Ridiculous Afghan legal system

[NickKIELCEPoland]

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2877
This thread is diverted from the Kentucky thread (link above)

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/22/world/asia/afghanistan-rape/index.html
A woman is in prison in Afghanistan because she refuses to marry the man who raped her. (link above)
Afghanistan is a country that Britain, Poland, Norway and America are paying their armies to defend.

No one gives a shit about Afghanistan. America is [allegedly] fighting terrorist networks that just happen to be located in Afghanistan. Britain, Poland and Norway are just trying to stay in America's good books by going along. That's the reality of foriegn policy.

My point was that the highly un-western regime of Afghanistan is enjoying the service, including protection, of an army paid for by western tax-payers. I feel that this is the fruit of ordinary westerners' labour going into a government whose values are alien to ours.

[Americano]

Why bother? With regard to corruption Afghanistan ranks above only Somalia. Regardless of being occupied by foreign military forces, Afghanistan is still an Islamic country.

[MeMyselfAndI]

Why bother? With regard to corruption Afghanistan ranks above only Somalia. Regardless of being occupied by foreign military forces, Afghanistan is still an Islamic country.

Are you saying that Muslims are incapable of building a functioning society?

[Americano]

Are you saying that Muslims are incapable of building a functioning society?

No, I'm doubting the ability of Western military occupation to change their belief system, which is the centerpiece of their society.

[MeMyselfAndI]

No, I'm doubting the ability of Western military occupation to change their belief system, which is the centerpiece of their society.

Well, maybe Western. Soviet occupation worked while it lasted. Women there were free to get education and did not have to wear those veils they wear if they did not want to. It was working. Gorby was coward, that is all...

in 1988, women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers at Kabul Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Afghanistan

Really, one just has to compare Afghanistan to, say, Uzbekistan.

Similar population size, that is why pick it that way: Afghanistan - 29,835,392; Uzbekistan - 27,606,007.

Uzbekistan Human Development Index: 0.617
Afghanistan Human Development Index: 0.352

Uzbekistan GDP (PPP): $85.188 billion total; $3,015 per capita
Afghanistan GDP (PPP): $27.443 billion total; $909 per capita

Uzbekistan GDP (nominal): $37.290 billion total; $1,320 per capita
Afghanistan GDP (nominal): $15.541 billion total; $515 per capita

Uzbekistan has a 99.3% literacy rate among adults older than 15 (2003 estimate),[42] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan#cite_note-cia1-41) which is attributable to the free and universal education system of the Soviet Union.Afghanistan... probably far from that. Cannot find the exact figure, but, since half of the population in Afghanistan today (women/girls) is refused education outright, probably not more then 50%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

Uzbekistan is not a heaven on Earth. But keep in mind that back in 1920s, during the Russian Civil War, Bukhara, as what is now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan was known back then, was much like today's Afghanistan. Gangs of Basmachi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basmachi)
http://s55.radikal.ru/i149/1003/ba/79135f59642b.jpghttp://img1.content.foto.mail.ru/mail/boris.mikhailov/4596/i-4597.jpghttp://i062.radikal.ru/1006/3b/ed8e8a7bd0db.jpg
http://s50.radikal.ru/i130/1006/ef/7ba77c0d9339.jpg
were widespread there and fought brutally against Red Army troops, including the indegenous "Muslim battalions"
http://s52.radikal.ru/i137/1008/c3/cd138b657349.jpghttp://papercraft.mybb.ru/uploads/000a/82/08/5075-1-f.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/thumb/6/6a/Madamin-bek.jpg/800px-Madamin-bek.jpg
and regular, Russian Red Army units too
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2298/71645413.jpg
My great-grandfather was in one of those... Yes. My Great-grandfather was a Red :lol: From the freezing snows of Karelia, his unit was sent off to the boiling desert of Samarkand. Later, when he was still alive, and he got to watch the movie made in the 60s, White Sun of the Desert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sun_of_the_Desert), my father told me; he scoffed, said the film did not show nearly the brutality and the blood and all that went on in that campaign. Of course, it is a comedy, it is not supposed to show blood and brutality...

Well, anyway, my great-grandfather's work did not go in vain. Today's Uzbekistan still has a long distance to go, but it is much ahead of Afghanistan or (in women's rights, in secularism, even in democratic process) of America's friend Pakistan.

By the way, those rifles the Basmachi are holding, and that cannon, all British. They armed those bandits against Russia. :) Like always... And then you wonder why the Cold War happened...

[Donkey]

Afghanistan's problems won't be solved by occupation. We've been in the country for over ten years. If invasion was a viable solution for the rights of Afghan women, things would be better now, I would hope.

[pramjockey]

No, I'm doubting the ability of Western military occupation to change their belief system, which is the centerpiece of their society.

Afghanistan's problems won't be solved by occupation. We've been in the country for over ten years. If invasion was a viable solution for the rights of Afghan women, things would be better now, I would hope.

I have to agree. A cultural shift of this magnitude is going to require much more than the bombing of buildings and military law.

One can try to point to successes of previous occupiers of other lands, but one can also look to the nightmare that developed in Yugoslavia when the iron fist was removed - the underlying culture was only repressed, not changed.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

The difference, of course, being that in Afghanistan such things are expected and unsurprising (though still horrifying).

Why do you expect Afghans to have horrifying practises, but not the USA?

[Non Sequitur]

Why do you expect Afghans to have horrifying practises, but not the USA?

Because it is a culture with a completely different set of values.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Because it is a culture with a completely different set of values.

You've hit the nail on the head - and problems arise when people with one set of values take those values to another part of the world, where those values are considered horrifying.

[Americano]

You've hit the nail on the head - and problems arise when people with one set of values take those values to another part of the world, where those values are considered horrifying.

It's actually a much smaller scope than attempting to transfer values, social structure, by military force around the world. Villages and cities most anywhere regardless of government system have groups with opposing opinions on pick a subject or value. Some are more extreme than others.