a local judge would elect to consider the 'honor killing' aspect of the incident and perhaps judge accordingly - reducing the sentence, or perhaps letting the act go altogether. More commonly is the whole thing is covered up. These kinds of killings in Afghanistan tend to happen in small villages with very nascent rule of law to begin with. I'm not saying they never happen in somewhat more developed places like Kabul - they certainly do. But they are much more likely to take place in less sophisticated, rural areas with nominal policing.
I will send an Email to a friend of mine who spent several years there on the legal side of things, for her opinion. Maybe she will reply.
As for fixing the legal system ... that is probably equivalent to nation building and I wonder if that would work in the Middle East. It did work for Japan after WWII, but I believe that Japan was hated and feared by most other Asian countries which is probably one of the reasons that the Americans were able to do this. I don't think the same dynamics are in place in the Middle East. Also, I think the US was willing to do a lot of expensive nation building after WWII to help prevent a future WWIII. I'm doubtful that the same degree of nation building would have support from American citizens now or from any other democratic/republican country's citizens. So who would do it? I also cheerfully admit that I'm doing a lot of speculating in ignorance in this post.
If I were king of the world, I would tie it directly to aid. Policy for pay, if you will. Either the Afghan government accepts far-reaching and widespread legal reforms (with all the destablizing/sensitive issues to the notion of central government this entails) or the aid tap is turned off. Or a debt is not forgiven. Without going into details of my job, trading difficult and sensitive policy actions in return for debt forgiveness/aid packages was how we got traction early in the piece in 2002/3/4. The less-direct negotiations just fail to work in the Afghan environment - because basically they have developed a real knack in the past 100 years or so, how to milk anything they possibly can out of foreign governments...
Is there anyway to help the women directly?
As a side activity, me and my partner were very involved with a local Women's NGO, that was seeking to empower women through small business development. Basically we assisted some 110 women to gain some measure of economic independence by helping them market their handicrafts to Westerners. We were hugely successful, and in our spare time over 2 years, these women raised over $200k USD which went directly to their pockets, through the sales of embroideries, dolls, simple jewellery etc...
And still, almost weekly, some woman would come to the center having been beaten for some perceived impropriety, or some woman would have her money stolen by her worthless husband. In one case, one of our women was attacked with a caustic substance and we had to scramble to get her aid to save her eyes.
And, even though I am proud of what we achieved, this was simply a band-aid. These women, especially without the West there to perform some form of babysitting are doomed when we pull out.
An anecdote for what its worth. My family background is Orthodox Jewish. One of my great-grandfathers was basically a tyrant and he insisted that all of his sons be married by 16 years of age and his daughters by 12. (He had a dozen children.) He succeeded in forcing his oldest son and daughter into marriage. The rest of his children ran away. Unfortunately for the tyrant but fortunately for his other children the big city was not that far away and they were able to get jobs, the daughters as well as the sons. Their options broke his tyranny. Incidentally, none of the 10 run-aways stayed orthodox, probably not a coincidence.
I think if the Afghani women were able to have true options that this problem could be done away with within two, perhaps even one generation. To take my mother's aunts and uncles as an example though, they were never under house arrest and while they were threatened with forced marriages, they were never threatened with death or even acid attacks or facial amputations.
I'm just wondering if there is a way to offer Afghani women true help in that type of extremely hostile and dangerous environment.
I am perhaps cynical after my time in country. So my opinion is interesting in that is a real-life anecdote, but I also am admittedly somewhat jaded. My answer is no. The country is going to go back to being hell in a handcart. When we pull out, we should turn our back and shut our eyes, and wait until the screaming stops.
And whoever next goes in with a military intervention, should turn it into a parking lot.
The only way to break this cycle is actually to physically break it, and then try to do something with the pieces that are left.
