The cover of the August 9 edition edition of Time magazine featured a shocking picture of Bibi Aisha, a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off. The photo was accompanied by the headline: 鈥淲hat happens if we leave Afghanistan鈥. However, what happened to Aisha took place in Afghanistan under Western occupation.
In return for allowing Time to publish her photo, Aisha was flown to the US for reconstructive surgery. However, although Time ensured her mutilated face was seen worldwide, they appear less keen for her voice to be heard.
鈥淚 heard Aisha's story from her a few weeks before the image of her face was displayed all over the world鈥, Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, wrote in the August 12 Nation. 鈥淪he told me that her father-in-law caught up with her after she ran away, and took a knife to her on his own; village elders later approved, but the Taliban didn't figure at all in this account.
鈥淭丑别 Time story, however, attributes Aisha's mutilation to a husband under orders of a Talib commander, thereby transforming a personal story, similar to those of countless women in Afghanistan today, into a portent of things to come for all women if the Taliban return to power.鈥
In March, Wikileaks published a CIA document that outlined a strategy to counter growing opposition in Europe to participation in the US-led occupation. It recommended using a narrative about the oppression of women in Afghanistan that highlighted the Taliban鈥檚 misogynist violence while ignoring that of the pro-occupation warlords and the occupation armies.
Afghan feminist Malalai Joya condemned the pro-war media manipulation. 鈥淒uring the Taliban鈥檚 regime such atrocities weren鈥檛 as rife as it is now and the graph is hiking each day鈥, she told France 24 on August 1.
鈥淓ighteen-year-old Aisha is just an example and cutting ears, noses and toes, torturing and even slaughtering is a norm in Afghanistan
鈥淐urrently, Afghan people, especially women, are squashed between three enemies: Taliban, fundamentalist warlords and troops 鈥 The US used the plight of Afghan women as an excuse to occupy Afghanistan in 2001 by filling television screens, internet pages and newspapers with pictures of women being shot down or beaten up in public.
鈥淥nce again, it is moulding the oppression of women into a propaganda tool to gain support and staining their hands with ever-deepening treason against Afghan women.鈥