Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
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“We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you.”
And this is what we’re fighting for in Iraq – why we’ve sacrificed thousands of our finest young men and women. To bring this kind of democracy to the Middle East.
Has to make you feel good. You know, that we’re losing kids, and spending ourselves into a Great Depression in addition, so that Islamic extremists can enforce this archaic BS with the force of law.
And doing so, apparently, at the expense of dozens of lives. In Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, 126 women were murdered last year for violating Islamic teachings or other such nonsense.
And the police there are basically powerless to do anything to stem the tide of stupidity in that respect.
Powerless – or not interested.
I say that because it seems clear that the Iraqi government, if we can call it that, has shown basically no interest in taking even the most elementary steps toward assuming responsibility for the well-being of its people. And that the Iraqi people similarly are not interested in working to secure their own futures. Both are more than willing to let us come in and do the heavy lifting for them, and blame us when things don’t end up working out.
It was bad enough when the militants on all sides of the civil war that we may one day want to officially acknowledge were shooting and suicide-bombing each other into obliviion – because militants tend to be males, and males, being males, also tend to be jackasses when it comes to engaging in these kinds of antisocial behaviors.
But now it’s getting serious. They’re killing women – professionals, mothers, college students.
Somebody tell me what we’re still doing there …
Please …
Chris Graham is the executive editor of The New Dominion.
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