Politics and Feminism

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A lot of academics argue that if someone doesn’t know anything about a subject, the best thing to do is to keep quiet and let the experts handle the matter. I cannot disagree more. In cases that involve human rights violations the importance is not about the knowledge of the conflict, or even the politics, but the empathy towards the victims. I say this now because I was also part of that academic world, the political analysis, where a lot of arguments and conversations flew around, directed only to intellectuals, and not to the public, that was ultimately the one with the power to implement changes.

Basically, since the II World War, United States has been the centre of  all international politics. Other members of the  United Nation’s Security Council, together or individually, have tried to fight the American hegemony, even the UE, although very shyly. But since George Bush father decided to conquer the Middle East (leaving the side of diplomacy and going into war), United States has been unstoppable. It is only due to internal changes in the American politics that its hegemony has lately weakened, causing enormous damage to the countries they should protect.

The war in Afghanistan has cost the United States at least 700,000 million dollars in twenty years. More than 2000 American soldiers have died, without counting other couple of thousands from the coalition and the NATO. Trump and Biden were not the first ones asking around how to leave the problem behind. Obama did some diplomatic approaches to NATO, looking to be replaced as the head of this nonsense war, but NATO said no. Trump, however, went further to make his intention public, as he never cared about the consequences of a sudden withdrawal and much less he cared about the repercussions from the International Community.

But it was not him, but Joe Biden, the one who committed the enormous mistake. Biden, the progressist, the human rights defendant, the advocate for diversity and equality, of women, of African-Americans, of immigrants. His excuses are weak, made all rapidly and reactively. Too little, too late. 1) The purpose of the invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent a new terrorist attack in American soil, 2) Americans should not be fighting a war that not even the Afghans would like to fight, 3) The objective of the war was not the reconstruction of the country.

First of all, the sudden withdrawal of the American troops left no structure in place to avoid the preparation and execution of terrorist attacks, not only in United States, but around the world. Besides, Afghanistan has invaluable natural resources, without even considering the production of Amapola that was before under the control of the Warlords, and that from now on will be controlled by the Taliban, allowing them to finance themselves as they please. The news on the limits of Afghanistan are not very hopeful, with Russian military around and the expectation that China will impose its influence over the broken country.

Nobody has ever cared about the autonomy of the Afghan people. Biden argues that Americans should not fight a war that not even the same Afghans want to fight, and I wonder, has someone ever asked them if they wanted to be invaded by Russia? Or by the US? Has someone ever asked them in which terms they want to be governed? Or by whom? It is true that an important investment of resources was made to prepare the Afghan military and to strengthened the government to take over, but this was never the focus and it only lasted the last couple of years, as the big majority of the money went on to make the war and to get and kill Osama Bin Laden. Now the Afghans are again prisoners of a bunch of assassins who want to impose the Sharia Law. Good-bye to the freedom and autonomy of women and girls. Good-bye to the freedom of all the habitants of Afghanistan, that has now return to be a living hell. I do not think, as Joe Biden says, that the Afghan people did not want to fight this war, but they knew they were going to lose it, effective immediately. Since the beginning all the visible heads of the military and the civilian government left, there was not a person who could motivate a defence, or at least to delay in some way the advance of the Taliban into the cities. This takes us to the insult of Joe Biden’s third excuse, that United States’ objective was not the reconstruction of the country. Any advisor would have tell Biden before that outrageous press conference, that the objective of wars, if any, is to reconstruct. The creation of new government structures, infrastructure, hospitals, education establishments, is what is going to create a strong country, free from abuses of the terrorists groups. It is not, and it has never been, the killing of people and the ruins of an entire culture what is going to stop the violence.

All of this coming from Joe Biden is punch on the illusions of the world to achieve world peace. I shared myself the happiness that implied having defeated Donald Trump with a speech of inclusivity, of support of underrepresented groups like African-Americans, the LGBTI population, the feminists, whose waves of protests were reaching the whole country in response to Trump’s divisive comments. When wining, Biden chose Kamala Harris as vice-president (who sadly has shown symptoms of only looking after herself), and other adjoints, men and women from the African-American and LGBTI communities who were going to establish more inclusive and human policies for all.  However, and this might be due to the strings of power, Biden has betrayed his election promises twice. The first time, when Kamala Harris went to Guatemala to warn the desperate immigrants to not go to United States, as they would not be welcomed. The second punch to the International Community was this sudden and messy exit from Afghanistan, the living death that he left behind, with no hopes for freedom, with no hopes for any future.  

The damage is done. When Biden talks he only refers to Americans, as if being American is the only way human beings could be respected and valued. In the meantime, the Afghan people area desperately trying to leave the country, doing whatever they can to escape the nightmare, women and girls are back at home, in hiding, burning their diplomas, as they know they will have to pay for their ambition of being educated and independent from men. And the rest of us, looking at our tv’s, hopeless, with our hands tight, while Biden keeps talking about his excuses from the White House.

Luz