And Now The CIA

Two days ago, I was angry at the Pope. Now it is the turn of the CIA...

It has been revealed that the CIA has been using other methods than "just torture" to gain intelligence information in Afghanistan. So far so good: if torture is "let go" in favor of more humane means of obtaining information in the fight against terrorism, I am all for it... However, should I really be all for it when I learn that the new "will-make-them-talk" weapon/method is the little blue pill? That is to say, Viagra!

The CIA has been distributing the miracle "virility" pill to elderly Afghan tribe leaders whose manhood (and therefore authority) was at stake, in an effort to win them to their side. The effects of the blue pill have been thoroughly described and the side effects (heart attack amongst others) explained. It is said that the elders' health was even examined before the pill was actually prescribed (Prescribed by who? The CIA has doctors on call in Kabul?). The elders came back a few days later, happy and smiling, asked for more pills and gave information in exchange.
Now obviously they will not give inaccurate information because there could happen a sudden "shortage" of the miraculous pill...

So why am I appalled?

As a woman, I feel that once again the true victims are other women. Women were victims of the Taliban, deprived of the right to an education, to work for those who were educated at the time the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Under the Taliban, women truly became invisible. They were forced to wear the burqa from head to toe. It even had a threaded "barbed wire" in front of their face. Women were reduced to being the sexual slaves of one man, 4 to a man to be precise. Some were "sold out" by their parents, especially the young ones to the older men. They were exposed to the ire of jealous older women in the harem and to constant "legal rape" -at best if they were of age and not consenting- or "legal pedophilia" -at worst if they were under the age of 18... Notwithstanding that the Taliban's definition of "legal age" was probably 12: if you have seen the movie "Osama" (no relation to the terrorist), you know what I mean. If you have not, then it's time to rent it and do not forget the box of Kleenex.

The current "new" Afghan constitution defines the legal age to marry (and have sex) as 18. But is the new constitution retroactive? Are all the little girls sacrificed to the Taliban's dogmas now free to go back to their parental abode or to live on their own if they so desire? Or are they still metaphorically and in truth jailed, forever married to Viagra-sex crazed old Afghan tribe leaders?

As a woman, my heart weeps for all these other women who have endured enough wars (since 1979 with the Soviet invasioon, remember?), enough wounds, enough losses and who now have to endure endless nights of erectile fixation by aging, loveless, and imposed upon husbands?

Of course the CIA does not seem to care that women will be, -once again, once more-, the first victims of the eternal fight against terrorism... Must be a "male" thing!