By Phyllis Chesler

When a woman friend of mine recently called to tell me that she had been offered a well paid position in Afghanistan I told her not to go. When she insisted, I said: “Alright then, you’d better get a gun, learn how to use it, and get psychologically prepared to shoot yourself in case you are captured but not instantly killed.” She was shocked, shocked. And so I continued: “But you might be easily disarmed. Better have a dentist implant a cyanide tablet, (or something more merciful), in your teeth so that you can opt out of the repeated rapes or the video-ed be-heading.” Now, she was silent and listening carefully. I continued. “You may not be held for ransom, so if you absolutely must go, I would request that your do-gooder work be carried out entirely within an American Army base — but please understand, they, too, have been successfully attacked.” … (Continue reading…)