But who will have Shaaria first? France, buckling under Islamic pressure, or Iraq?

What is with these islamic nutters and their pathological hatred of women? No society that shutters away half the population is ever going to amount to anything. If the coalition backs away from confonting these losers out of some PC guilt, then this whole adventure will have been pointless.

#2 I agree. If we bow down to this, we might as well pull out now and save a few more Coalition lives.

I just don't understand why these people insist on turning the clock back 1400 years.

VDH has his usual clear-eyed take on things today. These folks have NOT been humiliated enough. We cannot hope to advance our agenda and our just cause in the ME until these backward populations have been broken down past the point of their own false pride, and then buiilt up again as partners.

They will never be our friends, partners, allies or what-have-you until they have been thoroughly disabused of the notion that their primitive tribal culture is of any value to them in terms of joining the civilized world.

I'll be thriiled to see them remove the blinders and become a people we can be proud to befriend. Until then, they (Iraqis, to begin with, and the rest of Arabia/Dar-al-Islam) must be taught that they have nowhere to go for progress and safety except the enlightened West (from which I exclude Frawnce and her toady-cousins.)

It is astonishing to me that the press, let alone the Coalition, take this "vote" seriously for a moment. How many women are included amongst the voters? Zero.

This is so tragic!

This story deserves more attention than it will likely get, and for women's rights advocates (note I did not say "feminists") to speak out, as they did in the case of the Nigerian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning because she bore a child out of wedlock.

The LLL's will of course continue to shout for the coalition "oppressors" to get out of Iraq and give the Iraqis full control of civil and criminal matters, and will conveniently ignore this monumental example of where true oppression exists.

For the sake of Iraqi women and girls, I will write President Bush and ask him to use all means to prevent the establishment of shari'a and force the Iraqis to establish a civil and secular system. In addition to voicing your opinions here, please do the same.

Great News. Looks like Saruman.... um errr... Yassin is Public Enemy #1 in Israel, meaning his time has now come.

[Link: www.foxnews.com...]

Good riddance I say. 'Bout time they bust a cap on his ass, the bastard.

4 Gryphon (Just Another Jew With A Gun)

To your point, we don't want to make the "mistake" that Israel made:

Israel suffers from the same dilemma of dealing with others' hurt pride as we do. It created a relatively humane society throughout the West Bank from 1967-1993 — and raised the standard of living, and promoted individual freedom for Palestinians in way impossible elsewhere in the Arab world. But all that won no gratitude; instead, it stoked the fury arising from Arabs' sense of weakness and self-contempt. In the world of the Palestinian lobster bucket, Israel's great sin is not bellicosity or aggression, but succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of its neighbors. How humiliating it must be to be incapable of even muttering the word "Israel" (hence the need for "Zionist entity"), but nevertheless preferring an Israeli to a Palestinian ID card.

Our new foriegn policy doctrine needs to be "kick the granny out of them and then slowly give them more responsibility as they are ready for it."

Really sad. Especially since Iraqis are among the most "modern" people in the ME. There's something there that is just plain wild. I wonder if a benevolent but ruthless dictator/monarch would be better for a generation. Again, sad.

Funny thing about the aside though is that Islamic governments are pretty darn conservative (depending on the prism, as mentioned). But how often does one hear about France or Sweden or N. Korea (in this context) described as "liberal"? I've got no problem letting the LLL know that no, they don't live under "extremist right-wing theocratic fascists" here, but that they're busy giving their support to real extremist right-wing theocratic fascists in the Ummah.

They hates it! It burns, Precious, it burns!

Progress for women is going to take time in the Splodey world. I didn't expect women to obtain full autonomy right away anyway. What cannot be sacrificed is the freedom for women to speak out and not find themselves completely marginalised out of government and assembly.

This cannot be allowed to happen. I am all for giving the Iraqis a democratic government, but it seems like we may have to force it on them, like we did the Germans and Japanese. The Iraqis forming a new government and writing a new consititution must be told cleary that there are certain givens in the new system that we will insist on. We should also insist that these things we written into the constitution clearly, and that they cannot be overridden by "Islamic" laws. One is equality for women, others are freedom of speech, the press, and above all religion. I, for one, am not willing to sacrifice hundreds of our young people just to leave Iraq in the 7th century. No, no, no, no, NO.

I have a suggestion:

Let's build an all woman army of the Iraqi women. Let's enroll all of them from the age of 18 to 70 [if still physically able] how to not only defend themselves physically, but how to use weaponry. Teach them how to drive heavy equipment, and how to be a good EOD like reaganite. :)
I noticed one of the women said 'over our dead bodies'. We should start with her. Maybe if the women turn the tables on the men and put a big old can of whup ass on them they'll stop their crap. How about a regiment of female ninjas for example.

Oh yeah, and even better...tell them to start buggering each other cause the sex is cut off too. :)

Yikes! I've been trying to think what options we have to turn this around, but short of disolving the Council, imposing a constitution (accompanied by the usual seething and whining, and a few suicide bombers) and taking it all back over, I don't see many other options.

#5 Ghost of a flea

I haven't seen you post in a dog's age. Glad you're back. Oh, and thanks for the Arctic air...;-)

Great. "My country created an Islamic theocracy, and all I got was this louse fatwa." Super.

Expect to see LLL ads screaming that Bush has eradicated civil rights for millions of women.

#8 papijoe:

Exactly. We have to stop apologizing for who we are, and start insisting that the rest of the world measure up. If that means proving to them how they DON'T measure up, let's get started!

Nation building used to be frowned upon by this administration. Suddenly they reversed course. Never a good sign.
I think we should be concentrating on removing leaders of terrorist states. We should have already moved on to Syria and Iran.
Let them work out their own governments. It is more important that they realize they need to set up something that is not terrorist in nature or we will come back and do it again.
That point has not yet been made clear since the mullahs still rule.

It's really ironic that Arabs treat the Muslim women like shit while the Asian Muslims are more likely to be 'liberal' with women, if I can use 'liberal' the way we know it. Yet, when you look at the Arab Muslim Woman's role in the US NGO sector you find it quite prominent.

The Middle East continues to try to control the cultural weather patterns of the world, we just shouldn't expect liberal countries like France to help them.

Are the Iraqis (and the majority of the Muslim world) so stupid that when freedom and democracy comes calling on their door, they turn it away?

Have they not learnt anything from the last year or so? Are they really that stupid that they would go through all the pain and humiliation of war only to turn replace the overthrown dictatorial regime with an even more repressive religious one?

I hope not, but the eventual outcome will reveal much about the Islamic 'mindset'.

"Western political categorizations are meaningless in terms of Islamic politics"

Charles, I disagree completely. That statement assumes that all Islamic leaders/politicians share the same strict interpretation of sharia that denies rights to women, which is clearly not the case. How can you argue that a council member who opposes this measure is not more "liberal" than his counterpart who voted in favor of it?

Charles, the media is partly right in portraying reactionary Muslim troglodytes and "conservative." A better statement would be "social conservative." While the level and depth of social conservatism in Islamic countries is far different from that we are faced with, Senator Santorum and Robertson/Falwell are merely much milder versions of the Shiite clerics of Iraq.

The other wing of the Conservative movement, the "libertarian" wing (of which I am assuming you are a member) and those conservatives who 100 years ago would have been called liberals for their celebration of personal choice both in social AND economic spheres, is of course completely opposed to what these Iraqi clerics are up to. That's where the media's shorthand use of the word "conservative" is wrong, perhaps purposefully wrong.

Have they not learnt anything from the last year or so? Are they really that stupid that they would go through all the pain and humiliation of war only to turn replace the overthrown dictatorial regime with an even more repressive religious one?

No, they're Arabs. In 14 centuries they've learned barely a quarter of what the rest of the world has learned in the last 50 years. You could nuke the Arab world and they still wouldn't get it, well, maybe they would, but I doubt it.

this stinks of iran, sistani and that other bozo mullah. time to rename this what it is, war on bass-ackwards islam.

#16 Gryphon (Just Another Jew With A Gun)

The bad cop/good cop approach has worked, as VDH points out in the Civil War, and in the occupation of Japan and Germany. It's a shame we don't have the political will to do this right in Iraq.

#4 Gryphon

They will never be our friends, partners, allies or what-have-you until they have been thoroughly disabused of the notion that their primitive tribal culture is of any value to them in terms of joining the civilized world.

Could not have said it better.

We are trying too hard to get out too soon. The administration is under domestic pressure and I'm sure the IGC reads the newspapers...like the NY Times. They are crafty and shrewd negotiators. They can and will try to take advantage of the American domestic situation.

Gen. Douglas McArthur had free reign in post war Japan for years...I believe the Occupation didn't officially end for over six years.

And, one of the first things Gen. McArthur did was to give Japanese women the vote and made it stick. That attitude towards equality to all tempered the rest of the occupation's work. The Meiji's old code was broken and paved the way for Japan to join the civilized world.

Iraq in 2004 is not Japan in 1945, so the parallels are not exact. The point is that Islam must change itself or be forever on the outside of history, if not utterly destroyed.

This is unacceptable. We should force them to adopt a constitution that conforms to our values and have this contingent on receiving further aid. A tyranny of the majority is not liberation.

Never, ever, underestimate the ability of an arab to act contrary to their own and everyone elses best interests. It is a charicteristic of the culture and the foundations of basic Islamic institutions.

The original Financial Times article had the spokesman of the GC stating that they were only going to give people the option to use religious courts instead of secular for divorce and inheritance if they wanted. This is how things were under Saddam already. It was totally optional, and Christians had their own religious courts too.

Actually, in most former British Mid-East colonies, including Israel, they have separate religious courts for people who want to go that route.

So is this move just a continuation of the status quo since the 20s, or is it the first step to making the religious courts predominant since there was no announcement about any other religions?

(I really am curious, if it's the latter I'm appauled, but if it's the former, the women need to take control and stop their husbands from going to those courts during divorces.)

#25 Roll-aid

And, one of the first things Gen. McArthur did was to give Japanese women the vote and made it stick. That attitude towards equality to all tempered the rest of the occupation's work. The Meiji's old code was broken and paved the way for Japan to join the civilized world.

Excellent point. And I think the analogy fits in this case. Meiji and Islam both represent honor/shame cultures.

re: #12 - from what I could tell from a tour of duty in that neighborhood in 1979, little encouragement towards buggery is required - the males' public behavior, maybe most evident in Jedda, was appalling.

You're correct about the misleading use of 'conservative'. The BBC is even worse and calls the thugs in Iran 'right-wing'. Check this out for an example, biased BBC.

Sheik Ali Histani is turning out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. First he wanted the US to help free Iraq and liberate the Shiites; now that the Shiites are free to practice their religion unopposed by either Saddam or the Sunnis that's not enough; Sistani wants to oppress the women as the rest of Islam does.

NUTS TO THAT!

As Israelis have learned to their immense regret, any sign of backing down, caving in, making space for, accommodating, to Arabs is viewed as weakness and only enboldens them.

I believe our mission in Iraq will end in failure. It will because our political leaders have not figured out in advance what to do about militant Islam in general. Our government seems infested with those who will do anything to accommodate the loudest and uglist voices, from Powell (begging the Iranians to like us) to the FBI (not hiring Jewish Arabic speakers lest they offend someone), and it goes on and on. Part of the problem is that Bush and his pals, father and son, are in bed with the Saudis and protect them (for monetary reasons). Part of the problem is that the Administration is too devoted to wanting to appear strong than actually being strong.

They are afraid of Islam and do not know how to confront it. Every advance is couched in apologies. They act terrified and I am sure many poeple pick that up easily.

So, I think our mission in Iraq will end in utter failure. They will be a theocratic country, similar to Iran. Iran will pull a lot of the strings there. I just hope we realize this before we've spent much of the $87 billion on making Moslem extremists more comfortable.

This makes me wonder:

Would it be possible to exclude Muslim clerics (and other people who draw their civil authority from theocratic sources) from participating in the formation of post-liberation governments?

Clearly, this problem needs to be addressed now, esp. in light of the likelihood of other "War On Terror" actions the US may take in the near future. Clearly these theo-cultures have nought a thing worth carrying over if this is the first thing they do post-liberation is re-subjugating women and girls.

It must be something inherent to Islam, this refusal to have laws that aren't in keeping with the Koran. In Afghanistan, the recently-adopted constitution exlicitly provided that no law "can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions" of Islam.

[Link: teacher.scholastic.com...]

These people need help - if only they'd let someone help them.

Why is the Governing Council even revising civil codes? Isn't the GC an interim authority only? Many of the Iraqi bloggers are commenting on this. All of them claim that the silent majority of Iraqis are deeply troubled by this decision. Iraqis do not wish for their nation to become an Iranian-style theocracy. Take that small slice of Iraqi public opinion for what its worth. Personally, I've never thought that the GC should have had any function other than an advisory council. Virtually everything I hear about the GC reinforces my initial impression of it. That impression was of a council of stooges. Corrupt, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative, and universally unpopular. A bunch of clowns who are eventually going to end up cause some real headaches for American policy makers.

Dig this:

Al-Jazeera Reporter Quits to Take "Tempting" Offer from BBC

Unbelievable. BBC public funding days are truly numbered!

Mainstream media...it's hard to differentiate between stupidity, ignorance or common bigotry.

Regarding the use of "conservative" to describe Islamists: Iranian 'Democracy'. (Be sure to read op-ed Iran: A "Sort" of Democracy)

Regarding sharia in new constitutions: Taliban Lite.

The Taliban are gone, but sharia is still in force in Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein is gone, and sharia is being introduced into Iraq. It's a tragedy that our government is permitting this to happen. But that's the inevitable result when the enemy is misidentified, I suppose.

How hard would it be for W to pick the phone and call the Council: "Hey guys, we didn't spend billions of $$$ and hundreds of lives to put women back in chains. You either drop this idea or you'll see Gulf War III: the Revenge of the Jade Eyes."

By the way, help me out here so that I'm PC: why is it this gets a pass from the mainstream media? Where is the outrage? There is outrage that we stopped Saddam from putting people through a shredder, but there's no cry from womyn about this return to the 7th century of Islamic values or CAIR about how this puts Islam in a bad light.

I'm sure HoHoHoward will ignore this, as will Clark, Kerry, and Edwards. Maybe Lieberman will speak up. Maybe...

Godamnit, I hate Islam.

And now this, from Frawnce's Minister of Defense, Michele Alliot-Marie More Sympathetic Seething:

Outlining the views of France, she said while terrorism is a great threat, its causes must be addressed, which she identified as "the sense of frustration in the face of injustice and poverty." "The humiliation is exploited by fanatics," Alliot-Marie said, while urging "let us work together to eradicate blind violence, but also its roots."

France is neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel, the defense minister said, while implicitly holding Israel accountable. "We should be listening more to the Arab-Muslim world," she said.

"The sense of injustice and humiliation is really very widespread," she said.

I once heard Bill Maher do a riff on self-esteem building in our public schools. His thrust was that, contrary to kids having too little self-esteem, what they really needed was to be knocked down a few pegs - that American school children suffer from a surfeit of self-esteem.

The same, I think, goes for modern Islam. The problem is not that they have suffered too much humiliation. It is that they have experienced too little.

Ditto in Afghanistan. As soon as they start pumping Islam into their government and constitution, then the pandoras box of shari'a is let loose. Cause when Islam rules, then any babrbarity can be justified! But isn't it ironic that the Islamo-fascist always are the ones who talk about truth and justice. The truth is medieval Islam and justice is murder!

I told you before the war, got called racist. Hate to say "told you so", but I saw this coming.

Hard as it may seem for those brainwashed by the leftist liberal media and education to swallow, but the cold hard and very un-PC truth is that the muslims are a group of f*cking savages, and trying to liberate them was doomed to fail from the beginning.

The only correct way to carry the war is, to borrow the motto from Admiral Halsey, this:
KILL RAGS, KILL RAGS, KILL MORE RAGS.

Either they'll get the message eventually, or they'll all be dead. We have the tools to make it happen if all else fails. Total war, not against terrorism or the military but MUSLIMS. For they are the true enemy -- not terrorism, that is merely HOW the enemy fights.

"When this War on Terror is over, terrorist-Islam will be a religion practiced only in hell."

/patton

#12 got it right

The only solution is for the women to padlock thier vaginas and arm themselves until the hairy ape-muslims come to thier senses.

You hypocrite western feminists make me puke. Here's the chance to show yourselves worthy and what do you do? Anything?

#47 Steve Miller

Actually, the quote you paraphrased isn't from Patton, but Adm. William "Bull" Halsey.

He said it when he arrived in Pearl Harbor on board the USS Enterprise (CV-6) the evening of December 7, 1941.

"By the time we are done, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell."

Speaking of the Japanese, when the US was occupying Japan, we wrote their constitution, which specifically stipulated full equality for women. Because we found it necessary.

This is unbelievably sad. Now i read that in Afghanistan women have been prohibited to SING in the freaking TV!!! What the hell is wrong with this people?!?

What the hell is wrong with this people?!?

Islam.

That's what's wrong with them.

The imams of Islam are the real culprits. Every Friday they get in their pulpits and scream hatred and imprecations at the US (Great Satan) and the Joos of Israel, though Jews anywhere will do (Little Satan).

After WWII in Germany, you would not have left the Generals in charge in Germany and allowed them a say in writing the constitutions of Germany or Japan. Why aren't the imams who cause trouble like Sistani taken out of country and locked up PERMANENTLY.

Until this Administration is prepared to deal with the Imams harshly, there will continue to be trouble. They are born to it and love nothing better than to exercise their "power" to stir up trouble.

DEAL WITH THESE MEDDLESOME PRIESTS OF ISLAM!

Related.... This letter appears in today’s Washington Post Online:

For Afghan Women, Supreme Injustices

In his Jan. 6 op-ed column, "Afghanistan's Milestone," Zalmay Khalilzad noted the role of women in the constitutional process in Afghanistan. The new constitution articulates the equal rights of men and women before the law, but reality and vision diverge.

The courts in Afghanistan will be instrumental in determining whether the constitutional provision on equality is enforced. Yet the chief justice of the supreme court, Sheik Hadi Shinwari, appointed by President Hamid Karzai, has restored many of the Taliban measures of gender oppression. Afghan women are in jail for the "crime" of running away from home to escape sexual abuse or forced marriage, according to a lawyers association for Afghan women. Legal measures passed or upheld by President Karzai's administration ban married women from high school classes, restrict women's travel without the company of a male guardian and prohibit women from singing in public.

The constitutional provision on equality requires the elimination of these and many other legal provisions, provisions that the country's chief justice has been instrumental in creating, upholding and defending. Unless a new chief justice is appointed, the new constitution will be no more than a symbolic victory for women.

JESSICA NEUWIRTH, President, Equality Now, New York

If the Brits can abolish suttee in India, surely we can keep a secular family law, in place for at least 30 years, as the law of the land. If not, out power there a joke and our mission objectives untenable.

Athos, thanks.

I tried Googling, because I remember it wasn't QUITE Patton, but someone similar. But couldn't find the phrase.

#42

why is it this gets a pass from the mainstream media? Where is the outrage? There is outrage that we stopped Saddam from putting people through a shredder, but there's no cry from womyn about this return to the 7th century of Islamic values or CAIR about how this puts Islam in a bad light.

hi steve. four problems with your post:

1. womyn and/or women != mainstream media. I'm wondering why this story isn't huge already myself, but I don't think women or feminists are making that call. I might have read your post nodding in agreement but for the needless and muddying interjection of the single word "womyn," but since that's what you wrote I've got to take it at face value;

2. This story is the lead on this week's Feminist Majority Foundation news mailing, as one example of a woman's group calling attention to this travesty. The FMF, by the way, was sounding alerts about the oppressive evils of the Taliban *way* before they attracted American attention by blowing up their big Buddhas---I know for sure FMF was talking about the Taliban in 1997 (possibly earlier but I wouldn't know beyond that date). It would be one thousand percent incorrect to make any suggestion that American women's groups are in the habit of giving militant Islamic crazies a pass on this stuff. "Womyn," of which I suppose I am one except that I can spell it properly, are pissed off over this, make no mistake, and we aren't going to forget this even if the Western press does.

3. as far as I can tell (am willing to stand corrected) the story is only a couple of days old---I can't find a mention of it prior to a 1/13 Agence France-Presse story, so again, while I'd prefer to be seeing this headline in 72-point type *somewhere* I think it is too early to decide that the media is ignoring it. Although, to be quite fair, I would certainly have hoped for better play than page A12 of the print edition of the Post.

4. Let us be clear: I am not outraged that Saddam isn't out there killing people anymore. I *am* outraged that the U.S. thought it could walk into Iraq, fix things up all pretty-like, and then flit back out again with everything all wrapped up and under control. With this decision by the GC, and the extremely tough "nation-building" questions it raises for the Bush administration, it is clearer now than ever that things are far from under control in Iraq.

An aside: an annoying trend in mainstream media is to refer to theocratic troglodytes like these Shi’ite council members as “conservative.” But Western political categorizations are meaningless in terms of Islamic politics; when Western media uses them, they inform us more about their own bias than about the politics involved, by associating “conservatives” with the worst elements of Islam.

In his essay "The Meaning of Left and Right". David Horowitz said that a conservative is someone who supports the values of his country and a liberal is someone who supports other values. Liberal and conservative can mean different things in different places. I think it's safe to say that the Iraqi reactionaries do not support the classic liberal democratic values of the US.

The draft constitution under consideration in Kabul defines Islam and Sharia as the basis for government.

We have been lied to, and our blood has been wasted.

Up the thread there are several good references to Japan and the growing outcry in both Afghanistan and Iraq that women (just the top of the heap) are going to remain in chattel status.

Why were we going to fight this war? To defeat terror.

What causes terror? Poverty, hopelessness, despotism.

How were we going to solve the problem? By defeating and removing repressive regimes that were not beholden to the populations they controlled.

We are in the process of failing in that objective.

Maybe we should have approached this the old fashioned way. If we had ground entire regions to dust, killed millions of people, maybe then, THEN, it would be PC to condemn the cultural mores of the beaten as barbaric and unworkable among civilized nations and then impose representative governments that made citizens out of what were once subjects or victims.

We have witnessed a calculated decision to NOT address the root cause of this war. We are NOT removing the will of the enemy to fight. We are violating Clausewitz's definition of victory.

If the administration was proposing to babysit these regions in perpetuity we might expect some relief from terror on our shores. By acclerating transfer of power back to the local rulers and abandoning any effort at establishing representative democracy and rule of law we are putting ourselves firmly on the same track as Israel was compelled to follow.

If you win the battles but aren't allowed or refuse to win the wars, the threat will always remain.

I admit I'm pretty depressed about this. I was a lot angrier yesterday.

Opinions?