‘War feminism' helped doom USAID
War feminism stands for the belief that ideas of women's liberation espoused by Western feminists can be imposed on other societies via occupation and development aid. The visible and public failure to deliver women's liberation to Afghanistan delegitimized USAID in the eyes of Americans, who have decided to turn away from the idea of development aid altogether.
In 2001, war feminists from both the Republican and Democratic parties vehemently supported the U.S. going to war with Afghanistan on behalf of Afghan women. This included First Lady Laura Bush, who famously announced in a November 2001 radio address that the U.S. would 'liberate' Afghan women.
Feminist leaders from the nonprofit Feminist Majority Foundation supported the war, even though Afghan women's groups had come out against it. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all supported the war-feminist agenda in Afghanistan.
In the two decades that followed, USAID programs became the vehicle for this goal. The agency gave out hundreds of millions of dollars for empowerment programs that ranged from running competitions to the airlifting of fabrics and sewing machines. In 2018, the agency launched 'PROMOTE,' one of the largest programs geared toward women's empowerment in the agency's history, which aimed to help 75,000 Afghan women with internships and job training. The program's price tag was $280 million, most of which went to U.S. contractors and failed to reach Afghan women altogether.
A 2018 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction noted serious flaws in this expensive program. In certain cases, women who had attended a single workshop were noted as having benefited from the program. In other cases, the metrics for deliverables were lowered such that only 20 women out of the 3,000 job training participants would have had to find a job with the Afghan civil service for the program to be considered successful.
The report notes that only 55 women could truly be said to have benefited from the program, a far cry from the 75,000 it was designed to help. For its part, in its formal response, USAID insisted that it had helped 50,000 Afghan women with training and support for skills so that they could do advocacy for women's rights and start their own businesses. Neither USAID nor the Inspector General report made any mention of the fact that the problem may has lay with the Westerners who believed that a one-size-fits-all model of women's liberation could be exported to another country and delivered on the back of the military.
The waste of these millions of dollars was obvious to U.S. taxpayers when the Taliban marched back into Kabul in August 2021 at the heels of a hurried U.S. withdrawal and reinstated all the draconian and misogynistic laws that America had promised to eradicate forever. Within months, women whom the U.S. could not liberate in 20 years were forced back to their homes. Girls' schools beyond fifth grade were shuttered and women were not allowed to be outside their homes without an accompanying male guardian.
Next door in Pakistan, where tribal areas were being bombed by U.S. Predator drones, war feminists again tried to export their ideas of women's empowerment via USAID. An Office of Management and Budget report from 2013 reviewed the performance of a grant of $40 million dollars made to a small Karachi-based NGO with the goal of 'improving the lives of Pakistani women.'
The report stated that the program had 'less than maximum impact' and the program's grants had little lasting effect on the lives of women in Pakistan. Some of the projects undertaken by the grants were just as superfluous as the ones in Afghanistan. One example was a radio program to raise awareness about gender violence — a noble goal in itself, but hardly the most effective allocation of funds in a country that ranks near to last in the global gender gap index. Nor was any consideration given to organizational capacity or the predictable issues that occurred when a small organization with a paltry budget is suddenly granted $40 million.
In many cases, funds disbursed by USAID did provide much needed and essential services. But war feminism — and the 'liberation' of Afghan women that it made a goal — delegitimized USAID in the eyes of the public. By the time Kabul fell, it was obvious that ideas of freedom cooked up by feminists in D.C. could not be translated to the Afghan context. The large amounts of unaccounted funds also exposed corruption within the organization and the intransigence of bureaucrats who refused to acknowledge failures or alter the direction of the organization when these failures were repeatedly pointed out.
The end of USAID is inextricably connected to the idea that 'women's liberation' — defined by technocratic bureaucrats as women receiving job training or sewing machines — could not cover up the ignominies of warfare. The eagerness of war feminists to export liberation via bombs has left Afghan women more vulnerable and oppressed than ever before.
The Trump administration and its supporters have lobbed many criticisms at the nearly defunct organization, but few admit that USAID's failure also shows that moral legitimacy for war cannot be purchased via soft power costumed as women's liberation.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
33 minutes ago
Over 4 years since the Taliban took Kabul, millions of Afghans have been sent back to a country in crisis
Over the course of the past four years since the Taliban took control of Kabul, plunging Afghanistan into a humanitarian crisis and stripping away women's rights, millions of Afghans who initially fled have now been expelled from Iran and Pakistan, according to the United Nations. Over 1.5 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan so far this year, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM). 700,000 Afghan migrants have returned to Afghanistan from Iran this year as of June 2025, according to the UN. Some have never set foot in Afghanistan, while others haven't been in the country since fleeing it decades ago, said Arafat Jamal, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Afghanistan. Russia became the first country to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's official government, but other countries have not done so. Many of the returnees arrived at the Afghan border in buses 'bewildered, disoriented, and tired and hungry,' according to Jamal. Earlier this year, Iran ordered all of the estimated 2 million undocumented Afghans -- out of the estimated 6 million total Afghans in Iran -- to leave the country. Since the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, UN agencies have seen a large increase in the number of Afghans crossing the border from Iran back into Afghanistan, Jamal said. This increase of Afghans leaving Iran came as the government of Iran intensified their campaign against Afghans, accusing many of them of espionage, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran. Pakistan has also accelerated the expulsion of Afghan refugees within its borders since April. More Afghans are expected to leave Pakistan after the government of Pakistan confirmed it won't renew Proof of Registration cards for Afghans, according to the IOM. Some experts warn that these actions constitute a violation of the principle of non-refoulement – meaning not forcing refugees or asylum seekers to return to a country where they may be subject to persecution – in possible violation of international law. In previous years, UNHCR could provide $2,000 in cash assistance to returnee Afghan families, enabling them to build autonomy and get back on their feet once they returned to their home country. In the past few months, cuts in foreign aid funding have decreased that budget to just $156 per family, 'simply enabling a person to survive for a week or two on the basic necessities,' Jamal said. Once inside Afghanistan, returnees' face difficult conditions back at home. In addition to the Taliban restricting women's rights by banning their movements outside of the home without a male guardian and by restricting their access to education past age 12, Afghanistan is also facing climate change and environmental challenges -- around a third of Afghans don't have access to basic drinking water, according to Unicef. The World Food Program reported that 3.1 million Afghans are on the brink of starvation. Zahra, a journalist living in Afghanistan who asked ABC News to use only her first name due to fear of persecution by the Taliban, said that Afghans have done their best to support returnees, despite having very few resources themselves. "Even if I have one extra pillow, I should give it to others," she told ABC News. 'It's enough if we eat lunch and skip dinner to give this meal to another.' In the last several months, international humanitarian aid funding has been slashed by previously committed allies. In April 2025, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction announced that it was cutting nearly all assistance programs to Afghanistan. Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the U.S. had been Afghanistan's largest donor, according to SIGAR. Soon after the U.S.'s April announcement, the U.K. -- another major donor to humanitarian initiatives in the country -- reduced its aid to Afghanistan by 19%. More than 400 health facilities, 400 acute malnutrition centers, and 300 clinics for survivors of gender based violence have shut down as a result, according to the UN. Zahra said she has witnessed the devastating consequences of these facilities' closures. She said there was a pregnant woman who needed medical help but couldn't go to her local clinic, which had shuttered due to aid cuts. The expecting mother could not immediately secure a male chaperone to travel to the nearest open clinic, as mandated by the Taliban, Zahra said. As a result, according to Zahra, both the woman and her baby lost their lives. 'You just cut the aid to kill people slowly,' she told ABC News. 'It is like you're firing and shooting at humans.' Now, as millions of additional Afghans return to a country already facing multiple humanitarian crises, many international NGOs are operating with inadequate funding to address the many issues in the country. UNHCR, for example, said it has less than a quarter of the funding it needs to address the emergency situation in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. Additionally, the International Rescue Committee has had to suspend some of their education services in Afghanistan. These international bodies are calling for an increase in funding and support. "More humanitarian aid is urgently needed to protect and assist Afghans forced to flee," the UNHCR wrote on its website. 'What's happening in Afghanistan are crimes against humanity – crimes against the whole of humanity – which should shock our conscience and provoke action by all,' said Richard Bennett, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan. "It is not time to give up."
USA Today
34 minutes ago
- USA Today
Americans are shifting away from wanting kids. I'm worried for my generation.
Today's culture often celebrates personal freedom and career milestones. What about raising a family? It's the question we all eventually get asked in our lives, several times. 'What do you see yourself eventually doing?' As a young person still figuring some things out, you can imagine how often I get that one, whether it's from my fellow classmates, my professors or my friends' parents. My first instinct is to talk about the family I hope to raise, but I know the question is likely about my professional ambitions instead. It's understandable – a career can certainly provide one with a sense of duty and purpose. Indeed, 71% of American adults state that having an enjoyable job is extremely important for living a fulfilling life. But only 26% say the same about having children. Do Americans need to have more kids? This red state shows how to help families. | Opinion We are seeing a culture shift away from family The lack of priority given to one's future family is deeply worrying nowadays. It reflects a larger cultural shift: Fewer Americans are getting married and having children. Why is this the case, especially when almost half of Americans agree that fewer people choosing to have kids would negatively impact the country? Some cite affordability, environmental concerns and bad memories of their own childhood. Most Americans ages 18-49 who doubt they'll reproduce, however, say they simply don't want to. People increasingly view becoming a parent as burdensome, and while it is true that raising a kid demands hard work and sacrifice, America's aversion to starting a family has its consequences. I love being a mom. Why do many progressives tear down motherhood? | Opinion Recently released data shows that the fertility rate in the United States has dropped to a record low of less than 1.6 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This means we are trending toward a future with more retirees and fewer working-age adults, which threatens long-term economic growth, increases pressure on social services and erodes support networks for the elderly. We can look at South Korea as a warning, which had a fertility rate of 0.75 in 2024, and that wasn't even the lowest on record. Over the next 60 years, that nation's population is projected to halve, and by this point, people ages 65 and older will make up approximately 58% of the population. Health care and pension costs are expected to soar, and a rise in lonely, isolated deaths is a concern. I'm concerned about what young people want Just a few months ago, during Harvard University's finals season, I overheard a conversation between two other students at the library. One of them was saying he was excited for his post-grad life because he'd be making money on Wall Street, drinking and getting high with his friends, and entering a string of noncommitted relationships. For him, that was the reason he was attending college for four years. That mindset, although disappointing to hear now, will do more than disappoint us later. It points to a grim, childless future. Today's culture often celebrates personal freedom and career milestones, while less glamorous moments that give life incredible meaning are pushed to the side. Of course, this isn't to say that everyone should have or want kids – there are other goals worth pursuing. But for countless young people, parenthood remains an overlooked path. It isn't a detour from your career; it can be one of the most rewarding vocations. But there remains hope. In the United States, parenthood is associated with happiness and fulfillment. The Institute for Family Studies finds that 37% of married parents between 18 and 50 years old describe themselves as very happy, compared with 26% of married nonparents. Among unmarried adults, 16% of parents report being very happy, compared with 14% of nonparents. Additionally, while many acknowledge the stress and fatigue that come with raising children, 80% of parents say it is enjoyable all or most of the time, and 82% of parents believe it is rewarding. Yes, parenting is difficult. But young people these days rarely hear about the joys of raising children. Instead, the ideal life is often portrayed as one with total freedom and zero responsibility – one that is inevitably childless. Elizabeth Choi is an intern for USA TODAY Opinion and a student at Harvard University.
Newsweek
35 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Bush Family Makes Moves to Reboot Political Dynasty
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Bush family could revitalize their political dynasty as Jonathan Bush, cousin of former President George W. Bush, considers a run for governor in Maine. Why It Matters Bush-style conservatism has been on the outs in the modern GOP, as President Donald Trump's brand of politics has dominated the party over the past decade since his first presidential bid in 2016. In 2022, George P. Bush's defeat in the Texas attorney general GOP primary was viewed as the potential end of the decades-long political dynasty. But Jonathan Bush has taken steps to launch a gubernatorial campaign in Maine, a Democratic-leaning state with an independent streak, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. What To Know Maine Governor Janet Mills' retirement at the end of her term leaves open the Maine gubernatorial office, which has been held by both Democrats and Republicans over the years. Jonathan Bush is taking early steps to prepare for a potential gubernatorial run. Former President Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush held a fundraiser for Jonathan Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, this week, reported The Bangor Daily News. He has also launched an exploratory committee for governor and, earlier this year, began a nonprofit "Maine for Keeps" that works on issues like housing and the economy. His potential run could be a chance to rekindle the Bush dynasty. But how successful a comeback for the Bush family in the Trump era could be remains to be seen, as Jonathan Bush would have to contend with a new iteration of the GOP and a state where Democrats typically have an advantage if he decides to run. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty Is There Room for a Bush in the Trump GOP? Ronald Schmidt, professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, told Newsweek that there are still Republicans in the state who would be open to supporting a Bush. "There are still Republicans in Maine who have fond memories of the Bush family, and some who support an idea of moderate, or at least non-Trumpish, conservatism who could well be open to such a candidate, and there are Republicans who hope to follow Trump's political path. I don't think it's been established yet which faction is stronger," he said. Mainers "like the image of themselves as independents," he said. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, but not by an overwhelming margin. What will be key in the gubernatorial race is candidates' ground game and mobilization, he said. "As for Jonathan Bush, his family's support, in regard to fundraising, name recognition, and endorsement are nothing to discount. And, of course, the Bush family has been skillful at moving between many GOP factions, including the right-wing," he said. Dan Shea, a professor of political science at Colby College, told Newsweek that a divide remains between Bush-style and Trump-style Republicans in Maine. "Republicans in state are really roughly divided between the more Bush-like traditional Republican, the more Yankee Republica, and the Trump-LePage Republican. My best guess is about 50-50," he said, referring to the state's former GOP Governor Paul LePage. While the Trump-like GOP faction may "not warm to a Bush super fast," there is still a "very large, pragmatic, centrist piece of the Maine electorate," Shea said. Republicans typically need to focus on fiscal conservatism, but carve out more moderate policy on social issues, to win in Maine, he said. The decision to hold a small fundraiser in Kennebunkport, a wealthy coastal town in the state's southernmost region, may not play well with some of the more rural, Trump Republicans, he said. "That he would have a fundraiser with just a handful of people in Kennebunkport, that doesn't play particularly well to much of rural Maine," he said. "Kennebunkport is very distinct. It's very different." Another challenge for Bush could be the general election, when he will face a Democratic candidate. Although the state has not elected consecutive governors from the same party for decades, the state has gotten bluer in recent years, he said. Mills handily won reelection in 2022, and while the state shifted a bit to Trump last November, it did so by a smaller margin than most other states, he said. Costas Panagopoulos, a Northeastern University political science professor, told Newsweek that many Americans are "skeptical" about political dynasties, but having that name recognition could be an advantage over other Republican candidates, particularly in a more crowded field. "The Bush family name still carries a lot of weight in places like Maine," he said. While the GOP has moved away from the Bush family legacy, there are still some Republican voters who are "uncomfortable with the direction of the Trump Republican Party" and look back more nostalgically at the Bush years, he said. A candidate like Jonathan Bush would have to balance winning over those independent, moderate voters while also appealing to GOP primary voters who are closer to Trump's style of politics, Panagopoulos said. However, Maine could be "solid ground" for a Bush revival because of historical support for more moderate candidates, he said. Republican Senator Susan Collins, viewed as the most moderate in the Senate, for instance, has won reelection in recent years despite the state's blue tint in other races. Brandon Rottinghaus,a political science professor at the University of Houston, told Newsweek that Bush-style politics are "like the anti-MAGA," and that the "tone and issue profile of most modern Republicans are different from the Bush family politics." "Republican primary audiences are now conditioned to a more aggressive breed of conservatism, one district from the Bush family political legacy," he said. Trump and the Bushes Have Complicated Relationship The relationship between former President Bush and Trump has been strained. The former president has not endorsed or vocally supported Trump, and he criticized the administration's gutting of USAID earlier this year. Trump has been more vocal in his attacks against Bush on topics including his handling of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and his foreign policy record during his time in the Oval Office. That divide has been a defining dynamic of Republican politics, as Bush and other more traditional conservatives have largely lost their grip on the GOP to Trump. His critiques of the Bushes go back more than a decade, with him writing that the U.S. needs "another Bush in office about as much as we need Obama to have a 3rd term" in a January 2013 post to X. Trump and Jeb Bush were also chief rivals during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when the two frequently traded barbs. A Gallup poll released earlier this year found that 93 percent of Republicans viewed Trump favorably, while 63 percent viewed Bush favorably. Among all Americans, however, Bush was viewed more favorably. Fifty-two percent of Americans viewed him favorably, compared to 48 percent who viewed Trump favorably. The poll surveyed 1,001 American adults from January 21 to January 27, 2025, and had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. If Jonathan Bush runs, he would be joining several other relatives of well-known politicians in the state. Both the son of Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and the daughter of Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, are already in the race for governor. Jonathan Bush's nonprofit "Maine for Keeps" highlights his support to help the state "build a sustainable, independent economy." The website also includes a "Wall of Shame" that calls attention to what he views as "straight-out mistakes with the implementation of government programs to upside-down rules and regulations that make it harder for Maine people to get ahead." What People Are Saying Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos told Newsweek: "Things for a Bush might have been very different before the Trump era, when the legacy of his cousin was more prominent in peoples' minds. Peoples' memories of the Bush presidency have now faded somewhat, and any criticism of George W. Bush or even HW Bush before that might pale in comparison to how people feel about Donald Trump and what is happening with Republican politics." A spokesperson for Jonathan Bush told The Bangor Daily News: "He's been fortunate to receive the support and counsel of Mainers from all over the state and all walks of life, and especially proud to have his family standing strongly by his side." Jonathan Bush wrote on the website for Maine for Keeps: "My family has been in Maine since the 1890s. My wife Fay's family has been here since the 1700s. Like so many others, we've chosen to make Maine our home and raise our children here because, quite simply, there is no better place to do that. The natural beauty, the town character, and the great people just can't be beat. "But what about our business environment? Sure it's stunningly beautiful and that helps attract people. We've also got a population of resilient, independent, hard-working citizens who have learned to adapt to whatever the next challenge may be." What Happens Next Jonathan Bush could announce his candidacy in the coming months. The Democratic primary, meanwhile, remains crowded with several prominent candidates in the race. The Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball both classify the race as being Likely Democratic.
