Many Afghan women are against a U.S. pullout, but Malalai Joya,
who's been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan," says the
American occupation must end. She tells The Daily Beast's Michelle
Goldberg why.

By Michelle Goldberg The Daily Beast

Malalai Joya, a 31-year-old activist and politician, was once called
"the bravest woman in Afghanistan" by the BBC. During the Taliban
years, she defied her country's rulers by running underground girls'
schools. After the Taliban's fall, she helped start an orphanage
and a medical clinic, and eventually became the youngest member of
Afghanistan's legislature. She has been fearless in taking on the
warlords who populate the government of Hamid Karzaideclared the
presidential victor Monday after a runoff election was canceledso
much so that in 2007, her political opponents voted to suspend her
from parliament on the grounds that she had "insulted" the institution.

Calling for her reinstatement, six female Nobel Peace Prize laureates
compared her to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, describing her as "a model
for women everywhere seeking to make the world more just."

So when Joya inveighs against the American occupation of her country,
we should take her voice seriously.

"My message on behalf of my people to [the] great American people
is that democracy never comes by barrel of gun, by cluster bomb,
by war," she told me during a recent interview in New York, her
words rushing out in an impassioned torrent. "They say war of Iraq
is bad war, war of Afghanistan is good war, while both are war. You
should raise your voice against the wrong policy of your government."

omen for Afghan Women, an NGO that runs counseling centers and
domestic-violence shelters in Afghanistan, recently put out a
statement saying, "Women for Afghan Women deeply regrets having a
position in favor of maintaining, even increasing troops We predict
that if Afghanistan falls again to the Taliban, we will once more
see on our high-definition TV screens, in the comfort of our American
homes, women and girls being hauled into the Kabul football stadium
to be beaten and executed for having committed acts that would not
be considered criminal by any international human-rights laws,
including those signed by Afghanistan."

Sunita Viswanath, one of the board members of Women for Afghan
Women, is immensely frustrated by those on the left who are calling
for the occupation's end. "I want the answer to [this] question,"
she says. "What do they think will happen to women and girls?"

Joya's response is to argue that outside parts of Kabul, women's
situations are as bad as they ever were, and it's getting worse.
"It is as catastrophic as it was under the domination of Taliban,"
she says.

"Everyone, they are talking that when these troops leave Afghanistan,
civil war will happen," says Joya. "Mainstream media especially try
to put more dust in the eyes of the people around the world. But
nobody wants to talk about today's civil war." The longer American
troops stay, "the worse civil war will be, because [the American]
government [is] giving more money and more power to these warlords
and also Taliban. That's why, day by day, my people believe [that
the U.S.] just waste their taxpayer money and the blood of their
soldiers by supporting such a mafia corrupt system of Hamid Karzai."

Joya doesn't want the world to forget about Afghanistan; she is
desperate for more humanitarian and educational support. But she
rejects entirely the notion that the American military can be a
force for good, or a force for feminism.

"I believe that women's rights is not a bunch of beautiful flowers
that someone gives us," she says. In her book, she writes, "I feel
confident that if foreign countries stop meddling in Afghanistan
and if we are left free from occupation, then a strong progressive
and democratic force will emerge."

That might seem terribly optimistic, even naove to most Americans.
But if we think we're fighting for women like her, we should at
least listen when she begs us to stop.

***********

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