I think there were substanial efforts to justify the war in the name of feminism, right from the get go, and I remember a substanial number of female media personalities jumping on the band wagon almost immediatly in these terms. I don't think its right to make the generalization about the feminist movement as a whole on these terms, since there was also substantial opposition to the invasion from feminists as well, this though was largely ignored in the mainstream press, in favour of those women who were putting forward the idea that the liberation of women would be a natural result of our benign intervention.

That happened more or less right away, as the invasion was taking place.

I was at a meeting organized by some "lefty" organizations where Sally Armstrong (Human Rights Activist, Film Maker & Author) proudly stood on stage and anounced: "Finally, sisters, I can say we have won one!" speaking in support of the invasion of Afghanistan. That was in early December 2001.

To my mind this was nothing less than the recasting of the missionizing spirit in the name of the "white woman's burden". Thankfully several women stood up to question her construction of what was going on.

But this usage of the best ideals of the "international human rights" movement, is not simply limited to Feminism. I feel pretty much the same about a number of human rights campaigners and organizations who seem to see fit to insert the greater good of humanity as side benefit to our imperial campaigns. I would name, among those, "War Child Canada" and even "Human Rights Watch" to a certain extent, both of which became extremely politcized during the Balkan wars of the 90's.

Clearly, women's rights have been manipulated as justification for this war, pretty much from the get go. But to say that Feminists or the women movement as a whole backed the campaign, is clearly wrong as well.