Irshad Manji No Longer Believes in the Afghan Mission

Reading this piece by Irshad Manji caught me by surprise. One of the great voices of women's rights in the Islamic world thinks it may be too difficult to reform Afghanistan:

There was a time when I believed. With every fibre of my feminist Muslim being, I believed in our Afghanistan mission. No longer.

On Sunday, the Taliban assassinated another Afghan women's rights activist. It happened only days after the world learned of yet one more anti-female statute that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had signed into law. Critics accused him of caving in to warlords ahead of the coming elections. Only when Western voices amplified the protests of liberal Afghans did Mr. Karzai put the law "under review." Human-rights advocates called it a triumph.

The victory, such as it is, will be short-lived. I'm increasingly convinced that Afghanistan's problem lies deeper than a recalcitrant Taliban or a gutless central government. It's a problem so profound that for the first time I have to ask: Should our troops just get out?

When somebody as optimistic as Manji thinks reform is impossible, then we have to conclude that she's right.

This leaves us only one reason to be in Afghanistan: To ensure that they don't build a base for world wide terrorism. This certainly is important but becomes moot when they have these bases right next door in Pakistan.

Why do we continue this mission over there when it's not working?

A Courageous Woman

Irshad Manji is an admirable free speecher and reformer. As a Muslim, she has the courage to stand up to dogma and orthodoxy in her religion. (A place that does not put out the welcome mat to a shit-disturber woman. There are death threat and security issues that she has to live with everyday.) This is definitely somebody to root for and I hope she succeeds. The Globe & Mail has an update of what's she's doing:

It would be far more helpful - to Palestinians, if nobody else - for Muslims to ask questions out loud. We have relied far too long on self-appointed "higher-ups" to do the interpreting for us. We have given them the ability to abuse passages and power. We Muslims have forgotten Islam's own tradition of independent thinking: ijtihad.
...

Of course, most people - not just Muslims - could use more independent thinking. This point grabbed me at the Gaza office of Mohammed al-Hindi. As we left, I asked his translator why Dr. al-Hindi would give me an on-camera interview, knowing that he could not find a single verse to prove his claim that the Koran justifies suicide operations.

The translator replied: "He assumed you were just another dumb Western journalist." Reporters from the West had never asked this veteran terrorist the most basic of questions: Where is the evidence for what you do in God's name?

Maybe it's time that the media joined Muslims in embracing ijtihad. I would be happy to supply both groups with security tips.

That last line has a wallop to it. Who has real courage to stand up for principles? Easy targets like criticizing American evangelicals is not courage.