Not 'the "bravest woman in Afghanistan"'

That's Brian Platt's view, at The Canada-Afghanistan Blog, of Malalai Joya:

Brave Women

Malalai Joya is now touring the Vancouver area with her new book, "A Woman Among Warlords". (I'm not going to link to it.) In general, she receives fawning press coverage. You'll often see her quoted as the "bravest woman in Afghanistan", which is apparently what the BBC dubbed her.

I went to a presentation of hers on Friday afternoon [Nov. 13], and this is her message: Canadians troops need to leave now, the status of women is worse than ever, and the current government under Karzai is just as bad as the Taliban government was. There is no hope for the future until the United Nations and NATO leave Afghanistan alone. I'm not simplifying anything; that's all she says, over and over again.

So what is Joya's solution for Afghanistan after international soldiers leave? That's a good question!

In fact, at the presentation she was asked what would prevent the Taliban from taking over after a NATO/UN withdrawal. Instead of answering the question, she proceeded into a long speech about how terrible the situation is right now. So I put up my hand and demanded she answer the question. This led to a long, angry exchange between the two of us that lasted about 10 minutes, at which point I was told to shut up by the "antiwar" organizers of the event.

Considering that Malalai Joya, rabble.ca, stopwar.ca, and Simon & Schuster have a book to sell, we're going to be hearing a lot from the "bravest woman in Afghanistan" over the next little while...

Read on for the brave women. Plus more from Terry Glavin:

An Encounter With The Latest Poster Girl For Dizzy, Bourgeois Vanity.
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It is only in "the west" that she serves any purpose. She can be summoned as a sort of celebrity spokesmodel for that caste of the west's rich liberals who have a weird need to believe the lie that there is something "feminist" or "progressive" in the narcissistic, reactionary isolationism they have adopted as the defining mark of their own political virtue. It's the reason why so much effort is expended in building up a cult of celebrity around Joya. That's all that's going on here. It has absolutely nothing to do with what Afghan women want or need...