Acid attack on Afghan schoolgirls

[JI7]

Source: bbc

Attackers in Afghanistan have sprayed acid in the faces of at least 15 girls near a school in Kandahar, police say.

Doctors say that the six girls were wearing Islamic burkas or veils which provided them with some protection.

Correspondents say the attack is likely to have been carried out by those opposed to the education of women.

"I want to ask the government that why they cannot protect us, we girls want to study but the the government is not helping us. We want better security."

"I don't know why they did it," she said. "Kandahar is not safe. But we can't stay home, we want an education."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7724505.stm

---

disgusting backwards scumbag. just think about the assholes who think they have a right to attack people like this because of their gross beliefs .

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Burkas aren't enough. The fundamentalists want the brains of their women

to absorb whatever THEY tell them.

[HopeHoops]

2. Yeah, and just think how bad it is OUTSIDE of the GOP base!

[jaksavage]

3. Isolation and deprivation

It is how small minds procreate in the modern world.
Oh and poligamists in the SW and
Fundamentalists on every continent.

[Shardik]

4. I cannot fathom the minds of the beasts who would do such a thing. n/t

[JI7]

5. how does one end up feeling they have a right to do such a thing

[Marrah_G]

11. Because they have the power

absolute power breeds violence, corruption and greed. The religious leaders and tribal leaders say jump, and they do.

They also think of women as less then human. They are slaves. Bought and sold. Relegated to preparing food and eating the leftover scraps, never being seen, never being spoken to, never learning to read or write, never feeling the sun on their skin, raped and tortured if their owner desires it. Killed for the slightest offense or the offense of someone else. Killed for daring to be raped without 4 male witnesses willing to testify that they saw the rape. No medical treatment, not even for birthing. They are stock for breeding with the added bonus of cooking and cleaning.


There is no love. There is no life. No hopes, No dreams. Just fear and pain.

This is what brings young women to pour oil over themselves in a last ditch effort to escape the agony. When death by fire is preferable to life, there is a big problem.

[4_TN_TITANS]

19. Unimaginable

I look at my daughters - how educated, independent, and confident they are and can't comprehend why that would terrify some men into doing things like that.

[clspector]

18. You want a real answer...

It's stupidity. Seriously. At the heart of much of humankind's crappy treatment of one another is a garden-variety stupid that cuts across all cultures.

And when the people who are stupid get into power, they kill or crush anything that disagrees with their profoundly stupid world view. This why there are fundamentalists of all stripes everywhere you look in the world. (Yeah, I said it. Fundamentalists are stupid.)

Dumb is the gift that keeps on giving. And let me also point out that the AVERAGE IQ in this country is 100. And if that thought doesn't keep you up at night, I don't what will. We are in the world of the marching morons. And you know what, the people who aren't complete dumbfucks are far outnumbered the ones who are.

Okay, so I'm a little cranky today.

[superconnected]

27. I completely agree.

[Shardik]

30. Stupidity, religion, gullability,millenia of a nomadic lifestyle?

I have often been felled by finding out that someone I felt to be a bright and reasonable person has extremely fundamental beliefs in some religion.

Your answer is on of the first I jumped at while considering acts like this but there is so much more to it.

[Hulk]

6. Religious fanatics......no different from ours and the supremacist mentality.

Just sick. I wish, just once, they'd catch the sons-of-bitches cowards and do an acid toss on them and toss them in jail.

How despicable can you be, to harm children...male or female, for your own religious jerk off ideas.

Scum of the earth.

[JonQ]

8. I wouldn't say that

our fanatics haven't thrown acid in anyones face that I can think of.

[snake in the grass]

13. No,

they just bomb health clinics and shoot physicians, which is completely different.

[JonQ]

15. Similiar tactics

but far less common, and less tolerated. I'd say these acid throwers, a suicide bombers, and honor killers enjoy far greater legal and social support in their respective countries than our abortion clinic bombers and snipers do here.

Do you really want to stack up the number of women burned and murdered against the number of abortion doctors murdered? Neither is acceptable of course, but to say one is as common and tolerated as the other is absurd.

[Marrah_G]

12. It is different.

It is acceptable there, both culturally and by law.

[JonQ]

16. My point exactly

I hate that we can't criticize these people without feeling the need to get in an equal jab at our fundies. They're both crazy, but they differ greatly in how they are tolerated by our respective societies.

[JonQ]

7. I was thinking about this issue this morning

heard about the attack on the radio. The people most inclined to do this sort of thing tend to be, well, losers. Bad/non-existent jobs and very little education themselves. I think in all likelihood their fears are that if women are given an education, the right to work for themselves, to move around and marry who they choose (things civilized nations take for granted) then those women would not likely choose to be married to unemployed, uneducated fanatics who think women are property. Essentially if women get basic rights these men are doomed to bachelorhood. Because honestly, who would pick them if given an alternative? They'll claim they're doing it to protect womens modesty, or dignity, when in reality they're terrified of being kicked to the curb for better men.

[Marrah_G]

10. You give them to much credit -- they do not think that deeply

They do it because their imams tell them to. They do it because the local warlord tells them too. They do it because they enjoy watching women suffer. Women to them are worth less then farm animals.

ALl your reasons are correct as to why it ended up like this. But the men throwing the acid....they are not so deep.

[Marrah_G]

9. I cannot express enough, the hatred I feel for these monsters.

[INDIA]

14. We leave Afghanistan and these guys take over. And incidents like this...

become the rule rather than the exception. Just sayin...

[Bragi]

20. "We" aren't making rules they will follow.

What arrogance to think we can lay down rules for others. These fundies have been in charge of that part of the world for about 200 years, and my guess is they won't be changing anything soon, no matter what rules we write down for them.

[riderinthestorm]

31. Ah yes, cultural relativism rears it's ugly head again. It's "just the way things are there"

"we can't change things nor should we expect to change things...."

Well, fuck that shit.

If the US had brought the big guns into Afghanistan and actually followed through with pursuing the REAL terrorists, and rebuilding a real 21st society in Afghanistan, perhaps things like educating girls wouldn't be any big deal.

Things like this make me crazy, and sick. Please don't perpetuate the cultural relativism meme - it's wrong on so many levels.

Thank gawd the girls were swathed in suffocating layers of cloth all over their body so they are easily identified as subservient members of gawd's order, or the acid burns would have been worse!? WTF!???? :puke: :puke:

[Bragi]

41. Reality is the issue, not cultural relativism

The reality is that the fundies have been in charge of Afghanistan for 200 years, long before the Taliban emerged. And whether we like it or not, the Muslim fundies will continue to run Afghanistan long after this most recent invasion ends.

The only issue is how many troops does the US and its allies want to lose, and how many Afghans do we want to kill, before leaving with nothing to show for it.

- B

[JonQ]

37. Jim crow was the law of the land

and discriminating against blacks was deeply embedded in the culture, had been for hundreds of years.

Why bother to try change all that?

[sabrina 1]

25. Actually, these attacks on women

escalated after the US invasion. They fear that women are being influenced by western culture. There have been tons of reports of this kind of thing since the initial invasion, but mostly in the foreign press as the Bush administration was using the 'freedom for women' as part of the propaganda that we are doing some good in that country.

Interesting that we are now hearing about it. I guess we can expect to hear a lot more as the country gets ready to escalate the war over there, and nothing gets us more ready to bomb a country than to tell us how evil the leaders are.

The truth is, if this war escalates, women will be in even more danger there. And the other unpleasant truth is, it is because of our secret war there in the eighties, that the problem exists in the first place. As soon as the US has no 'further interests' somewhere, they leave, as they did Afghanistan, leaving a power vacuum that was filled by the Taliban, which initially was seen as a good thing, as they restored some order to a country that was shamefully left by the US and the USSR in a state of chaos.

If the US had wanted to help they should have negotiated with the Taliban who were desperately seeking International recognition before 9/11. Bombs don't solve anything. I wonder how many women and children our bombs have killed in that country. Karzai has repeadedly asked the US to stop bombing their civilians.

I really hope Democrats don't make this their war, as Bush made Iraq, his. That would be as disastrous for those people as the Iraq has been for Iraqis. But the signs so far are not good. And I hope the anti-war movement doesn't think that a Dem war is somehow better than a Repub war, because it isn't.

[INDIA]

26. you just made that up didn't you? Link please? nt

[leftynyc]

34. That's nonsense

Do a little reading on what the Taliban was up to regarding women long before 9/11. Women were virtual slaves. I blame the Bush administration for plenty but the Taliban behaving worse than animals is not one of them.

[Marrah_G]

35. They escalated after we got there becase women started leaving their homes

Of course school girls wouldn't have acid thrown on them back then........THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED TO LEARN!

[Dorian Gray]

38. That's not true at all

these attacks on women in Afghanistan and rural Pakistan have been happening for a long time, well before the US invasion.

[JonQ]

40. Too bad we can't go back to the good ol' days

when women were kept safe by never being allowed to leave the house. Unless of course they did something to displease their male owners, in which case they could be beaten without repercussions, or they were raped, in which case they could be executed as harlots, or they tried to escape, in which case they'd be tracked down and murdered.

Too bad they can't go back to that.

[maxsolomon]

17. maybe if there are no women in afganistan they'd be happy

bring them all here. leave the men there. it will be an islamist paradise!

yeah, half :sarcasm:

[pampango]

32. Now that is a good idea.

The Taliban would be able to focus much better on the men's work that they do without the "distraction" of women around to keep them from thinking clearly. ;) And the women get to live somewhere where they are treated like human beings.

[Marrah_G]

36. I think we should allow any woman there to seek asylum here.

[Dorian Gray]

39. I agree with you

I'd love to see that happen and many women take us up on the offer.

[wroberts189]

21. This is so sad ..defenseless girls ..how cowardly. n/t

[wroberts189]

22. This is the world the pubs envision for us all.

Glad we are rid of them.

[Turbineguy]

23. What about this idea:

Allow Women in these types of places to move to where they are appreciated. Then let the idiots left over die off.

[ohio2007]

24. Two schoolgirls blinded in acid attack in Afghanistan

soft targets

Girls were forbidden to attend school under the Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when U.S.-led forces removed them from power.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan condemned the incident, as well as a suicide bombing that occurred near a government building hours later that killed and wounded several civilians, including women and children.


http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/afghanistan.acid.attack/

[superconnected]

28. I can't imagine what kind of animal would do that to any human let alone children.

[cambie]

29. power

Our fundies seem comparatively harmless for one reason. They DON'T have the power, see reply #11. We don't fear religious rule because we have never had to live under it. Check some history. The founding fathers knew very well what it was about when they insisted on the separation of church and Power. It came way too close in the last election.

[DU GrovelBot]

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