The usual well-meaning Westerners are requesting signatures for a letter condemning the malevolent, heartless, and over-the-top Taliban-style misogyny in Afghanistan.

Really? A letter?

I am specifically referring to the recent massive earthquake in which the mainly male teams of rescuers refused to physically "touch" crying, bleeding, broken, and dying, women, who were buried in rubble; therefore, they only rescued men. The Taliban does not allow men to physically "touch" women to whom they are not related by blood or by marriage. (Except for Afghan female political prisoners whom they easily rape, torture, and murder.

According to the Taliban, only women can rescue female earthquake victims and there are far fewer women who are part of experienced and physically able teams of rescuers. Remember: the Taliban, (supported by Qatar, the same country that supports Hamas), does not allow girls to attend schools beyond the sixth grade, mandates them to wear hijab or full-on burqas in public, forbids them to travel even short distances without a male escort, to engage in sports, or practice weight-lifting, self-defense, or emergency medicine. The Taliban's view of woman is endemic to Afghanistan and to tribal Islamic culture.

Thus, what momentarily "shocks" us in the West is simply the way things are--and have always been--in many Muslim countries. Forced child marriage, forced veiling, polygamy, domestic violence, honor killing, purdah, (sequestration), child sex slavery, homosexual child sex slavery, daughter-beating, daughter-in-law beating, and wife-beating--are all normalized. The status of women is unbelievably and heartbreakingly low.

I tell some stories of my time in Kabul when I was held captive. You may find them in my book, "An American Bride in Kabul." In 1961, I once visited a maternity hospital and as my former Afghan husband and I were having tea with the medical director, an angry and distraught man broke in on us. He was yelling his head off. It seems that this man was from a distant province and after his wife had been in labor for more than two days, he had paid "good money" to bring her to the hospital in Kabul; that trip had taken almost another another two days. And now, his wife--and their unborn child--were both dead. He wanted compensation from the hospital because now he had to pay money for a new wife--and also had to pay for his dead wife's funeral.

How will a mere letter abolish such views? And this particular event took place long before the Taliban rose to power.

A letter will not change the Taliban or the Afghan tribal culture that has always, always enabled some form of woman-hatred and woman-torture. More important: These same letter writing people have spent years condemning America for having tried to change, help, improve, "Westernize" this very culture. ("Westernization," including offering anti-polio vaccines, is experienced over there as being converted to Christianity. I kid you not.

I admit: America also funded the defeat of Soviet Russia and the inevitable rise of the Taliban. The Russians did try to improve the lot of the poor and of women in terms of education. Then a new enemy arose.

For 20 years, perhaps misguidedly, perhaps with impossibly noble intentions, America and our European allies, searched for Bin Laden (who, all the time had been sheltered in Abbotobad, nearby nuclear Pakistan). While there, American and European military forces and humanitarian aid workers of all kinds, changed course. They opened schools for girls and women. Afghan women became doctors, lawyers, judges, businesswomen, political leaders, artists, broadcasters, etc. Women also opened shelters for battered women and for survivors of rape. One heroic Marine tried to rescue a chained boy sex-slave, who was held by a Taliban leader. No good deed goes unpunished and our Marine was, in due course, punished.

This was supposed to teach us that we cannot interfere with the local customs. Our view of "human rights" is foreign to Afghanistan.

Instead of honoring these Western forces, the usual suspects--the letters writers--condemned the West as evil blunderers, some of whom were indeed "on the take." (Yes, of course, there were war profiteers among the saints; there always are.)

Guess what? Such barbarians is precisely what Israel is fighting right now. The elite at the Venice Film Festival cheered for such barbarians. (And by the way, the story of Hind al Rajab, the most sacred of martyrs, may turn out to be far more complicated than an example of Israeli evil. The matter is still being investigated). Such Taliban-style barbarians are currently engaged in a demographic Jihad in Europe and may soon turn Europe into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Gaza.

There definitely are Muslims who can and have assimilated into the West--and who came here precisely in order to do so. Some are religious, many are not. Together with Mandy Sanghera, a Sikh in London, I co-led a grassroots team which was privileged to have rescued nearly 400 women from Afghanistan in 2021. Many of them are, all things considered, doing very well in America. Mandy was awarded an Order of the British Empire for her work in such areas.

When will the West wake up to the fact that not all people, and not all cultures are the same? That certain cultures will never change their views of women--or of much else.

That the attempt to "help" them to do so has never succeeded. That it is not dishonorable to withdraw from a campaign to do something that is impossible.

If I had the power, I would airlift only the women out of Afghanistan--but most of them would never leave their sons, husbands, and fathers behind. Worse: Most of them would also bring their internalization of woman-hatred and their fear and disapproval of the West right along with them.

Such conclusions give me no joy but please think about what I am saying.