Quote of the day
“It’s not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it’s a huge improvement.”
- Shukria Barakzai, a member of parliament in Afghanistan, giving his verdict on the new law supported by President Hamid Karzai. Human rights activists are furious, as they say it means that women no longer have the right to refuse their husbands sex unless they are ill, women will need to get permission from their husbands if they want to leave their homes unless there is an emergency and women will only be able to seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands’ permission. The UN have also warned that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only. The law would cover the Shia minority, who make up 10% of the population, while a similar version is being drawn up for the Sunni majority - both of which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the upcoming elections. (full story HERE)
Witanagemot Blogs
Why are British troops fighting and dieing for these primitive tribesmen? Now Brown, our unelected PM is sending more, with poor equipment, to carry out the desires of this criminal NuLabour government. Afganis are still stuck in the middle ages, slaves of a barbarous religion and determined to oppress their people, more especially their women. If that is their demand we should not shed our men’s blood for such wretches.Bring our troops home, now. We are not denying them training grounds. They are training in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. Leave then to their own devices, they will soon start murdering each other. It’s what they do.
With money so tight, I’m working on the basis that our troops will be just as ill-equipped as before – making this little more than another Brown-loves-Obama-and-will-do-anything-he-wants moment. How sad.
Afghanistan is a disastrous mess that the media conspire to keep away from us. If anyone thinks we have problems in Iraq, they pale into insignificance compared to the psycho warlords, drug barons and militants in Afghanistan.
yes,our poor bloody troops are in the middle as pawns,let the politicians fight it out,you would soon see peace then.
Well, I daresay that this won’t be popular, but since we are partially responsible for this mess, we should make an open offer of asylum to any Afghan woman who wishes to leave this tyranny. Possibly on the condition that she’ll walk through customs with a bare head.
I’m a libertarian, but I live in a massive government state. My taxes paid for this abomination. I’m happy for some more of them to be spent on helping the victims. If England doesn’t stand for decent treatment of women (as decent treatment of all people), it stands for nothing any more.
Yes, & the women would stand as a living testimoby to what worthless filth & **** the likes of Rowan Williams are when they call for sharia law.
Although I think immigration is too high & should be reduced, it is not only humanitarian but plain good sense to admit asylum seekers from theocracies who can tell our native Islamists where to get off.
In all honesty, we should have done far more to support the opposition to Saddam Hussein, & it is now our duty to stand alongside the liberals & secularists of these countries. I am a sceptic (NOT a denier) when it comes to military force as a way to bring this about, but no one can deny that it is important, apart from the disgraceful relativists who turned their back on left-wing values long ago.
Incidentally, do you support Obama’s strategy in those parts? In all honesty, as I said, I do not really take a stance on foreign affairs as they are wildly unpredictable. I hope it works. It could go any way, like.
I really Obama or someone else can stop the rot in Afghanistan. With the warlords bringing anarchy and massively hiking up drug production, we all lose out in the end. Unfortunately, the option of leaving them to beat the **** out of each other has long past.
Not so sure about the asylum issue. It’s complicated and this country is already struggling to keep its head above water with the ridiculous levels of immigration.
LFAT, like a lot of people I’m worried about open immigration too. But I don’t think this is an immigration issue. It’s a moral responsibility issue. We chose to get involved in Afghanistan, and at a moral level, by getting into “nation building”, and thus we assumed a moral responsibility. We could have taken an old fashioned view and just bombed the b*stards to negate the threat, but we clearly stated we were there to save the Afghans from their (taliban) oppressors. I distinctly remember Tony Blair giving an impassioned speech (to Labour Conference, I think) in which he justified the war with the phrase “the way they treat their women is disgusting!” If that was an issue then, it was an issue now. British troops have fought and died for what… more disgusting treatment of women?
Of course, our leaders should have realised that such attitudes to women were not unique to the taliban and would not vanish with the taliban. These are deep seated attitudes in some parts of the Islamic faith. But it is an outrage that we are now supporting them. Unless we are prepared to run the country as a subjugated state and reeducate the Afghan masses forcibly (on the German/Japanese post war model), which is neither politically correct nor, probably, practical these days, the next best thing we could do is offer asylum to those who genuinely wish to escape the Dark Ages and live and breathe freely in a western society which will offer them that most British of protections- equality before the law.