Photo of disfigured Afghan woman outrages America

By Patrick Cockburn

Saturday, 31 July 2010

The Time cover: Aisha had her nose and ears cut off for running away from her husband

The Time cover: Aisha had her nose and ears cut off for running away from her husband

A shocking picture of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose was hacked off after she fled an abusive husband has stirred up the long-running controversy over whether Nato forces should negotiate with the Taliban.

The girl in the picture, which appears on the front of Time magazine this week, also had her ears cut off in the horrifying attack. She is only named in the magazine as Aisha. Tracked to a house where she had taken refuge, she was brought before a judge, who was also a Taliban commander, and rejected her explanation of why she had run away. She was held down by her brother-in-law while her husband used a knife to cut off her ears and nose. Aisha has since taken refuge in a secret women's shelter in Kabul where she expresses terror that the government is seeking a deal with the Taliban.

The use of the picture, next to the headline "What happens if we leave Afghanistan", has already drawn strong praise and criticism alike in the US. Writing on the Slate website, the columnist Tom Scocca called the picture "gut-wrenching" but suggested that "a correct and accurate caption would be 'What is still happening, even though we are in Afghanistan'".

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But at the website Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote that "we can applaud Time... Aisha is a survivor of atrocity. She's a tool of persuasion. And she's a hell of a photograph."

During Taliban rule in 1996-2001 women were reduced to a condition close to slavery. As the Taliban have grown in strength since 2006 they have attacked girls' schools and teachers. Several women have been killed and many have had to give up their jobs.

  • nakba
    IF the US citizens are shown the truth , they wont allow their soldiers to stay there one extra day in Afghanistan, too many Afgan mud villages and houses are buried weekly under Nato bombings , without the US citizen knowing .
    iF America wants to do something positive it should target education it is only education that will make a difference . start creating jobs and give people a glimpse of hope not more bombs and soldiers .
    during the times of the Queen Soraya of Afghanistan , things were better even for women , google the queen Soraya and you will get an idea . women outnumbered boys at schools in the 50s 60s but when the soviets decided to Invade , America actually decided to create more extremism among muslims in afghanistan so they will reject the soviet soldiers (or basically the white man ) google :ABC TO JIHAD and you will get an idea . America Printed and PAID for extremist litteratture , with extremism on every page to teach kids fanatic ideas and not tolerance . kids did not add up apples but hand grenades and kalashnikovs , and Mr z. Brezenski said it did not bother him if there were some stirred up Muslims in the world , better than communism in Afghanistan . so I blame the US for making things worse in Afghanistan , and those books are still available in afghanistan and pakistan too .
  • snotcricket
    Err! You did notice the the girl in your rant, the rights & wrongs of war are another topic this happened & probably would have war or no war & that is as disgraceful as anything you mention in your post. Your total dismissal of the girls plight is beyond comprehension.
  • Guest
    what happened is unjustifiable, but you cannot deny the fact this happened in 2006, five years after an invasion supposed to abolish this kind of behaviour. So my point is, what have you actually acheived in nine years whilst in Afghanistan apart from worsening an already bad situation for the afghans. I say you guys should pack your bags and head home.
  • Guest
    Good post. Totally agree. I have alot of respect fpr your efforts educating these Goraa, Haramsaada, Behnchod, Gutagameena. Words too kind, im sure youll agree. Keep it up.
  • firkingerkin
    The basic message of this Time article runs something like this: - it is only by the civilised west (USA) staying in Afganistan that there can be any hope of that country becoming civilised in turn. This, of course, is a myth. How can the blind lead the blind? The west is not 'civilised ' and so there is no chance that it can civilise others. No, the real reasons we are in Afganistan (and Iraq) are very different from the lies told to the public, starting with the biggest lie of all - the 'official story' about what happened on 9/11.
  • A young boy was raped in front of his mother as an "interrogation" to find out recent information about the woman's husband, an Iraqi General who hadn't been seen since "shock and awe" 3 months earlier. As an American I was as outraged by America's lack of concern over such horrible war crimes as I was the crime itself. That happened in 2003 and became public in 2004. And what has changed? Sickening! What the right wing crazies have done to America.
  • Strange why the Americans were not this enraged when their own soldiers were raping Iraqi women on the streets.

    In fact huge number of cases have been reported by International Human Rights organization where American soldiers used to Rape women right in front of their Husband to humiliate them, several others of raping younger sisters when they came to visit their brothers in AbuGhuraib Torture Centers!!! Where was the anger and empathy then?
  • Disgusting propaganda, using the suffering of a woman to promote the military industrial complex's drive for a perpetual war and perpetual profits at the expense of the lives of American soldiers and Afghan civilians. The Afghan's have always lived this way, that's how their society is, if you want to bring them enlightenment and civilization you do not do so with the barrel of a gun and the boom of bombs. Has the West learned nothing from waging countless useless destructive wars? If the same amount of effort and money had been spent on building infrastructure and social and economic development, then maybe your self righteous rhetoric would actually be believable.
  • snotcricket
    LTZ1 when are you to get it in your head to some of us this is about the girl whatever side of the fence you sit on the conflict is another matter. The image says nothing to me about the conflict/war & would not reinforce my view either way I view this as what one human being did to another for what would seem 'honour' etc.
  • nakba
    latest news about democracy in Iraq . remember how iraq elections took place a few Months ago but so far no Goverment formed yet . do you know why ? Because according of the elections numbers , Muqtada AL sadr should gain 40 seats in Parliament . Mr Al sadr is Anti American and does not want America to interfere in iraqi politics from now on (like it does in Egypt , saudi , kuwait , qatar etc... ) so it is the American Govnerment which is stopping the new government from forming . and then they tell us they went to iraq to bring Democracy . shocking .
  • snotcricket
    No plot I'm speaking about the treatment of the girl, quite specific, cogent, coherent etc etc. The posts which suggest the image is used as some form of reinforcement/argument for the Afghan conflict by the US may have a point but as I said that is a different subject. What happened to the girl seemingly would happen no matter what & it give all the opportunity to say it is unacceptable & for those who seem to find this difficult or near impossible to say I'll say it for them. If you want an image to use about the conflict you should have watched Ch4 news yesterday & their report from behind the Taliban lines where the commander was shown as a man of war but also a loving parent whose kids plainly loved him, two of the children were killed by US special forces in an attack on the commanders home, this I find just as abborhent as the disfigurement of the girl. But it is another subject thus another post. As I said no plot lost just focusing on that which was relevant to the girls plight, not the conflict not other injuries/deaths just the girl in the picture. Its a Meerkat thingy.
  • American's SHOULD be angered by this!!! Without our unnecessary invasion, occupation and putting the extremest drug lords in charge of the government this woman probably would have had a peaceful happy productive life. Damn right we are angry at the filthy wealthy right wing fascists who ginned up this "war".
  • WaywardPython
    Seems a very similar tactic to the British WW1 cartoons of Germans eating babies methinks.
  • Spicio
    Let us be clear, back in the sixties it was the Viet Cong who were the bad guys, now its the Taliban. The reason for this is because they haven't been overcome. They have frustrated the forces of good, so, automatically, anyone who frustrates the West has to be awfully bad. But not only does the enemy frustrate, it also brings doubt to who we are. In the UK there is a big divide where one section of society does not ever talk to the other. A kind of apartheid, to be truthful. A model of society for the Afghans to follow? Surely not. We bring democracy, it is cried. But actually bring nothing but deception because that is how they live their own lives. Whatever the Afghans need, it is certainly not from here. Don't be outraged by media photos, much of it, if not all, is purely propaganda and should be immediately binned. Oh, by the way, any news about Zimbabwe? Still not letting the UK in? All is silent.
  • snotcricket
    From the look of your posts thoughout blather, rant & rave is something in which you have much expertise.
  • snotcricket
    Coherent you don't know the meaning of the word. Neither do you answer are you defending the actions against the girl or not??????????
  • agent0060
    Thank you. But I sincerely hope that no-one with any sense of humanity would ever use the term religion in this scenario. This is simply a demonstration of brutal, bestial domination.
  • LZT1
    Clearly you have lost the plot. The girl is being used as a propaganda tool. If American bombs had maimed or disfigured her, as has happened to tens of thousands of innocent Afghans, she would hardly be paraded on magazine covers!
  • LZT1
    What Afghant was talking about was plainly obvious. Being the stupidest person to have entered the discussion, and already too late, you don't have a clue what you are talking about and are clearly incapable of making a coherent argument without ranting and raving! lol
  • LZT1
    What does the girl have to do with his argument? The girls is being used as a propaganda tool by the Americans to keep public support up for their occupation of Afghanistan. They are showing zero empathy for the girl themselves.
  • LZT1
    Everyone here agrees that was "has been done to the girl is plainly wrong". We agree in much stronger terms than that. What is your point? Can you make one without blathering and ranting and raving? lol
  • LZT1
    Exactly.
  • LZT1
    You're nickname really suits you, you are a ranting raving loony, and clearly utterly stupid. You haven't made a coherent argument yet!
  • snotcricket
    Or perhaps because it is amazingly common?
  • snotcricket
    Your comment is as provocative as it is unhelpful.
  • snotcricket
    The only issue for me is the girl & what has been done to her. The war's etc are for another day/post, lets just show some support for her, she like all did not deserve this & that I would hope all would agree. Our view on the conflicts may vary & some to none of our facts/data may be correct but the image of the girl & the story behind it is something we should all agree is plainly wrong.
  • snotcricket
    Err! you did notice the poor girl? As there is no mention in your post.
  • snotcricket
    Your empathy for the poor girl does you so much credit - not.
  • snotcricket
    Err! no stupidity has little to do with not being aware of whatever. However your comment suggests you may have us at a disadvantage & perhaps you only have look in a mirror & see a fine example.
  • snotcricket
    If you are to insult/swear at least have the balls to do so overtly.
  • snotcricket
    If this comment had been written form the opposite perspective it would have been removed as racist. That is not to say it should be removed but perhaps those with similar if of the other hand should be allowed their say, while we get our own insight into the posters.
  • snotcricket
    agent...........while you stick to the substance of the story & build your post & opinion around it - others are deflecting their embarrassment & hopefully shame at such cowardly & bulllying act done in the name of religion..............you're dealing with idiots let them rant themselves out by association with a matter that has bugger all to do with this vile act.......while the rest watch on incredulous at their lack of empathy for the poor girl.
  • snotcricket
    But no one denies the mutilation of this poor girl & in whose name it was done?
  • snotcricket
    I saw the report of the eight jailed for using & abusing a western women.
  • snotcricket
    What are you talking about????

    If you are in any way attempting to defend the attack on the girl then you should be ashamed.

    If you bothered to read all the post you would note I likened it to someone killing their child so their partner couldn't have access, it doesn't matter where or whatever reason is given to justify this action..........It is plainly wrong.

    Do keep up..... The world has progressed from the time when women were treated as 2nd class citizens & those who cannot understand or accept that are a pathetic excuse for a human being & need to ask what use are they to society.
  • read this in every day news in the west: you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part? no one say to occupy that country?
  • 9/11 was invested by mossad,who was dancing on that day!
  • read this in every day news in the west: you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part? no one say to occupy that country?
  • read this in every day news in the west: you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part? no one say to occupy that country?
  • read this in every day news in the west: you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part? no one say to occupy that country?
  • you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part?
  • you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part?
  • you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part?
  • you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part?
  • you can see this Rugby advertiser from local news of the midland,seeing man killed his wife 31/7/10 her name is Gabi shapeman, does this mean we have to attack that part?
  • gerryhiles
    And you want freedom to do what you want with with the Afghans, via your support of an invasion of Aghanistan. Tad arrogant on your part and a tad ignorant not to know the connection with ALL other ongoing wars. And from whence to you get your SURE knowledge about a Taliban 'judge'? Fox News I guess. BTW serious crimes against women (and men, but I won't go into that) go on against women in the US and the UK. Ever heard of serial killers? Maybe a good idea if some foreign army invaded the UK to wipe out serial killers and eliminate 'judges you perceive to be too soft. As for other stuff you wrote, just have a look at Wikileaks, unless your mind is too made up to be botherd with facts.
  • Leigh1940
    No, the options here aren't either war or nothing. Strenthen civil society groups that oppose it and educate people about it, reward governments with money and international standing for implementing strategies to improve it, etc. Everyone goes on about the Taliban not allowing girls' schools, but there were some girls' schools built by people who negotiated respectfully with them. Um, strange that this needs to be said, but bombing human rights into people doesn't work.
  • gerryhiles
    This is a disgusting piece of 'journalism'. It is a blatant attempt to support the ongoing slaughter in Afghanistan, of women, children and men, by US-led forces. Cherry-pick and sensationilize one incident, so as to 'justify' what we know goes on via the invading armies - what we knew before Wikileaks, or anyone paying attention knew. Rape, torture, mass killing, you name it. I entirely endorse what Afghant wrote. You, Patrick Cockburn and Time Magazine (maybe even the Indy, except for allowing comments), are bloody warmongers and inflamers. You are ramping up the war. How many more women, children and men do you want killed? How many more women do you want raped, mutilated and killed by US and other invading armies? Yes you are an incomparable idiot ... and a VERY dangerous one, because you are inflaming the masses to support this totally unjustifiable war; unless you count the neocon/New American Century dominance theory over the entire planet. On the face of it you do. Why else this puff-piece?
  • "NATO will not achieve anything here" After 10 years of complete and utter failure, at anything other then a 90% rate of civilians in the death toll, setting up drug lords as the government, and enriching western arms dealers and contractors, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.
  • scampy1
    This and the acid throwing among these dogs that American and western young people are dying to defend?
  • conan_drum
    Afghant et al. How can you use the war in that country and bring in Irak, Palestine etc as an excuse for the dreadful mutilation of a young girl by her husband under the supervision of a self appointed Taliban 'judge'. What on earth justifies this except that her violent husband is saying 'she does not want me so no one else will want her'. There was obviously no love in this marriage. Mutilation and acid throwing is a well known tactic of the Taliban, and is ample evidence of their attitude to females. Can you produce examples of the 'thousands' who have been raped, tortured, multilated by International forces. The vast majority of victims in Irak were caused by the insurgents not the US and Uk forces. Likewise the vast numbers of Afghans and Pakistanis; the deaths of people due to ISAF actions are in the main accidental. The blowing up of large numbers of people by suicde bombers are deliberate. The tactic for driving foreign forces out of Muslim countries seems to be killing large numbers of Muslims, the more the better. I am no big fan of the USA but ranting about 'Americans' as though they are one homogenous country of 300 million clones is just as stupid and pointless as saying 'Aghans' want ISAF out of Afghanistan. The Taliban want ISAF out not because they have great plans for the Afghans but simply because they want freedom to do as they wish with the Aghans.
  • diogenesagogo
    So what are we supposed to do? Ignore it - along with female 'circumcision', public stoning & judicial amputation of limbs? Just regard it as 'their way' & leave them to it?
  • Podlington
    Well done diogenesagogo, you have taken a step down the rabbit hole! I do not think we are a civilised society. A society that puts money and power before human lives is not civilised. The MSM do not report on many things, only what the TPTB want us to know. Ironically many believe that unless something appears in the mainstream media, it is not true. The opposite is often the case.
  • 2.3 million killed there to save the nose? save your own nose by going out from Afghanistan.
  • have you seen western women abused by her lover? kept quite because she may lose his finical support?
  • Quite an emotive and provocative cover that the American audience will see right through. I hope Aisha gets reconstructive surgery and lives the life she dreams of.
  • stupocalypse
    Sarcasm, to highlight your bigotism!
  • LZT1
    Then why don't you go to Afghanistan and "fight"?
  • LZT1
    Truly well spoken!
  • LZT1
    It does indeed. And that has to do with this particular case how? I thought it was obvious that Islam forbids acts of wanton violence period?

    The question that arises is why the US encouraged Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan for a over decade in order to use them as a proxy against the Soviet Union and the socialist government of Afghanistan that for all their faults had brought secularism, emancipation and education to women, roads, telephones, factories etc, and progress towards modernity. If it had gone on until the fall of the Soviet Union (which did not come too soon), Afghanistan would have been similar to the Central Asian states with a move toward a free market economy and some industrial base.

    This was no good to the US and Brzezinski in particular who actively encouraged the sickest and worst kind of Islamic fundamentalism when it suited their geo-political "interests" at the time.

    Islam forbids the blowing up of people generally (not that the Americans shy away from doing so, albeit with a modern army), but why then was the chief of all the Afghan "rebels" against the Soviet Union, a non Afghan, Mr Osama Bin Laden, such good friends with the US and encouraged to lead the Afghans in their mayhem and fundamentalist savagery?

    So save the sanctimony America.....
  • diogenesagogo
    I have done so, & it makes for horrific reading. I think it is outrageous that the mainstream media did not make more of this at the time. The only images I recall were of the 'human pyramid' ones, which just looked more silly than anything & there was no mention of the extensive & gratuitous torture being perpetrated by the captors. This sort of thing always seems to happen in wars; it is one of the main reasons why you should never go to war unless there is really absolutely no alternative. Behaviour which would normally be seen as criminal & psychopathic becomes tolerated & justifiable. But this is the difference. Everybody - even the perpetrators themselves - know this behaviour is criminal. In the case of the girl in the photo her punishment was held by her society to be justifiable. In this case an individual has no hope. You are completely alone. The horrors committed at Abu Ghraib & the like must be made known to everyone & every attempt made to ensure it doesn't happen again. Otherwise we cannot claim to be a civilized society.
  • agent0060
    Could you comment on the procedure referred to as Sunna or Sunnah circumcision?
  • agent0060
    Now there's an interesting question. This incident appears to have world-wide attention. How many similar incidents were there under the rule of the Taliban? Let's go for some interesting possibilities. Let's try the Taliban coming out in the open and agreeing that they will act in accordance with the views of the Afghan people! Any chance? Let's go with a deal. The US and ISAF can leave. Such a move would have a lot of support in the countries who supply the troops. Then we can all stand around and watch Afghanistan sink back to.....well, which century would you like? That's our side. Now for "your" side. No Afghans can leave the country. No emigration, no refugees, no asylum seekers. Just stay there and exist...or not, as you choose.
  • agent0060
    Islam also forbids blowing hundreds of innocent civilians up.
  • American brain-dead idiots naturally link this poor woman's disfigurement to the Taliban. They never paused a moment to question just what did her criminally insane husband have to do with the Taliban? Answer: Nothing at all. Did the Taliban order this act of barbarity? NO ! So why associate this sad case and many other Afghan victims of domestic abuse and violence with the Taliban? The stupid Americans have no answer excepts perhaps - "that is what they are saying on TV (especially Fox News)" How about putting up photographs of numerous American women battered, abused and killed by their boyfriends and husbands both here and in the US? Shall we then hold the US government of Obama, Christianity or Cameron's government accountable ? Or how about posting the photographs of the corpses of Taliban soldiers mutilated or burnt alive by American soldiers? Or perhaps the bloody heads, limbs and torsos of any one of the of the thousands of women and children blown up by US and NATO bombs? Or the photographs of headless and limbless Palestinian children, victims of Israel's massacre and of US supplied WMDs, missiles and bombs? How utterly stupid. American will continue to be a nation of stupid brain-dead people who never make any effort to reflect, think or question. A perfect "Government's People" who never question any official account of any event' and what they don't bother to question or understand they simply want to nuke. If they are not indulging in an orgy of evil, killing and bombing civilians or torturing and raping them, they are publicly demonstrating just how brilliantly stupid and hypocritical they are. In the Nixon era, in spite of being stoned out of their minds, at least then Americans had the sense to question the Vietnam war and express their indignation and the investigative tactics of the American media exposed Nixon's lies and brought him down. Perhaps the current generation of Americans ought to follow their predecessors and remain stoned and wasted - then they might be more productive as a nation and do less destruction on earth. What a waste of space Americans are? One word to describe the American "Bush/Obama" Nation: Whited Sepulcher
  • ArenHaich
    Stunningly good propaganda. Deserves the award of Best Picture of the Year. But would the Time Magazine publish just as stunning a picture of a US soldier badly maimed in the Afghan war on its cover titled: WHAT WOULD NOT HAPPEN IF WE LEAVE AFGHANISTAN?
  • ArenHaich
    Stunningly good propaganda. Deserves the award of Best Picture of the Year. But would the Time Magazine publish just as stunning a picture of a US soldier badly maimed in the Afghan war on its cover titled: WHAT WOULD NOT HAPPEN IF WE LEAVE AFGHANISTAN?
  • youmustwakeupnow
    What has happend in Iraq - http://www.aztlan.net/du_deformed_iraqi_babies.htm
  • archconcord
    What we need here in the US is cover photos of poor people being thrown out of their houses in the millions by the banks and police and some of the devastating scenes of a million cases in bankrupcty court this year as our society is rotting from the bottom up. This due to continuing billions in spending on foreign wars the country can no longer afford despite a Dem majority in congress and a Dem president who professed to be anti war but is sadly no less a war monger than Lyndon Johnson. It is time for change but not to the conservatives. We have had our fill of that as well. We need to insist our Dems deliver.
  • They should eliminate poverty in the USA which drives single moms to prostitute themselves in order too feed their children, ex-Presidents daughter's wedding on the other hand will cost $3mil. dollars. Leave Afghanistan to Afghans and stop trying to enslave the Planet.
  • xenocleia
    Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote that "... she's a hell of a photograph." What does that say about the morality of those who gratefully use the result of such brutality as propaganda for a war that kills and maims tens of thousands, that has devastated the Afghan economy and society and has brutalised US and British soldiers? The atrocities commited by those soldiers, whether in Afghanistan or in Iraq have to be set against Taliban atrocities. Cutting off noses and ears, hands and feet was a common punishment for what we would consider very minor crimes in Elizabethan England. To quote Herefordshire Council's website "Branding and the amputation of ears were very early forms of punishment, which had seemingly been approved by the Church, who even had their own mark "SL" ("seditious libeller"). Branding was abolished in 1799." What got rid of such brutal punishments in England and what can get rid of them in Afghanistan is the diffusion of power in society to empower those who constitute the potential victims of these vicious punishments. The current war in Afghanistan has achieved the opposite.
  • The_Corinth
    poor girl she needs rescuing by the USA so she can exercise her democratic right in a free society to appear in some double penetration video on the internet
  • scampy1
    These practises are being brought to Western countries by Muslim immigrants? The acid throwing ,genital mutilation, honor killings etc. We welcome their diversity? nu lab?
  • bobigb
    Death to All taliban the dirty scruffy cowards
  • LZT1
    Seek psychiatric help.
  • lifeisfun
    Please swear in English.....afterall it is an English paper...
  • lifeisfun
    off course they are not savages, they just live in the Dark ages....
  • lifeisfun
    well said...P
  • lifeisfun
    And your blinded by the facts...
  • Podlington
    There are three issues here, which, despite Time magazine's efforts are not related.

    The first issue is the appalling case of this poor woman having suffered some sort of atrocious maiming. Whether or not it was done by a Taliban commander, we only have Time magazine's word on that. Knowing the role of the media in controlling the masses, I would not count on it. Subliminal embedding was used by TIME magazine on it's April 21st, 1986 cover, which showed a picture of Libyan leader Gaddafi with the headline "Target Gaddafi" Subliminally embedded into the picture, was the word "KILL" across Gaddafi's right cheek.

    The second issue is the U.S. being in Afghanistan illegally. Deeply hurt by the recent WIKILEAKS revelations, the corporate media obviously feel a need to shore up eroding support for the war.

    The third issue is MSM and Time trying to evoke rage and rescue by connecting the two.

    The U.S. does not give a rat's arse about the people of Afghanistan, otherwise they would not indiscriminately shoot and bomb them.

    I am horrified at the pain this woman has suffered, but it does not give the U.S. OR the U.K. the right to remain in Afghanistan. Edited to remove an "obviously"
  • LZT1
    You would truly have to be stupid to not have seen the evidence of what Afghant was talking about.
  • LZT1
    Islam forbids acts of violence such as this, and even lesser ones. Afghant's post in reply to yours said plenty anyway.
  • I look forward to the next issue of Time with some dead Afghans on the cover, courtesy of US forces, and the headline - "What happens if we stay in Afghanistan?" All this phony concern to bolster the case to remain in Afghanistan, as if suddenly these proponents of endless war had developed enormous humanitarian sentiments.
  • snotcricket
    I'm surprised at some of the comments below.

    If the story & the picture is true then the action is indefensible.

    And like the parent who kills their child for no reason other than 'I can't have - thus no one else can, this action is disgraceful.

    The politics etc are of no consequence this is the direct action of one human on another & it would seem to take place invasion/war or no invasion/war.

    Sometimes we need to separate our personal agenda (in this case pro or anti war) & recognise this as repugnant.

    Is it any wonder the girl wished to escape the clutches of a situation where someones answer to rejection is their so called personal honour?????????? is of such importance this is the result, if this is honour then give me dishonour everyday of the week.

    Shameful as is any attempt to defend it.
  • Leigh1940
    Conan_drum, no one is using any war as a justification for what the Taliban judge did. Everyone agrees that what happened to this girl and many others like her is appalling and that the Taliban are utter thugs. The attempted justification here is going the other way, namely, using the Taliban's treatment of women as a justification for continuing a war in which many more Afghan civilians and our soldiers will die; and which causes masses at home to suffer from cuts to their health care, education, pentions, etc. The point is that the damage caused by the war dwarfs the damage caused by Taliban rule. And this especially when considering that the government they're putting in its place has an equally appalling human rights record. The anti-American rhetoric gets histerical precisely because people like you try to absolve them of amazingly huge crimes. You don't have to personally and intentionally execute someone before you are responsible for the person's death. ISAF may not intentionally hang civilians like the Taliban does, but dropping drone missiles on houses where they know families live makes them responsible for those civilian deaths. Claiming that the "insergents" killed more people in Iraq than the US simply opens up the question of who exactly sparked the civil war that caused the killing. One is responsible for the likely consequences of one's actions, and on that one the US has caused more death and suffering than any other country or group. Examples: placing water-purifying chemicals and vaccinations on the Iraq sanctions list (million deaths), bombing a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (tens of thousands of deaths), training and funding massive human rights violators in South America (hundreds of thousands of deaths), sparking a civil war in Iraq (hundreds of thousands of deaths), backing one side in a civil war in Afghanistan (tens of thousands of deaths), etc. This makes the Taliban look like cousins of the archangel Gabriel.
  • ...'female 'circumcision'...???? Mr. Stupid, you are mixing up some insane animistic African religious and Kurdish cultural anomaly which has nothing to do with Islam - here let me state this for your benefit all those mental midgets who keep bringing this up: FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM - GET IT?
  • There is no prospect of stopping these things through the use of war, especially one driven by revenge. We missed a golden opportunity after 9/11 to positively influence the Taliban through a patient and determined effort to rebuild its infrastructure in return for handing over the al Quieda and turning towards a more liberal way of life (I mean socially liberal rather than economically "liberal"). But we would have actually had to care about Afghans to do that and if we cared we wouldn't have waited until 9/11 to do something and it wouldn't have been the entirely wrong thing we chose to do.
  • Podlington
    Please do your own research diogenesagogo. It is simple enough, though might take some time. I have discovered that putting a link in a posting alerts a moderator and the post does not appear.
  • Fandabbydozy
    Without doubt, the Taliban practice a perverse version Islam, a mix of cultural and religious ideology. They are backward and medieval and do not recognise democracy. It is beyond me why US and NATO forces occupy this cesspit, it can't be oil (can it?) using a false pretense of eliminating the CIA's former friends Al-Qaeda, or perhaps a staging post for a possible Iran attack?
  • Cheers
  • diogenesagogo
    It could be anything. Please state evidence for an alternative please. Thank you.
  • diogenesagogo
    Could you supply some links to this please? Thank you.
  • diogenesagogo
    Could you supply some links to this please? Thank you.
  • diogenesagogo
    Perhaps it's been photoshopped, or she's an Essex girl who got drunk & set fire to her face ... Or it could be true. Refutation with some form of evidence is always the most persuasive.
  • Yes you are a typical "American FU*&K HEAD" Don't question anything - remain dumb and stupid.
  • Lets hope you murdering criminals have brought with you a lot of fuc*&6g body bags because soon your idiot nation will be rid of most of its men - and to that I say good riddance.
  • TJFoley
    Idiotic comment
  • TJFoley
    Psychopathic comment
  • You are an incomparable idiot. Are you blind to the primitive barbarity of Christian Americans, NATO and Jewish Israel in the scores of dead and tortured bodies of men, women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestine? Not even to mention US savagery in Japan, Vietnam and N. Korea. Or have you seen no evidence of that?
  • Hey stupid - one again this act of savagery was not authored or adjudicated by the Taliban - don't you get it? Why are you so gloriously dumb? WHY?
  • I wonder if that picture was taken in israel? We all know why we went to iraq,and now Iran? Americans yes we are stupid,but you brits found out that there was a person in the room from israel when Blair was bowing down to his master, knowing fulll well there was no WOMD ! Thank god We have Ron Paul,and George Galloway to at least pretend we can get our countries back Wiemar republic 2 anyone?
  • diogenesagogo
    Could you supply some links to this please? Thank you.
  • Fandabbydozy
    As Liam Fox said, ?broken 13th-century country?. A great majority of the Muslim world choose to live in barbaric way, which some may say is cultural rather then religious, but the two are so intertwined it is difficult to say where the dividing line is. NATO will not achieve anything here, as the "backwardness" is ingrained in this society led by a men first and women second policy.
  • diogenesagogo
    Why the hell should I believe you YOU RANTING IMBECILE??????? If you want to provide an alternative explanation of what's happened to this woman that's fine. But evidence is required. There are plenty of well -documented examples of hideous punishments carried out in the Middle East, which is hardly surprising since they are sanctioned by religion. So, what exactly happened to this girl??
  • scampy1
    You stooges out there must realise that atrocities like this are being commited in western countries by muslim immigrants?
    The acid throwing genital mutilators and honor killers are on you doorstep brothers?
  • gerryhiles
    "Had to go back a hundred years..." lol. No that was just the start, which is why I went "...". I don't think Vietnam was a hundred years ago, nor Panama, nor currently Iraq and Afghanistan, nor a myriad other incidents of gratuitous sadism (your words). I thought, wrongly, that you could fill in the blanks for yourself.
  • They could have a headline saying "What happens because we won't leave Afghanistan"
  • I doubt if he will ever Get It. He is blinded by his hate!
  • Leigh1940
    Ah, OK, we agree then. As for Ruanda, that slaughter was a war between a side backed by the US and a side backed by France. So, more than anything, I would have avoided backing sides in a foreign conflict if I had been the US and France. Because other countries have less money, conflicts between third-world groups tend to be smaller without outside intervention. The same was true in Mozambique and Angola. There were conflicts, but then the US asked South Africa to go in and tame the communists, and Russia got Cuba to go in to tame the economically neoliberal democrats. And then it became huge. I guess I'll need to do a proper historical analysis to know whether conflicts get that big without foreign intervention. The groups in Angola and Mozambique certainly wouldn't have had planes if it had not been for the US Russia cold war playing out there.
  • Braco108
    My son, who is an Army pilot, has read about Afghani war atrocities, such as skinning one's enemies alive, then allowing one survivor of a confrontation to return to tell the tale, thus achieving the "we are monsters, don't mess with us" PR. Looks like hideously torturing and disfiguring one's enemies is old news with this culture.
  • Nesreen
    war and bombs is not the solution but education and books and creating jobs . remember the times of queen Soraya (google it please) when women outnumbered boys in schools but later when the soviets decided america decided to create extremists in Afghanistan by Publishing and Paying for extremist books (maths , etc.. ) to small afgans read ABC to Jihad and you will understand how American books taught afghan children to sum up Bombs and Divided Hand grenades , and in those books the need to Jihad was a MUSt so the Afgans get mad at the soviets and fight them which happened , and from there , extremism got a lot worse . Mr Z.Brezenski prefered some stirred up Muslims than a soviet controlled afghanistan (when asked ) so Americans are disgusted at the view of a live woman who had been abused , yet are not told by their media that entire villages are buried weekly by Nato bombs , where tiny children lose their lives forever ..
  • umdenker
    Isaf does not control much of anything outside Kabul, and probably never will. So the best thing to do is to get out.
  • agent0060
    Savages. Bit of a bigot, aren't you? Infrastructure. What would that be then? McDonalds? God forbid feeding them that crap. At least make it Burger King!
  • It indeed could just as easily be a victim of Israeli oppression.
  • stupocalypse
    But since the last world war that's the opposite to how the world works. We'll see a problem, but instead of changing the circumstance, we'll spend a lot of money circumventing the problem, whilst a lot of people get rich on the back of it. Capitalism at its best!
  • stupocalypse
    Yes we should civilise those savages, even it means destroying their infrastructure and blowing up their children. They'll thank us when we can pump oil through their decimated country and we'll smile and give them a McDonalds.
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  • diogenesagogo
    Please try to grasp the concepts here. State sponsored torture & terror in the above cases was a means to an end, not an end in itself. Now you can argue - as I would - that the means were wrong, that they gave license to psychopaths & criminals to do as they pleased, but this was not a necessary part of the ends in view. There is a huge moral dilemma involved: do you sacrifice one life to save others? How many? How much torture? You can say never, but would it have been wrong to assassinate Hitler? It's a very difficult problem - at least in a developed Western democracy, not so in other parts of the world. Comparing this poor girl's treatment to people blown to bits in criminally negligent bombing is specious. Intentionality matters - otherwise every accident becomes a criminal act.
  • agent0060
    Anyone can become savage in war. But this incident wasn't war.
  • agent0060
    And your evidence is.......?
  • agent0060
    Try to be objective. Let us look at the material in the article. "Tracked to a house where she had taken refuge, she was brought before a judge, who was also a Taliban commander, and rejected her explanation of why she had run away. She was held down by her brother-in-law while her husband used a knife to cut off her ears and nose." So the Taliban/commander/judge rejected her explanation and then said to her husband and brother-in-law, "OK, that's my part done. You just get on and punish her however you like." For my money, the "judge" either authorised it or allowed it. In either case, he is culpable.
  • All that might make sense, like the War on Drugs, if it actually worked EVER. You do realise that we could cut back our dependency on terrorist oil by enforcing mandatory conservation tactics (computer shutdown at night etc). It's that kind of sacrifice and discipline that won WWII, not gross consumption and lazy aggression.
  • gerryhiles
    Clicked the wrong button again, because you amaze me. Apparently you have never heard of Gitmo - state sponsored - Abu Graib, Fallujah and so on and on, including White House approved death squads, special ops and so on. You've never heard of "rendition", water-boarding and so on. You never listened to anything Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and now Obama said? Out of their own mouths. Didn't really need the Wikileaks, except to consolidate. Where have you been these last ten years? I first got my information from the very top, e.g. Cheney and other neocons, so why are you disputing them?
  • diogenesagogo
    So where were the state sponsored acts of sadism? Turning a blind eye, which they undoubtedly did - & you would never have heard of it in non-democratic societies - is despicable, but completely different to the sadistic punishment to the case in question.
    Or would you think it OK to reintroduce this sort of thing here? 'Cruel & unusual punishment' is the term I believe.
  • agent0060
    You are really giving yourself away. Are you by any chance an Islamic fanatic? Committed to a world-wide caliphate?
  • agent0060
    No-one has ever managed to suggest that life under the Taliban was a progressive bed of roses.
  • agent0060
    Taking your comments one by one. What did her husband have to do with the Taliban - Nothing? How do you know? Did the Taliban order the act? There is no statement that the judge ordered it, but the wording might suggest it was done in his presence. So why didn't he stop it? The text of your comment suggests an implacable hatred of Americans, Israelis, British and other nationals of NATO. So you'll be glad to know that there is a percentage of British people who want British troops out of Afghanistan. The concept being that Afghans do not appreciate efforts to help them into the 20th century and rid them of a dictatorial rule, so let them get on with it! Regrettably, it seems unlikely that the Taliban will ever accept a negotiated settlement that does not include their total control. However, it looks as though, over the next few years, the US and NATO will pull out, tired of fighting an enemy that does not have the courage to come out and fight in the open and who use civilians, men, women and children, to shield their activities.
  • diogenesagogo
    I didn't say war was the only option. It is the worst option. Sometimes (very rarely) it's the least bad option - would you have sent troops (a LOT of troops) into Rwanda? Intervening in foreign countries' affairs is extremely risky. It's rather like stepping in to stop a man beating up his wife - whereupon they both start beating you up!
  • ...".This barbarity was served up by the judiciary..." WHAT JUDICIARY YOU FOOL? WHAT? OR WHICH "TALIBAN" JUDICIARY????? Which Taliban Judge adjudicated and sentenced that this poor woman be mutilated ??????? Your problem is that you Americans and Neocons lie so much that you can't utter a sentence without being disingenuous, false and misleading. Will someone please make a collage of all the corpses and mutilated of women and children- victims of American and NATO aggression and post it on the Web ? PLEASE and then contrast this with this photograph. I can't stand this deafening American hypocrisy gross selective bullshit.
  • agent0060
    And have you seen such evidence? By whom was it supplied?
  • agent0060
    Insult is not exactly helpful.
  • agent0060
    I trust that you are posting from Afghanistan?
  • diogenesagogo
    'Like' clicked in error.
  • diogenesagogo
    Interesting you had to go back a hundred years & more, when Western democracy was very different to today's version. Even then the sadism was individual & opportunistic. Not the same.
  • diogenesagogo
    So what's your version of events then MR. THICKO????????
  • diogenesagogo
    Who said I was talking specifically about Islam? I was referring to a selection of practices occurring in other societies which I happen to find disgusting & will voice my abhorrence of them DO YOU GET THAT???? Individual intended brutality & sadism is bad enough, but when practised by the state it takes on a whole new dimension.
  • gerryhiles
    I made a mistake, I clicked "You liked this", wheras I meant to click "Reply". "Western democracy may be flawed, but it doesn't lead to state inflicted gratuitous sadism." Like the genocide of native Americans, like the Spanish/Mexican War, like ...
  • diogenesagogo
    You, sir are the idiot. This barbarity was served up by the judiciary, the point of which was to torture, humiliate & inflict as much misery as possible on a beautiful young woman whose only crime is that she wants to be left alone. The injuries inflicted by countries you mentioned result from entirely different motives. In the case of Hiroshima & Nagasaki the likelihood is that many more tens of thousands of Allied & Japanese lives would have been lost in a conventional war. Other wars you may argue about, but even there the horrific results are never part of the reason for waging the war. If a Western power could find a way to win without inflicting civillian casualties it would be incredibly happy - no protests & bad press back home. Even the most right wing people I know are disturbed by the images of injured children resulting from conflict, so you can imagine how much the general public is upset - & in a democracy you run the risk of losing the next election if enough people think you are doing wrong. Western democracy may be flawed, but it doesn't lead to state inflicted gratuitous sadism.
  • TJFoley
    Not certain what planet you live on if you can blame the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq ( not Irak) on 'insurgents'. Prior to the invasion, the illegal sanctions, themselves an illegal act of war, applied to the Iraqi population, was directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of children dying. Priot to that Iraq had the lowest infant mortality in the region. For a more recent example of how we happily murder en masse Iraqis, look no further than last weeks article in this very newspaper http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html The point people are making, which you entirely miss, is that this poor girls suffering, is being used by the pro-war lobby in the USA, to justify action which will make them more money, and cause more unimagineable suffering. And you can bet, that these self same neo-liberal, neo-con psychopaths, ( include the president in that description ) will move on to Iran in no time at all just as soon as their specious arguments for WMD ( this time nuclear) are used to destroy an ancient civilisation with weapons of indescribable viciousness which leave toxic legacies for decades. It is deliberate, it is pre-planned, it is mass murder of islamic peoples, their lands, their cultures...forever, Palestine, Iraq, Iran in the firing line...
  • diogenesagogo
    So you are denying the facts as stated in the article? You may well be right. Evidence please.
  • Podlington
    Oh so the catholics don't?
  • Nabi18
    please check out http://www.islamicsolutions.com/islam-the-peaceful-religion/
  • TJFoley
    A little like some other country posting a picture of Raoul Moat's girlfriend or victim in a magazine, and using it as a pretext for blowing England to smithereens, and then viciously occupying it with troops and death squads for the next ten years. I don't think we would like it very much. We might consider it illegal, a warcrime. We might fight back. Then they would call us 'insurgents' and kill more of us.
  • Spicio
    No member of the media gives a rat's arse about anyone. Time magazine is no more honest and objective than it is for its poor, maltreated and executed, in its own backyard. The girl on the cover may well have suffered but, how, where, why and when, is anyone's guess. How many American women have the Taliban raped and then destroyed? Let's us see the aftermath of such an American atrocity. Readers may be far in miles from Afghanistan but we don't trust anyone an inch to tell us how, in their eyes, it is.
  • You are an incomparable idiot. Are you blind to the primitive barbarity of Christian Americans, NATO and Jewish Israel in the scores of dead and tortured bodies of men, women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestine? Not even to mention US savagery in Japan, Vietnam and N. Korea. Or have you seen no evidence of that?
  • Fundamental American Christianity is an fascist effort to dominate the world and keep Muslims as second class citizens.
  • Fundamental Islam is simply an effort to keep women as second class citizens.
  • Podlington
    Thank you Charlie Brennan for that info. Probably why Ryder Haggard used it.
  • "What happen's when we leave Afghanistan ?" No more death, destruction, human misery, rapes and torture by US and NATO soldiers - that is what happens and perhaps with any luck, Karzai will meet the same fate as Barbak Karmal. American Hypocrisy is Sickening
  • Of course it's pure coincidence that this cover-story in TIME magazine appears directly afer WikiLeaks revealed that yankee SCUM had massacred and maimed hundreds of Afghan civilians. Did you ever meet an intelligent yank? I have to deal with them, so I speak really slowly so that their neanderthal brains can cope with the influx of new information.
  • Ah America, transformed from the grossest proponents of realpolitik to sniveling children by one graphic image. It appears that sentimentalism and barbarism are flip-sides of the same coin. Baby-kissers and bombers.
  • This picture aptly shows the primitive barbarity of Islam and the Taliban and should be on a wall in every city of the world...
  • gondorplace
    I thoght that Independent was established to provide a second - more informed opinion, not to promote American propagandist editions? It is disgusting that the fate of this poor woman was used to justify mass-killings of her citizens by the industrial military machine.
  • Leigh1940
    It is absolutely horrifying, I feel sick. But how exactly would refusing to negotiate with the Taliban help? In this case the judge was a Taliban commander, but from testimonies by members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Karzai and his Northern Alliance warlord cronies treat women no better; even the police participate. I suspect that the least aweful way out of an appalling situation is to withdraw foreign troops, allow the Karzai government to negotiate with the Taliban, help build up the judiciary instead of the army, and strongly support civil society initiatives that promote equality and freedom. War does not have a civilising effect on anyone; so continuing the war, militarising society or supplying the Afghan government with military equipment afterwards won't do any good.
  • p
    Removed double post
  • bowesy
    Hmm slightly delusional post. The war has created a new generation of extremists not stopped them. This is a war that can not be won and because of that and many other issues should not have been started. Quite how the end result you envisage could ever be achieved is the point - it cant and it wont. There will be a political win - we will leave and it will be like it always was. This is simply a bad idea, put together by bad men.
  • It's an amazingly common Arabic woman's name, like Mohammed or Achmed for men.
  • Genessender
    I think you should read this article about the kind of government the US and UK have put into power in Afghanistan. Our friends in Kabul are at least as bad as the Taliban: http://returngood.com/2010/07/30/times-epic-distortion-of-the-plight-of-women-in-afghanistan/
  • Genessender
    Rank propaganda from Time magazine. I strongly recommend this article for those interested in a well-reasoned and researched debunking: http://returngood.com/2010/07/30/times-epic-distortion-of-the-plight-of-women-in-afghanistan/
  • p
    Freaking liberals. Go hug a tree or something. War is war, we know why we're there, energy, money, power, blah, blah. If you care so much, turn your lights off, sell your car and sell your energy-eating PC. That way, we won't need the energy we are "invading" countries for, right? /sarcasm Anyway, really, this war might not feel justified, but if we do not finish the job by creating a stable environment for Afghans to govern themselves, secure themselves and to free themselves with laws, we'll have lost good men, women and wasted a lot of money for no reason. We need to ensure the terrorist groups who terrorize this country and threaten our safety at home are safely put away in body bags.
  • millsmess88
    Imagine a Time Magazine cover showing brave US Special Force ops digging their bullets out of two dead pregnant Afghani women! Na. Americans are just too dang special to have to deal with horror they inflict around the world. Too damn special.
  • mactang
    So tell me again? What is it you left-over-liberals are doing to stop atrocities like this being done by (yeah,wait for it) THEM? is it?.. "Hoping for possible dialogue..with a view to you possibly, maybe, allowing us to enable you to educate us in our misunderstanding of your culture?..please?" xxx or, "I have a vewy good fwend in Wembley called Ali who assures me muslims would never do anything like this? Damn us wicked westerners I say!" FUCK OFF! Curse of England (middle)-class, smug gits.
  • artgenie
    Why not save money and our young men's lives; gas or atom bomb the Taliban regions. Bear in mind atom bombs stopped the slaughter in the Far East.
  • millsmess88
    Imagine a Time Magazine cover showing brave US Special Force ops digging their bullets out of two dead pregnant Afghani women! Na. Americans are just too dang special to have to deal with horror they inflict around the world. Too damn special. http://aacounterterror.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/us-forces-kill-afghan-women-then-dig-bullets-out-of-bodies-in-cover-up/
  • Podlington
    OR the next issue could feature an interview with Aisha after the U.S. have granted her a visa and arranged plastic surgery. Strangely enough (of course just a synchronicity) Aisha or Ayesha is the name of SHE in Ryder Haggard's book of the same name! (edited to add Aisha item)
  • Podlington
    Love this line, absolutely hit the nail on the head. "....as if suddenly these proponents of endless war had developed enormous humanitarian sentiments."
  • Sad!

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