Dear Nancy Ruth. War Will Not Liberate Women so 'Shut the f--- up'

Nancy Ruth is another Conservative senator appointed by Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, who was trying to break the tradition of patronage. She is best known for telling aid groups who were opposed to our new anti-abortion stand in foreign policy, to “shut the f--- up”

A lovely woman.

Ruth is now chairing a special senate committee on the advancement of human rights in Afghanistan, and wants a special emphasis on promoting and "preserving" women's rights in the region.

That includes training Afghan police and soldiers in gender sensitivity, providing health and education for females and ensuring that any political resolution with the Taliban to end the 10-year conflict does not erode the gains that have been made by women.

I don't even know where to start.

"Gender sensitivity"? Is she nuts? A few facts:

- Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth
- 1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence
- 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan
- 70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan

And this is under Hamid Karzai. And Ruth is worried about gender sensitivity. It's like going to the hospital with third degree burns on every part of your body and the doctor saying: "You really have to do something about your hair. It's a mess".

If this so-called "human rights" senate committee really want to help women in Afghanistan, they need to get our soldiers out of there. Because that's what they really want.

In the video below you will hear one woman near the end say that she does not expect, nor does she want, some foreign power to come and liberate her. If she can't do that herself than it can't be done.

Besides it was all this "liberating" that took away women's rights in Afghanistan in the first place.

The Radical Fundamentalists Were the Product of the Good Old U.S. of A.

Journalist Stephen Gowan wrote a piece in August on the plight of women in a country with too much western interference. Women’s Rights in Afghanistan. What's left.

While worries are expressed about “women’s precarious rights in Afghanistan … seeping away” there was a time when the rights of Afghan women were much stronger, and stronger still among the people who shared a common culture with Afghans but lived in Soviet Central Asia. While US journalists draw attention to worry that a US troop withdrawal, and the possible return of the Taliban to government, will imperil the few rights women have gained, US establishment journalism expressed few concerns about the loss of women’s rights when Washington backed the misogynist Mujahedeen in its fight against a progressive government in Kabul that sought to free Afghan women from the grip of traditional Islamic practices.

The United States not only trained and paid both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but they deliberately recruited the most extreme elements, to fight against the Soviets. And now many of those extremists have found a home in the current Afghan government.

And before they interfered, women in the country were enjoying enormous freedom.

Further evidence of Washington’s supreme indifference to the rights of women abroad is evidenced by the role it played in undermining a progressive government in Afghanistan that sought to release women from the grip of traditional Islamic anti-women practices. In the 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs.” There were female members of parliament, and women drove cars, and travelled and went on dates, without needing to ask a male guardian for permission. That this is no longer true is largely due to a secret decision made in the summer of 1979 by then US president Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to draw “the Russians into the Afghan trap” and give “to the USSR its Vietnam War” by bankrolling and organizing Islamic terrorists to fight a new government in Kabul led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

And Canada Has Given Them Little reason to Trust Us

In March of 2009, we learned of a new law being passed in Afghanistan that, among other things, would make it illegal for women 'to refuse their husbands sex, leave the house without their permission or have custody of children.'

Canadians were outraged.

So Lawrence Cannon mounted his white steed and went off to the rescue.

The Canadian government reacted with outrage following reports that the administration of President Hamid Karzai has approved a wide-ranging family law for the country's Shia minority ... Canadian officials contacted the Karzai's office, and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon spoke to two Afghan cabinet ministers Tuesday seeking clarification.

Seeking clarification, huh?

Poor Larry got caught with his pants down, during their hostile takeover of the Rights and Democracy agency, that is supposed to be arms length of government.

In April 2009, Parliament Hill was abuzz with news that Afghanistan passed a law that deprived women of their children in cases of separation, banned them from appearing in public without the permission of their husbands, and made it illegal to refuse to have sex with them. Lawrence Cannon swore he knew nothing about the law and that it came as a complete surprise to him… he was contradicted by two employees - the president, Rémy Beauregard, and Razmik Panossian, its policy director, who told Embassy Magazine that Canada had known it was coming for months…

Canada knew it was coming for months. Do they really believe that the women in Afghanistan can trust us? We stood by and did nothing to prevent this. Karzai's justice minister said that there are only two rights that women should have. The right to obey their husbands and the right to pray. And the Harper government did nothing! Nothing except try to cover their tracks and pretend to care!

Travis Lupick with Straight.com, believes that Stephen Harper’s religious beliefs may be hampering humanitarian efforts. And while it appears that this "born again" Christian was really just a "born again" opportunist, those propping him up do hold strong religious views. And Lupick is right in saying that those views will hurt any initiative.

Today, another Canadian mother mourns the loss of a son. And everyday in Afghanistan, mothers mourn, not only their children killed by "liberating" soldiers, but their sons who join the rebels.

And they fear the long term impact of the increased militarization of their society.

Time Magazine ran a story in July asking, What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan? In it they attempt to convince their readers that a return of the Taliban will reverse gains made by their occupation, forgetting that the women in that country are nowhere near where they were before the Americans got involved in the first place.

And as Jason Linkins in the Huffington Post says: "We invaded Afghanistan to fight the Taliban in 2001. This young woman's nose and ears were cut off by the Taliban in 2009." That woman was the image on the cover of that Time magazine. Some progress.

What the women in Afghanistan really want is to not have to raise their children in a war zone. 90% of the casualties in that conflict are civilian. Not soldiers. Not the "enemy". Not the "scumbag murderers". Civilians, including women and children.

So Nancy Ruth. Unless your committee considers the possibility of getting out of there now, you should just 'shut the f--- up'!