The Afghan girl is back

[شمله ور خراساني]

let's take a moment to understand or at least try to understand the pain she is going through.

let's not turn a blind eye to the fact that this happens to women in afghanistan and all over the world.

lets not get sidetracked or create propaganda to fight propaganda... lets realize that this is act of crime against humanity and against women feel sad about it.

let's face it, women are the weaker and we are easily oppressed, used, and abused by the powerful i.e. men... i could care less which organization the perpetrator belongs to, to me i see it as an act of a man against a woman... an act of crime committed for centuries and continuing till today.

But this TImes article IS PROPAGANDA! There is nothing we can do to change the fact that it was written as a propaganda piece. No matter how sad the reality is.

[Catya Sher]

Of course it is only propaganda. One has to have a critical mind too and wonder a lot about such sensationalized stories : are they just that or way exaggerated out of proportion or distorted in some way?

Was it really a Taliban judge - how do we know ? Shall we go find him and get his side of the story?

I refused to read that article but posted originally the editor's confessions about whether the picture would bother American children to look at. Those by the way did not ring very true. Why does TIME distort so many important topics without any conscience, yet suddenly profess to having qualms about this angle?

See next post.

[Alia]

they shouldn´t use this poor girl for their ****t propaganda

[Catya Sher]

I read this book when it first came out and never questioned its veracity.

However: here's the Wikipedia entry for it:

Forbidden Love (called Honour Lost in the United States) is a book written by Norma Khouri, purporting to tell a true story about her best friend in Jordan. The story describes her friend Dalia's love for a Christian soldier, kept secret from her Muslim father due to conflict in religion. Her father eventually finds out and stabs Dalia to death in a so-called honor killing. A year after publication, it was discovered that Khouri had fabricated the tale and that the story was fictional.
Plot summary
The novel centers on the life of Dalia, a young Muslim woman living in Amman, Jordan. When she falls in love with Michael, a young Catholic major in the British Army, she is forced to keep the relationship a secret and rely on her friend Norma to act as an intermediary. Although the lovers are only able to be alone together on a handful of occasions, her father is so enraged when he hears of the affair from her older brother that he kills her two months after her twenty-sixth birthday.
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Malcolm Knox uncovered Khouri as a fraud in 2004, a year after the book's release, exposing that she fabricated the story and sold it untruthfully as a memoir. She had lived in Chicago for most of her life and was married with two children. As a result, publisher Random House pulled the book off the shelves in Australia and England indefinitely. Knox won a Walkley Award for his efforts along with fellow Australian journalist Caroline Overington in 2004.

Forbidden Lie$

In September 2007, a documentary entitled Forbidden Lie$ was released. Director Anna Broinowski tells the story of how Khouri's book became a best-seller, and then follows Khouri to Jordan. Since Khouri still insists that the story is true, Broinowski gives her the opportunity to prove that it is fully or at least partly truthful; however, the evidence Broinowski uncovers indicates not only that Khouri's book is fiction but that Khouri had committed a number of scams even before the book."

Now TIME could not get away with fabrication like this. However, I find the whole story fishy and wonder what is the truth behind it. I think someone should go interview the so-called Taliban judge.

But no one will think to do that as the West has been primed for a thousand years now to look at the East as "barbaric".

[شمله ور خراساني]

I read this book when it first came out and never questioned its veracity.

However: here's the Wikipedia entry for it:

Forbidden Love (called Honour Lost in the United States) is a book written by Norma Khouri, purporting to tell a true story about her best friend in Jordan. The story describes her friend Dalia's love for a Christian soldier, kept secret from her Muslim father due to conflict in religion. Her father eventually finds out and stabs Dalia to death in a so-called honor killing. A year after publication, it was discovered that Khouri had fabricated the tale and that the story was fictional.
Plot summary
The novel centers on the life of Dalia, a young Muslim woman living in Amman, Jordan. When she falls in love with Michael, a young Catholic major in the British Army, she is forced to keep the relationship a secret and rely on her friend Norma to act as an intermediary. Although the lovers are only able to be alone together on a handful of occasions, her father is so enraged when he hears of the affair from her older brother that he kills her two months after her twenty-sixth birthday.
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Malcolm Knox uncovered Khouri as a fraud in 2004, a year after the book's release, exposing that she fabricated the story and sold it untruthfully as a memoir. She had lived in Chicago for most of her life and was married with two children. As a result, publisher Random House pulled the book off the shelves in Australia and England indefinitely. Knox won a Walkley Award for his efforts along with fellow Australian journalist Caroline Overington in 2004.

Forbidden Lie$

In September 2007, a documentary entitled Forbidden Lie$ was released. Director Anna Broinowski tells the story of how Khouri's book became a best-seller, and then follows Khouri to Jordan. Since Khouri still insists that the story is true, Broinowski gives her the opportunity to prove that it is fully or at least partly truthful; however, the evidence Broinowski uncovers indicates not only that Khouri's book is fiction but that Khouri had committed a number of scams even before the book."

Now TIME could not get away with fabrication like this. However, I find the whole story fishy and wonder what is the truth behind it. I think someone should go interview the so-called Taliban judge.

But no one will think to do that as the West has been primed for a thousand years now to look at the East as "barbaric".

Let's assume, for the arguments sake that the whole story is true. It is real. Where does this lead us to? Some Taliban outfit in Uruzgan carried this out. This still does not reflect the general Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan policy. Neither have the Taliban ever before apply such punishments on women for running away.

But what about the AMerican puppet regime of Kabul? People are robbed, pillaged, properties confiscated people's children are gang-raped in front of them at gun point. All of that happens by government employees.

Any average courthouse in Afghanistan has its list of rates. For a particular amount of money, you can have people sentenced to jail by a judge. Or if you are facing prosecution and jail time, you can bribe the prosecutor, the judge, hell I know of people even bribing the general prosecutor.

Now to reflect on the title of the the TImes magazine article, we can conclude that even if the story of this Bibi Aisha was true, Times would be still lying. Because it is the AMerican colonist regime that has imposed this puppet regime of thieves and looters on us.

[Catya Sher]

Good points, both of you, if I understood right about there must be more to the story, like maybe she did something serious. Even so no would want any punishment to be inflicted.

I still question the story a lot. I don't see any Muslim as doing such a thing to a woman. Is that naive? You guys here know the country a million times more than I do.

OK but as Sangar said, let's accept that this happened SOME WAY. I really don't think it was the local Taliban judge though.

The argument is so right that one bad deed is being used to antidote a gigantic tidal wave of evil perpetrated either directly by American personnel - that includes military as well as the unconcionable "Xe" Blackwater and various contractors and who knows who else that is never even revealed to be working in Afghanistan under American or NATO auspices.

This is a cheap tactic that devil-ridden people do all the time even on an individual basis. For example a domineering boss will tell a good employee "You did one thing wrong" and keep harping on that so much that the good person goes on the defensive "No, No I didn't forget to lock the office door before I left last night".

The good employee forgets or doesn't dare to say to the boss "Well what about all the times you did something a million times worse to endanger the entire office. Not to mention, you always are taking advantage of the company and telling the employees to keep quiet about all your breaches of security and trust?"

This is not an exact analogy, but it's this bully tactic that is at work in the entire American occupation.

American military were not like this before. They were nice people. I don't know what happened except that the devil got a hold of them to turn so many into monsters with no consciences to behave so cruelly to Afghans, Iraqis, anybody.

[PFgulalai]

Quite saddening to see how many here are trying to look for yet another "conspiracy angle". What you thought when you first looked at the picture of this innocent girl without a nose? Many would have thought that she must be an evil woman or she must have not obeyed her husband and did not perform the role of a dutiful wife, and hence she derserved all this brutality.I can only assume this since I noticed that people here are not even condemning this brutal act.Rather than appreciating the TIME Mag for informing the world about the story and conveying the message that the situation in Afghanistan is still not under control, we are just feeling contented by designating it as yet another propaganda by western media. It's never good to be in "denial" especially in this case. Just because the TIME Mag metaphorically or literally linked the atrocities committed on the girl by her barbaric husband to the USA's future withdrawal of troops, does not mean that one turns a blind eye to such brutal treatment of our women including Bibi Aisha.
Haven't we seen how Talibans have treated women in the past? I am sure many here would know the answer! Blindly blaming USA and its media for EVERYTHING wouldn't safe the noses and ears of our women, would it?

[BLS_1919v2.0]

You're so right. It's a bit of a cheap shot that verges on sensationalism.

I dislike intensely how Powers in Faraway Places continue to exploit people's individual suffering to try and justify their political and military presence.

Journalists know exactly how their words and pictures are used. A single face will tell a thousand stories but Afghanistan has many more damaged people. Many, many thousands.

It also in a way shows contempt for their own masses who are supposed to be represented by them. As if policy of war and diplomacy was based on one person's tragedy in a far away place. Real lowest common denominator stuff.

[PFgulalai]

BLS, are we MORE upset because:
1)somebody has been brutal to a helpless girl?
2)that brutality of somebody has been exposed to the world?
3) yet another "war porn"?

Even for a second if one would believe this to be "war porn", the fact reamins a fact and that too a bitter one. It needs our condemnation FIRST rather than anything else.The USA has been staying in Afghanistan without Aisha Bibi for a long time now.

It also in a way shows contempt for their own masses who are supposed to be represented by them. As if policy of war and diplomacy was based on one person's tragedy in a far away place. Real lowest common denominator stuff.

[Mayana]

That's what will do to poor Afghan to keep happy thier overlords aka ISI.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Imbeciles.

This didn't happened after they left Afghanistan.

That is what's happening NOW that they are in Afghanistan

[BLS_1919v2.0]

BLS, are we MORE upset because:
1)somebody has been brutal to a helpless girl?
2)that brutality of somebody has been exposed to the world?
3) yet another "war porn"?

Even for a second if one would believe this to be "war porn", the fact reamins a fact and that too a bitter one. It needs our condemnation FIRST rather than anything else.The USA has been staying in Afghanistan without Aisha Bibi for a long time now.

That isn't the point gulalaii..obviously what happened was cruel and we condemn it. That doesn't change though what they are doing. We can't deny such things.

[Roshina]

I have no respect for ANY "source" that gives only one side of the story. TIME is one of them.

"What happens if we leave Afghanistan"? Okay, great - but that's one side of the story. Why give us only that? How about another piece right after or before this one that would be titled "What happens if we STAY in Afghanistan"? This way, the audience is given two opposing viewpoints. But nooo, we'd rather impose only one-sided view on them.

Now I'm perfectly sure that, when I grow up, I am going to create a magazine that always presents more than one perspective on whatever issue is being discussed. That way, the readers' minds won't be made up FOR them, but they will (ideally) do some studying on their own and make conclusions on their own.

[شمله ور خراساني]

I wonder why Times would never publish an issue with images like these:

[شمله ور خراساني]

Or maybe this:

[شمله ور خراساني]

And this: