Why We Fight

Today in Afghanistan, young women can learn to box.

Have their photo taken.  Sadly, reflections of Afghan women appear to be the dominant photographic mode.  This is an improvement of sorts, I suppose.

Be rescued from life threatening living conditions...caused by husbands and their families, sadly enough.

Learn to play music!

And here is the price we pay for their liberation.

There is a price for freedom.  When we free others from bondage, we ensure freedom for ourselves.

Let us be grateful for their service and for the freedom they bring the world.


The Taliban created the conditions where a woman could not be photographed without her husband or father's consent.  Where no woman would have learned boxing....or reading or writing or mathematics.  Where women were considered property on par with livestock and often treated with less consideration than livestock with the approval of the former government.  Where music was banned.

Let us not abandon those who teeter on the edge of being the victims of oppression before their oppressors have accepted liberty as the legitimate objective of humanity.
All the photos may be viewed here.

Ten Years On...

I am not usually taken with overly passionate remembrances.  I participate in a few only due to my membership in a veteran's organization; the VFW.  While I have been known to 'wave the bloody shirt' infrequently, I am not terribly fascinated with such activities.

Yet here we are; ten years after.

Where The Problem Is

Still over there.

A man and a woman who allegedly had an adulterous affair have been stoned and killed in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz.


...


This month the Taliban also reportedly flogged and killed a pregnant widow in western Baghdis province.


“We were also asked to throw stones, the woman was dead but the man was still alive. Some Taliban shot him three times ”


Mohammad Ayub, the governor of Imam Sahib district in Kunduz, told the BBC on Monday: "The Taliban brought them to the local bazaar.


"They stoned them because they were accused of adultery. There was a big crowd of people who watched.''


Two witnesses from Mullah Quli told the BBC that the Taliban asked the villagers to attend the stoning through an announcement on loudspeakers in the mosque.


"There was a big crowd of people," one witness said. "The Taliban made the women wear black clothes and the men were made to stand. The Taliban started throwing stones.
"We were also asked to throw stones. After a while, the Taliban left. The woman was dead but the man was still alive.