Pacific Daily News from Agana Heights, Guam • 16

Perspective Other views U.S. bombing changes nothing so long as Afghan women remain unrepresented 0 CN CN 1 0) cf aJ a Cl America has to press for more representation from Afghan women at the table in Germany. Jayne Flores U.S. public reaction to ground-fighting to decide war finale The news coming out of Afghanistan in recent days is upbeat. The Taliban is on the run; the northern alliance is on the attack.

Almost no Americans are dying on the battlefield. The few U.S. casualties there have been blamed on accidents and friendly fire. It feels like this war is on cruise control. Brace yourself.

Marines are beginning to land near Kandahar, securing a forward base in disputed territory. Things may begin to look much different when American soldiers on the ground begin to carry the brunt of close-in fighting. American resolve is about to be tested. From the point of view of the people opposing the United Suites in Afghanistan, what has happened so far is a Soviet Union, using many thousand troops and friendly Afghans, put its clamps on much of Afghanistan for the better part of 10 years in the 1970s, but guerrillas from the mountains were able to turn the tide against them in the end. The mullahs of the Taliban and al-Qaida, and particularly terrorist sheik Osama bin Laden, persist in the belief that Amei leans have no taste for dying.

On the other hand, they claim death is the highest calling of their jihad. They are convinced that one bloody ambush that leaves dozens, maybe hundreds, of dead Americans will break public support for this war in the United States. This is why while running for the hills they still talk of having the upper hand. Fleeing has become as much a war tactic in Afghanistan as attacking. Past disasters Something is wrong with this picture.

In Germany, 25 delegates representing four different groups of Afghans are sitting down at a table, trying to work out a peaceful form of government for a country that has lived war for the past 20 years. Only two of the 25 delegates are women. Yet women comprise 60 percent of Afghanistans population. Each of the leaders of those factions (all males) stressed that an interim authority would include women. Yet we havent heard a peep from the two women at the table.

In Afghanistan, womens rights groups are well aware of this chasm between rhetoric and reality, which is why you havent seen women out in the streets of Kabul burning their burqas just yet. A pretty 20-year-old recently embodied the hope and fear that mix in these womens souls when she lifted her veil to talk to a CNN reporter after excitedly signing up to go back to school. The young woman quickly covered up again when she saw two Afghan men approaching. The Taliban beat her for showing her face, she explained to the reporter. You dont know how much it was difficult for us.

The young lady is right we dont. But in the wake of Taliban rule, it sure looks like Afghan men have brainwashed their women into believing that this fear a while its not going to be automatic, says Smith. Women claim their own power in different ways, even in these Islamic regimes. RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is proof of that. Even though Afghan women were virtually entombed in their homes for five years, they still managed to create this organization and tell the world of their plight.

In bombing their country and leaving millions of Afghans homeless and starving in the dead of winter, I suppose we did gain some ground in the war against terrorism. The Taliban, host and supporter of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, is no longer in power. But the United States must not simply pat a factional government on the back and then leave the country. We did that once before. It turned out to be a deadly lesson.

America has to press for more representation from Afghan women at the table in Germany. Until women can once again take leadership roles in Afghanistan and choose whether to show their faces, our bombs and troops wont change anything in that country, including bin Ladens ability to run his terrorist network from a mountain cave. Jayne Flores, a resident of Sinajana, is a former investigative reporter. of showing their faces is religious tradition, regardless of who is in charge. A Washington Post report described an Afghan television stations all-male staff gathered around a VCR after the fall of the Taliban, excitedly watching old videos of female pop singers swaying their hips suggestively.

The station manager commented that people should have the right to watch them. But all of our wives wear burqas. It is our culture, and that is not going to change, the manager was quoted as saying. Dr. Seyda Smith, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Guam, is confident that women who were professionals before the Taliban took over will regain their positions in society and encourage younger women to do the same.

Smith, who is Muslim, says the education, the background and the socialization are there. Its going to take Real possibility of military tribunals takes issue of mutual consent status to forefront With new leadership, the draft Guam Commonwealth Act can be revisited Benigno Palomo They think the American public is their upper hand. They base this on our queasy reaction to dead Americans in Somalia; our jumpiness about a few quay-side protesteis in Port au Prince, Haiti; our yellow-ribboned relief at not having to press across the desert toward Baghdad, Iiaq, in the Persian Gulf war; and our readiness to sacrifice Afghan Northern Alliance fighters in the squimnshing around Kabul and Kunduz. Until Sept. 1 1 they may have had a point.

We have gotten used to push-button wars in the air and on the ground. The most famous modem military maneuver was U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopfs Hail Mary encircling movement that ended Desert Storm in 1991. That was an armored assault in which most American soldiers were encased in tons of speeding steel, using computerized weapons to roar across flat open terrain under a canopy of air power.

Modem guerrilla warfare training teaches terrorists to use cities and mountainous terrain to force mechanized armies to dismount in order to equalize the battle. Lots of people snickered and snarled when Delaware's Sen. Joe Biden talked about the need to understand it would be necessary to go mano-a-mano with the Taliban to roll them up in a way that would not cause more pioblems than already exist. He was right, though. We can carpet-bomb Afghanistan until its dust turns to dust, and every time the dust settles up will jump mujehedeen waving Kalashnikovs, heading for the mountains, freshly inspired because American bombing has killed a few more civilians.

Eventually we are going to have to clean out the mountain caves and strongholds. Until now, this has been a conventional war, regardless of what the Pentagon is calling it. But the Marines are landing in Afghanistan now and inevitably some are going to wind up mano-a-mano with the mujehedeen holed up in mountain caves. That's when we will find out how much we support unconventional warfare. Osama bin Laden thinks the American people, not the American soldiers, will cut and run.

Let's hope hes wrong. It has been confirmed by the Pentagon that Guam is under consideration for the site for detention and military tribunal for al-Qaida prisoners and other suspected terrorists. This possibility has put the jitters in some people because of the danger involved and that such would scare tourists away. This may be an example of one of the conflicting interests between the U.S. mainland and Guam which was made part of the 1987 Guam's Draft Commonwealth Act under Sec.

103 mutual consent. The strong stand then by our Guam political leaders on the mutual consent provision and two other sections Sec. 701 immigration; and Sec. 102, self-determination have caused the act to languish, if not die, for over a decade. With the present sad state of affairs, the draft Guam Commonwealth Act, understandably, is not uppermost in peoples minds.

The concerns of the average citizen are the horrendous financial condition of the island, unemployment and when will the tourists return. We can now add the possible military tribunal for terrorists on Guam. Basically, the 1987 draft Guam Commonwealth Act provides for changes in Guams relationship with the United States. The most important change being stfught is the change in Guams political legitimized by deliberating and accepting a form of government which require the peoples consent and approval. Most of the political leaders who handled the failed commonwealth negotiation with the U.S.

Congress are still with us today. It appears that with the possibility of a military tribunal for the terrorists here, this may be the best time for them to inform us whether the mutual consent provision is still non-negotiable or whether it should be deleted for the good of the country. Gov. Carl Gutierrez, through his radio address of Nov. 26, took a strong stand, saying that we as a community must accept some responsibility for belonging to the American family and welcome the tribunal.

There are others who feel the same way. Its been more than a decade since the act was first submitted to Congress, yet not even an official report as to its status has been presented to the people of Guam for their approval or disapproval. Perhaps new leadership is needed. With new leadership, the draft Guam Commonwealth Act can be revisited, to especially address the three stumbling blocks of mutual consent, immigration and self-determination. Benigno Palomo, a local scholar, writes this column weekly.

5f -f status from an unincorporated U.S. territory to a U.S. commonwealth under a partnership agreement. The act includes provisions on trade, immigration, transportation, land return, protection of individual rights, ocean resources, federal financial assistance, taxation, labor and the courts. The proposed changes will give Guam greater self-government and new source of revenue.

But the three issues on which Guams official negotiators refuse to negotiate have placed us where we were 100 years ago a community without a final political status of our choice. While the United States has been very generous in providing the citizens of Guam with American citizenship and other benefits which accrue to the separate states, without Guams contributing to the national treasury, its political idbals and aspirations have not been Norman A. Lockman is associate i i editor of The Newt, I I YW.