Code Pink, fearful of setbacks for women, rethinks call for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan

Known for disruptive tactics and distinctive costumes, Code Pink was founded in 2002 to oppose the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It has since broadened its reach, becoming an all-purpose protest group on issues as diverse as Wall Street's executive pay excesses and the Bush administration's Alberto Gonzales.

As for tactics, Code Pink members have been kicked out of many a congressional hearing, including one where a Code Pink protester shoved bloodied hands at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Now the left-wing activist group is rethinking its call for a deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The reason: After a week spent in Kabul talking to female Afghan leaders, the group now understands their fears that a resurgent Taliban would probably target women and girls who have made tremendous progress since U.S. troops routed the fundamentalist militant group in 2002.

"We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban," Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor. "So many people are saying that if the U.S. troops left, the country would collapse. ... A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider" a deadline for troop withdrawal.

Code Pink says it continues to oppose sending fresh troops to Afghanistan and will advocate for more humanitarian funding. What might get relaxed is its call for an immediate pullout. "We would leave with the same parameters of an exit strategy, but we might perhaps be more flexible about a timeline," said Benjamin.

With President Obama weighing Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more U.S. troops, the White House, often decried by Republicans as a hotbed of liberalism, could find itself with more allies on the right on this issue than on the left.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for one has signaled her reluctance to send new troops, saying recently, "I don't think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the country or in Congress."

But Code Pink's latest think could suggest that Democrats will give Obama a bit of room to maneuver on the issue.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press

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Comments

[amjustsayin]

obama needs support to lessen the blunt for unfulfilled promises.

soros needs obama to look good and gives him support "somehow"...

the most "outspoken" group against war now supports it...

soros funds pink code?

what elephant???

[D]

FTA:

Now the left-wing activist group is rethinking its call for a deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. After a week spent in Kabul talking to female Afghan leaders, the group now understands their fears that a resurgent Taliban would probably target women and girls who have made tremendous progress since U.S. troops routed the fundamentalist militant group in 2002.

Perhaps next time, Code Pink will hold off on making calls for deadlines until they have all their facts.

[chiefpayne]

Fearful of setbacks for women???!!!

They sure as heck didn't worry about that when they harrassed Condoleezza Rice!

But they're afraid now "that a resurgent Taliban would probably target women and girls" in Afghanistan...but they didn't worry about that in Iraq!

Come on, be honest! You don't want to protest this because there is a black, liberal president in the White House.

[JamesJ]

Apparently there were no women in Afghanistan until Obama became president.

[megapotamus]

Whoah, what? War is NOW the answer? Well, it was bound to happen. It just goes to show that the peaceniks are not acting on principle (except Cindy Sheehan, camping now at 1602 Pennsylvania Ave) but rather to forward their own agenda and thwart that of the hated Right, more domestically than in foreign policy. Was Bush's Afghanistan campaign any more or less beneficial for womyn than Obama's? What ever has occurred? Is it no more than YOUR guy is in the hotseat? Media (sic) Benjamin, call your office!

[Chief1942]

Code Pink is fairly representative of most such ideologically blinded groups. They simply cannot see past their blind hatrid for all things American. That millions of women in most of the Middle East are just now sensing some minor movement towards equality within their cultures is totally lost on these Leftist pinkos. They scream human rights all the while they and their ilk are one of the biggest impediments towards such an effort. If anyone actually believes freedom, for anyone, is free, then may I be the first to burst your utopian balloon.

[Dworkin]

Plus, think of all the wives, girlfriends, daughters and moms who'll get beat up by troops once they come home.

[JTHC75]

How convenient that they're coming around to actually educating themselves about the war in Afghanistan. It's only taken 7 years and a new Democratic administration to make them think beyond a kneejerk call for immediate pullout. What a joke these people are. For years they've been calling for "Peace!", but it's now apparent that the call was not based on evidence, logic, analysis, sound policy or principles, but rather the fact that there was a Republican at the helm.

[Kara]

So they finally GET IT!!!! Women have gained great ground in Iraq and Afghanistan because of our soldiers there. These kooky babes are a little late.

[ChiefWiggum]

Do you all really believe the best way to encourage "ideologically blinded groups" to come to valid realizations about the world around them is to blast them when they actually do so?

The naysayers against Codepink should be glad that a group they disagree with - be it ideologically, tactially or for some other reason - has actually made an effort to reconsider their previous postion on a very important issue.

Allowing the oft mentioned (but seldom listened to) "facts on the ground" to moderate the groupthink that often pervades civic organizations should be greeted as a good thing! This should hold true for all groups, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them. This allows people to find common ground that is based on situations in the real world, or at least to begin considering common interests. If there is any other way proceed with the job of getting things done in the world, then I am not aware of it.

To attack a group because they have moderated their position accomplishes nothing except two simple things: 1. It acts as a way to punish the group for daring to rethink their own positions while allowing the accuser to feel that they have made a "good point" by criticizing the apparent hypocrisy of an ideological foe (explaining the behavior of the doctrinally "pure" when faced with dissension amongst their own).
2. It reinforces the accuser as an adept of blind partisanship himself, unable to accept any silver lining that may otherwise force him to consider his own view of the group.

That's all.

[SFanarchist]

Code Pink is a front group - get it straight!

It is very simple... Susie "Medea" Benjamin and her fake-feminist sycophants can verbally assault just about anyone they please including Rice, Rumsfeld, members of Congress and even the POTUS and not spend a single night in jail. And of course you get to see their actions on the TV news and read about it in the newspaper.

Meanwhile the folks in We Are Change are confronting the elite directly while receiving no mainstream news coverage and landing in jail on a regular basis.

While I do not share the politics of either group, it is VERY clear who is real and who is fake.

[George LoBuono]

There can be no "win" by the US in Afghanistan. Instead, look for how Afghanis can resolve their dilemma. Obviously, they can't withdraw from historical evolution and return to a non-technological caliphate. Women must be equal, but the last election fraud was like the Ky and Thieu frauds in Vietnam: no hope of a real government that way. The US must say it will leave, allow breathing room for the people, then support alternatives to a proxy war gaggle of troll-like warlords. The US itself rose from the mud of corruption, also, slavery and aristocracy. Afghanistan can evolve more quickly in the 21st century but can only do so under honest, sovereign conditions. The Sauds support the Taliban, as they did Bin Laden and worse. So, part of the problem is in the US, also. Why support a backward family dictatorship, a monarchy, when ALL of the human future is non-monarchical? If we proceed from order we will arrive there.

[sglovjoh]

This back peddle by Code Pink only took 8 years for them to figure out.

It just goes to show how low the IQ's are for the women leaders in the loony organization Code Pink.

What a waste of energy by Code Pink protesting the Afghanistan war. They could have been feeding the homeless.

[silqworm]

This probably means that Code Pink has always been a globalist front group. If we don't lose the War soon, the dollar will collapse, Obama will be compared to Robert Mugabe, and people like Medea will be exposed as Brave New World CIA Gloria Steinham dupes.

[Adam]

At least they did something none of the other people saying they know what to do in Afghanistan have done - they went to Afghanistan and tried to find out what they want. If only everyone who thinks their opinion is the only answer would do the same, I might start paying attention to them.