Woman maimed by Taliban on cover of Time Magazine

[Nick the Pilot]

Afghan Women Fear Their Fate Amid Taliban Negotiations - TIME

[Dogbrain]

That's the problem with state building. Unless it's your own, you will fail. What we should have done is go in, kick ass, hold trials of any surviving leaders we captured, and leave, with a prominent message: "Your country is free to do what you like until and unless your government attacks us or harbors those who attack us. If you play nice, we'll play nice. If you do not play nice, it will be even worse for you the next time. We are happy to extend foreign aid, since we did break your stuff."

[c0de]

It's not nations but strategic bases the US wants to build in central asia. They will even end up making a peace deal with the Taliban, as long as they get to keep their presence on the ground, just like in Iraq. The interesting thing is how Russia seems to be taking this all in stride, as if it has the US exactly where it wants it.

[Dogbrain]

In the Great Game of Empire, the USA is the big country boy. He's got a lot of strength and toughness but doesn't really understand the game.

[17th Angel]

"what happens if we leave Afghanistan"

Are you freaking kidding me? They are attempting to make you feel guilty and bad about removing soldiers... My countries soldiers shouldn't be over there... They die for NOTHING. This kind of primitive barbaric acts happen with or without soldiers there... Always been this way. Leave them to govern their own lands. Focus on removing this kind of way of life from our land instead of theirs.

[Dragonseer]

Originally Posted by Dogbrain

In the Great Game of Empire, the USA is the big country boy. He's got a lot of strength and toughness but doesn't really understand the game.

I've long believed that the U.S., though a powerhouse in many ways, remains ignorant of the rest of the world. Then I read The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, and my viewpoint was all the more solidified.

[Muslimwoman]

As moving as this story is may I ask why the thread is in the Islam board and not the politics and society board?

This has less than zero to do with Islam. There is no such punishment as cutting off facial appendages in Islam, nobody can force a wife to stay with her husband in Islam.

[Amica]

Salaam--

I agree. Such evil actions have nothing to do with Islam and the practice of Islam. Domestic violence is widespread all over the world. It is not 'islamic problem' but a world wide problem with no religion.
The person posting this in the islam sub forum shows his/her ignorance about Islam, women's issues all over the globe, etc.

According to the american National Organization of Women NOW and Violence Against Women

Three women a day are murdered in the U.S. About 4.8 million incidents of physical violence and rapes are experienced a year (reported). More than 600 women get raped every day in the U.S. Estimated cost of the domestic violence against women is about 8 billion a year.

Since majority of the people in the U.S. declare themselves as Christian, does this mean that because they follow Christianity they abuse women? After all, the Bible as a religious document contains many stories of violence against women. Here are some examples:
1. In the Bible's book of Deuteronomy it says that if a man marries a woman and then decides that he hates her, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when they married. At that point her father must prove she was a virgin. (How is not explained.) If he can't, then the girl is to be stoned to death at her father's doorstep.

2. If you see a pretty woman among your captives and would like her for a wife, then bring her home and "go in unto her." Later, if you decide you don't like her, you can simply "let her go." (Deuteronomy)

3. If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death." (Deuteronomy)

4. In the book of Esther the king apparently decrees a sex contest among young virgin women to see who can best please him. (There is debate on how.) He eventually chooses Esther. However, since women are viewed as inherently dirty, Esther must be "purified" for twelve months before she can be made queen. (Esther)

5. Paul points out in New Testament Romans that "the natural use" of women is to provide men with sex. (Romans)

6. Heaven is to be inhabited by 144,000 virgin men who have not been "defiled" by women. (RE 14:1-4) [One wonders how this squares with God's command to, "Be fruitful and multiply...(Genesis )]

7. A group of sexual depraved men beat on the door of an old man's house demanding that he turn over to them a male house guest. Instead, the old man offers his virgin daughter and his guest's wife: "Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine (wife); let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing." The women were subsequently ravished and killed. (JG)

8. In Exod. we see that it is permissible to sell one's daughter (but apparently not one's son) into slavery.

9. According to St. Jerome, "Nothing is so unclean as a woman in her periods; what she touches she causes to be unclean." In Leviticus it states, "If a woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be ceremonially unclean seven days...if she bears a female child she shall be unclean two weeks...."

10. "A woman dropped a stone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, 'Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can't say a woman killed me.' So his servant ran him through, and he died." (Judges)

11. Under God's direction, Moses' army kills all the adult males, but they mercifully just take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some women and children alive, he angrily says: "Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him." Throughout Bible history God is said to demand that thousands, if not millions, of men, women and children be slaughtered. And they are.

12. A man has an obligation to produce a child with his brother's widow. If he refuses, his sister-in-law is to spit in his face in front of the elders. (Deuteronomy 25:5-9) And in case you are Jewish, you may be familiar with the Jewish prayer: "Blessed be the God who has not created me a heathen, a slave or a woman."

So... If your argument is that Islam caused these Muslim sisters to become victims of domestic violence, then my argument is that Christianty is causing violence against women in the non-Muslim lands.

[Amica]

I sometimes wonder who the Taliban and those similar to them got their "education" about women. After all, these men used to live in a communist russia, a majority christian nation. They have adopted the christian traditions and practices. I know this is probably the case, because I grew up in a communist society of ex-Yugoslavia. Many Muslims adopted anti-Muslim ways (i.e. drinking alcohol, dating, no prayers regularly, etc). Then, to cause these Afghan men to war against Russia, it was necessary to make them true "islamic" fanatics. What they learned from non-Christians about women, they simply adopted in their misguided non-understanding of Islam. And hence, this kind of violence.

[Dogbrain]

The USA does not explicitly call itself a "Christian Republic" in its Constitution...

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

As moving as this story is may I ask why the thread is in the Islam board and not the politics and society board?

This has less than zero to do with Islam. There is no such punishment as cutting off facial appendages in Islam, nobody can force a wife to stay with her husband in Islam.

Sharia Law is based on Islam, and the law does allow for the punishments as noted above.

However, I think you are correct, that it is more political than faith based. I will move the thread.

v/r

Q

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

This has less than zero to do with Islam. There is no such punishment as cutting off facial appendages in Islam, nobody can force a wife to stay with her husband in Islam.

Of course they cannot force them.... But, they do. Yet a commonly heinous image of eastern ways that is upsetting to the eye it is good that it is put upon such a magazine to raise awareness, of how many are treated.

Specially for my country men, that have the issues of them wanting to bring and enforce primitive and barbaric ways into our laws.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Sharia Law is based on Islam, and the law does allow for the punishments as noted above.

Hi Q

Have you got anything to back that up?

Even the Taliban state very clearly this is not a Sharia punishment and I think we can agree they would be the first to use it if it was an Islamic punishment:

The Taliban themselves deny the truth of the story stating that the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan rejects this fabrication by the Americans, who are publishing these lies to divert attention of the people from their clear and disgraceful defeat …. This picture published by Times magazine and the barbaric story wrongly attached to Islamic Emirate is not only false but publishing these images are against the morals and ethics of professional journalism. A lot of journalists worldwide have condemned this act of Times magazine and called it a crime against journalism …”
They add fruther, “As far as the story of Aisha is concerned, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has condemned this barbaric, inhumane and unislamic act and declare that this case has never been forwarded to any court or persons of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

“Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan uses Shariate law to solve any internal or human right issues. Shariat law promotes peace and justice to the society, not hatered and cruelty.”
“In sacred Islamic law, cutting of human ears and noses whether the human is alive or dead is illegal and prohibited. In many hadith from Muhammad PBUH, cutting of noses, ears and lips of a dead unbeliever is prohibited so how can Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan carry this act out especially when the person to whom it is done is alive and Muslim. Under shariate law if someone carries out this heinous act, the same thing will be done to the criminal that carried out this act.”

Taliban dismiss Time Magazine Propaganda The Islamic Standard

There are stories of this happening to women in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Turkey but it's purely cultural and actually goes back to the Pagan times:

Assyrian law was very similar to Sumerian and Babylonian law, however, notably more brutal than its predecessors. The first copy of the code to come to light, dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I, was discovered in the course of excavations by the German Oriental Society (1903–1914). Three Assyrian law collections have been found to date. Punishments such as cutting of ears and noses was common, as it was in the Code of Hammurabi, which was composed several centuries earlier. Murder was punished by the family being allowed to decide the death penalty for the murderer.

There is a true story where a Pakistani Sharia court ordered that two men should have their noses and ears cut off but this was as a punishment for attacking a woman and cutting off her nose and ears (under the Sharia principle of eye for an eye) .. they also got life in prison.