September 8th, 2007 Toasted
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In the shadow of the war in Iraq, America and her NATO allies continue to wage war against Al-Qaeda and the remaining Taliban in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.
As with the war in Iraq, the media fails to mention any progress in the region and reports almost with giddy anticipation the possibility of the Taliban’s return to power. One of the more neglected, yet most important stories the media conveniently “forgot” in its crusade to end a war it knows nothing about, is that of the liberation of women in Afghanistan.
In 1996, the Taliban established firm control of the country and began instituting harsh laws based on fundamentalist teachings. While mainstream Muslims practice tolerance and preach peace, the Taliban twisted religious beliefs into inhuman laws not seen since before the dark ages. Children were forbidden from flying kites, alcohol and the practices of other religions were banned and the media was completely censored.
Women suffered the most under this new regime. A woman could not leave her home without male escort, and young girls were barred from pursuing education of any kind. Domestic violence and forced marriages increased, and the religious police dealt out brutal punishments to those not in accordance to the “law”.
If a woman would do something as simple as paint her nails, she would have her fingers cut off. Women were stoned to death for adultery (including if she was raped), and beaten for “offenses” like their burqa being to short. For five harsh years, life was hell as the Taliban made war on the people it swore to protect.
Since the United States invaded Afghanistan, there have been many significant changes. Women have returned to school and back into the work force all over the country. In the last Presidential election, women were an astounding forty percent of the voters.
Sports that were banned are now being played all over the country. Olympic martial arts like Judo and Karate are very popular, as well as basketball and volleyball. Only a few women have competed in the Olympics since the country was liberated, but more and more women are participating in sports.
Martial arts have long been a way for a person to build physical and mental strength. And for Middle Eastern women, the positive mental attitude built by such training counteracts the years of being treated as third-class citizens.
Women in these countries are now training to be police officers, and little girls are learning sport martial arts and self-defense. All would have been impossible under the Taliban regime.
What’s going to happen in the next stage in the war is anyone’s guess as political infighting pulls resources away from front lines. And whether or not American forces are pulled out before the job is complete, perhaps the next time an Afghani or Iraqi man raises his hand to hit a “disobedient” woman, she will toss him to the ground thanks to her new martial arts training.
There is still a lot of progress to be made both for women, and society as a whole in these countries, but at least the foundation has been laid. The freedom we have provided, and the liberty for women and children to pursue martial arts will help form a new nation that could one day become a powerful ally.
The women of Afghanistan are now learning how to protect themselves and fight off their repressors thanks to the United States.
For more information on Chris “Lt. X” Pizzo former soldier, cancer survivor, mercenary, barroom bouncer, educator, and hand-to-hand combat instructor, and his incredible FREE Accelerated Battlefield Combatives close-combat learning system, visit http://www.TopSecretTraining.com
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September 8th, 2007 Toasted
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Of all the physical damage that has been done to Iraq, the greatest damage has been done to the culture itself. Iraq has lost much of her cultural capital.
Cultural capital as evidenced in the arts, education, healthcare, science, social justice, education, and law enforcement are the many artifacts of any civil society. Iraq began to lose many objects of value earlier; during the U.S. embargo against Iraq when families began selling Persian carpets, jewelry, wardrobes, and family heirlooms to survive.
Many treasures eventually left the country with or without their original owners. The more abstract artifacts of civil society also began to erode during the U.S. embargo when cultural capital began to deteriorate. The arts stagnated. Healthcare conditions plummeted to alarming neglect as antibiotics, aspirin, and even vitamins became virtually inaccessible to the average person.
Science and universities suffered greatly as scientific literature was blocked from entering the country for the long period of embargo. The educational system began to suffer as the Dinar diminished in value so did the ability of teachers to feed their own families on their pay and began to demand that the parents of their students pay them a personal fee to teach their children.
Law enforcement took an ugly turn during that time when those charged to enforce the law began breaking the law themselves in order to benefit their own families. Finally, the strain of the U.S, embargo began to break down the elements of social justice in that consideration for the old, the poor, and the weak became less and less evident in the increasingly desperate daily lives of Iraqi’s.
When those who followed the situation attentively thought the Iraqi peoples had been brought to the peak of suffering through the US embargo, the US invasion ripped out the remainder of civil society and in that void, Iraq has come to its darkest hour.
This is a true story. That is to say it is the collective story of so many stories gathered into one story. All names have been left out to veil these human beings from further suffering:
A woman is a well-known doctor inside of Iraq. She begins to wonder each day if one of her own patients will kill her. Each day her husband fears her demise whenever there is an explosion inside of Baghdad. Still they continue to care for their children, work, and live in daily terror.
One day she receives the long since dreaded death threat. They know that these threats are very real and that within 24 hours, this threat will most certainly be carried out upon them. Within 30 minutes they have gathered their two children, and left their home in which they have all worldly manifestations of the meaningful life they have made for one another and so many precious symbols of memories, hopes, and dreams.
They leave their home with nothing as they do not know if the death threat will be carried out by a neighbor, a coworker, or a patient. They must not alert any human being of their attempted departure. They arrive at a family member’s home to prepare to flee to the Jordanian border. They leave this home within one hour and must say nothing to other loved ones of their flight.
They leave many loved ones including an elderly widow behind. Yet to gather their loved ones from their households would likely alert their stealthy murderers and put so many more family members at acute risk. So this secret they must keep and travel through the desert by themselves. They make it into Jordan before they are caught but they cannot readily leave such sorrow and suffering behind them ….
Of all the damage that has been done to Iraq; through the U.S. invasion and occupation, the greatest damage has been done to the culture itself. Cultural capital is foundational to all artifacts of civil society such as the arts, education, healthcare, science, and social justice. Cultural capital itself is not a concrete thing and yet it is manifested in so many things; such as excellent education, quality health care, and the law & order of every advanced civil society.
Upon the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. citizenry was informed that Iraq’s museums were plundered and that Iraq consequently lost much of her cultural capital. How sad that the centerpiece of Iraqi cultural capital was presented as if encased in these particular objects of value. In fact, Iraq began to loose objects of value during the U.S. embargo, when families began selling their Persian carpets, jewelry wardrobes, and family heirlooms just to live.
Many of these items eventually left the country of Iraq with or without their original owners. The loss of these material objects is particularly tragic in that these objects belonged to the daily lives and history of living people. Iraq; however, has many more layers of cultural capital than those found in material objects. The cultural capital prior to the U.S. destruction there was rich and varied. Now it is virtually gone. Any family or person that is seen as contributing to society in a meaningful way is eliminated, driven into hiding, or forced to flee the country.
The gentle person, the rational minded, and the intellectual are eliminated, forced into hiding, or must flee. Any respected educator, caring doctor, or social servant is considered dangerous since such people are the dissidents of a civil society that has now been completely dismantled. This brief paragraph matter-of-factly conveys such immense damage to Iraq that has brought on indescribable human suffering. It is critical that the U.S. citizenry know that Iraq has now been almost completely pillaged of her most precious treasures; that is her human cultural capital
This is a true story and yet it does not fit with the notion of civil war. That is because the central issue of violence in Iraq does not rise out of civil war. Instead it rises out of a loss of civil society. American citizens have been bombarded with information about civil war. American citizens have not been told nearly so much about the systematic raping of Iraqi civil society. Iraq lays now in utter ruin and there is virtually nothing left of her now but her broken presence.
Are we a citizenry that has had meaningful participation in what our government has decided to do to Iraq? This could only be so if we were truly free to give input into U.S. policy in Iraq. Were we truly free to provide input into the U.S. policy in Iraq? Since true freedom requires citizens to be fully aware and learned about the choices before them, this could only be so if we were thoroughly educated by our government about policy we already carried out on Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion there. In all the rhetoric about Operation Iraqi Freedom, were we so free that we had no meaningful voice in a matter that we were intentionally or unwittingly misinformed of and consequently uneducated about?
This is a true story. That is to say it is the collective story of so many stories gathered into one story. Let it not be told in vain. Rather let it bring you to contemplate on the extent to which our citizenry has been honored by its own leadership as worthy of learnedness and as having participatory potential for the sake of truly being free to inform international policy in a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
Of all the physical damage that has been done to Iraq, the greatest damage has been done to the culture itself. Iraq has lost much of her cultural capital.
Judi Lynn Lake resides in South Carolina, with her husband and 7 year old daughter. She successfully runs her own Advertising/PR Firm. Contact Judi at http://www.judilake.com. To learn more about Dr. Amaal V.E. Tokars’ mission at http://www.seducedbyfear.com
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September 7th, 2007 Toasted
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Over the years, as things have changed and evolved between men and women, we have lost sight of all the ramifications of these changes. America was the leader in the world in the eyes of many other nations. Although many other societies don’t necessarily agree with many of the USA’s ways and beliefs, most have had a relatively high level of respect for our great nation.
Democracy and the free capitalistic system we represent are the envy of many. In the last several years, the USA has lost much of this respect. Many now look at us as intrusive, hypocritical fools. Many of the cultures we are having trouble with have very strong traditional religious beliefs. They are very set in their ways with respect to their family unit.
Many believe, as do I, that the family unit is the heart of any society. The family unit and its traditional values are central to many of these cultures. The men in these cultures must be strong and in control of their families. They must be respected and appreciated, much like it used to be here forty years ago.
Since 9/11, we have all come to believe that terrorists are our nation’s biggest threat. I’ve got news for you. Although the terrorist issue is of great imminent concern, the deterioration of our family unit and the large increase of the dysfunctional family is a much bigger national threat than terrorists will ever be.
Terrorists can be curtailed and their wrath isolated. The breakdown of the family unit, the major increase in divorce, and single parenting is eating away at our entire country from within.
It’s like a cancer. Have you ever heard of the military strategy of “divide and conquer?” I believe this is what is happening to us. We are being divided by the deterioration of our basic social structure, only to be vulnerable to be conquered later. No greater damage can be done to our country than the slow, steady, systematic deterioration of basic family unit standards and our traditional moral fiber.
Any country’s youth is its future, and our youth are looking pretty grim. With the advent of the unfair marriage laws and the resulting high divorce rate and de-balling of the modern male, our youth are not being led and raised with any of the old morals. Selfishness has become the order of the day.
People these days don’t even look at getting a job and raising a family until almost middle age. Forty years ago, if you weren’t working and married with kids by twenty-five, something was wrong. Today, people haven’t even decided what they want to be when they grow up until their late twenties.
We only live to be around seventy. If you haven’t even made that decision until you’re thirty, you’ve already lived almost half your life before figuring out what’s up and what’s down. If this continues, can you imagine what it will do to our tax base in years to come? The de-balling of the modern male, which was created by the high divorce rate, is also breaking down our country’s structure. The same way terrorists must be squashed at all cost, so must this process of steadily eroding family values.
We are going around the world advocating our values, beliefs, and ways of life, and here we are in total lack of control of the basic values which form a society. Other countries have satellites and TVs. They see shows like Jerry Springer, The View, and the rest of them.
They know the way men are treated in the USA. They see how men have become a bunch of wimps, caving to and fearing women. How men are persecuted and how we applaud their persecution. Women here rule in all ways, and the world knows it.
Men get their penises sliced off while they sleep, and the mate who did it goes free and gets applauded by the rest of the women in the USA. Others can see the complete lack of respect and the humiliation that men are subjected to at the hands of the superior women.
We’re trying to tell them they should be like us, and here they are laughing at the men of the USA for being a bunch of submissive wusses who have no control over their women, lives, or families. We’re telling a society that believes women must be kept in veils that our way is better.
They know the American woman is out being as promiscuous as she can on the eve of her marriage, while hubby sits at home babysitting her kids from her previous two marriages.
If you stop and think about it, it’s actually comical. We’re asking them to sign up for that? There is no way they will want to have anything to do with our way of life. I’m not suggesting that the USA’s female chauvinists have caused our rifts with these nations, but I can tell you it has a lot to do with the lack of respect that is being shown to the USA.
How can you show respect for a nation whose basic family unit and structure is in such a chaotic state? How can you respect men who allow themselves to be degraded the way they are? We have to get our affairs in order, not only for the sake of our nation’s future, but also to regain a little respect back from the rest of the world.
As much as many societies see democracy as good and advantageous, they are threatened when you start talking about human rights, women’s rights, and minority rights. Not necessarily because they don’t believe in those people’s rights, but because they’ve seen what those programs have led to in the United States, how those programs get abused and taken too far.
The pendulum always swings too far when America tries to look after a certain group of people. It’s undeniable and apparent to all other nations and cultures. That’s part of what scares them. They see it has failed here, yet we haven’t seen it ourselves.
We must make our family laws fair again and stop prosecuting men. We must stop putting good, innocent, hard-working men in jail simply because some wife’s lawyer has figured out that strategically it works to her advantage. We must start to respect all people again.
We must recognize that men and women are and should be very different. Each of their priorities and ways of thinking must not be the same. Although different, men and women must be equal. We can’t confuse being different from each other to being equal to each other.
Men should be men and women should be women; they should be different, but equal. The pendulum must be put to the neutral position, not favoring either men or women. Then and only then will the divorce rate start to drop, single parenting will slow, and the de-balling process can start to be reversed.
Maybe then we will start to eliminate the level of dysfunctional families. Maybe then men will step up and commit the way they used to without the fear of being tormented, abused, taken advantage of, and persecuted for no good reason.
National security must start from within. As a nation, we have to preserve the sanctity of old family values. We must raise our offspring in an even, balanced way so that they get the equal influence of both parents. Men have to get back to the point where they don’t totally fear marriage and commitment.
Nothing threatens our nation’s security more than these issues. If this deterioration continues and is not reversed, we are going to be in big trouble in the years to come. We will be the joke of the world instead of the envy of the world. Even our staunchest supporters will turn on us if we don’t get our own house in order.
No matter how great our system and way of life is, if we don’t have control of our home lives and have a sound family unit, we will not be successful and will not have the respect of others. We will also be vulnerable to being divided and destroyed by our adversaries.
How has our changing family laws affected our national security
Andey Randead is the author of The Great Female Con, a highly controvertial account of many current relationship issues. His book can be previewed at http://www.thegreatfemalecon.com
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