Of Devils and Demons. An Open Letter to Ann Jones

As Amnesty International calls for the Taliban to be prosecuted for war crimes, in her latest article, Ann Jones has joined the critics of Time Magazine's cover of Aisha, the mutilated Afghan girl. She writes, "

the logic of those who use Aisha's story to convince us that the US military must stay in Afghanistan escapes me."

In my struggle to make sense of Jones' line of argument, I came up with a list of questions that I thought I would post here as an open letter to her. I hope she answers them.

   1. It’s clear that Jones doesn’t like the US military or NATO, though she also acknowledges that “If we leave, the Taliban may seize power or allow themselves to be bought in exchange for a substantial share of the government, to the detriment of women.” What’s not clear is what she does like. What, in her opinion, should happen instead? And how?

2. Jones says she has a different story about Aisha than what Time reported. So in the purpoted ambiguity of the facts Jones outlines, is it then untrue that Aisha’s husband is himself a Taliban? That the area in which this incident occurred was under the Taliban's authority? That’s all untrue?

I just finished spending part of my afternoon answering a fact-checker’s questions for an article appearing in a magazine circulated within a single metropolitan area. They wouldn’t want any lawsuits, or any other publication to usurp the story by a scandalous discovery that the facts are wrong, so there is meticulous verification. I would think Time might also have some fact-checking processes in place before they go to print, especially for a controversial cover story.

In any case, I would be dead certain that the facts aren’t straight before publicly accusing a mutilated 18-year-old (who said, rather unequivocally, “The Taliban did this to me”) of “muddling” the story, condescendingly suggesting Aisha might just be confused since she was traumatized.

3. Jones wrote, “Yet the problem with demonizing them is that it diverts attention away from other, equally unpleasant and threatening facts. Let's not make the common mistake of thinking that the devil we see is the only one.”

So let me get this straight: the Taliban are not demons but they are devils? If one criticizes the cruel acts of the Taliban, one is... Being unfair? Denying that NATO is “just as bad”? Are they?

NATO isn't going around whipping and executing pregnant women. They are, however, working hard to minimize civilian casualties and avoid house searches, the two main criticisms raised most often.

So if one does, hypothetically, feel that a house search is just as evil as hanging a 13-year-old boy from a tree “for being a spy” or intentionally blowing up children, then if you say the Taliban are bad but don't also say NATO is bad, the Taliban is being unfairly demonized? Will this work both ways? If one writes a story about NATO house searches but doesn’t throw in a couple of rather off-topic paragraphs to recent Taliban executions is NATO being demonized?

How should this work in practice: journalists should only ever uniformly condemn “all devils”, being the Taliban and presumably NATO, the US and Karzai, but never too harshly because they will be demonized? Should we self-censor? Try to use more euphemisms (“The Taliban, a resistance movement just like any other brave revolutionary battalion trying to stick it to the man, used a form of light corporal punishment on a local criminal”)?

4. Jones writes, “while most women in the countryside have seen no progress at all, and untold thousands have been harmed and displaced by warfare.”

The “countryside” is, well, most of Afghanistan. So could you be a little more specific? Do you mean life is no better than under the Taliban in rural Balkh? Or rural Zabul? Or the whole damn place? Are rising health and education indicators for the country then all lies to trick us? The primary health clinics we are told are opening and the midwives that have been trained across the country- these don’t really exist?

The hospitals and schools that have opened since 2002 that I have seen with my own eyes - was it just the Afghan hash making me hallucinate? Can you reference any serious research that shows “no progress at all” has occurred in rural areas? As for “displaced by warfare”, most Afghans I know who left the country, left during the Taliban or just before that during the civil war period, and returned right after they fell.

There are abandoned refugee camps from the Taliban time dotting the countryside on any route out of the country. Camps in Pakistan are closing and have been for years. NGOs there are winding down operations. There was a very serious refugee crisis under the Taliban. It is incomparable to today. But I better not mention this, or I would be demonizing the Taliban. I mean deviling them. Or whatever it is I’m not supposed to do to avoid hurting the Taliban’s feelings.

5. Jones is right that there are other forces working against women besides the Taliban. But any sensible points like these are lost in her persistence that the US and NATO should leave Afghanistan, without her ever mentioning what should happen in place of an international security force (other than Taliban rule or civil war)?

Any details of her vision are welcome. Throw me a bone here. Do we withdraw and just hope for the best? Endorse a coup of Karzai? Partition Afghanistan? Install RAWA as government? Have a women’s conference and hope that magically leads to a women-friendly government? What? If I knew what the vision is, even an inkling of it, we might be able to have a conversation: about ways forward, about possibilities, about opportunities. But that would be constructive.

6. Jones says that the US is one of Afghan women’s enemies: "For the United States, the problem is this: the regressive forces militating against women's rights and a democratic future for Afghanistan are headed by the demon Taliban, to be sure, but they also include the fundamentalist (and fundamentally misogynist) Karzai government, and us.

Besides the fact that she called the Taliban demons, which is very offensive because actually they are devils and it’s just not a very nice thing to say really, there is the other problem she skirts around: there is little evidence (besides the melodramatic speeches at anti-war rallies in the West of Malalai Joya) that Afghan women want to see the departure of NATO forces from Afghanistan.

Progressive female MPs like Sabrina Saqeb, Fauzia Koofi and Shinkai Karokhail are adamant that a premature withdrawal would be disastrous. So are many other outspoken activists like Wazhma Frogh. In fact, these days not a day goes by that an Afghan woman is not quoted in a western news article expressing her anxiety over a premature withdrawal from the US and/or NATO in Afghanistan.

Then there was the Code Pink war tourism debacle, where Code Pink was outted by some of their own as well as a Christian Science Monitor reported who witnessed, again and again, Afghan women telling the Code Pink delegation that they are not for withdrawal. If you don’t go in for anecdotes, then consult any one of the numerous opinion polls recently carried out in Afghanistan that show a clear majority of men and women are not ready for the departure of international forces from their country. For someone who professes to care about Afghan women think, doesn’t this count?

7. This a Talib in Swat. You really don't see any resemblance to a demon? Not even just a little bit?

Lauryn Oates is a contributing writer for The Propagandist.