Bush Junior and his crew are concerned with what the women think about the ‘war on terror’. Concerned that Americans are losing their taste for world domination the Bush gang has tried to enlist Oprah Winfrey to steer the opinions of her estimated 22 million predominantly female viewers. They had hoped to stake their claim on television as the world liberators of oppressed women. Unfortunately, this claim is laughable. The US actively supports governments like in Saudi Arabia who are as bad or worse as the Taliban with regards to gender equality. This attempt to justify the US actions in terms of increasing the freedom of Afghan women is really funny. Every time I see someone on TV speaking earnestly about how the US has freed Afghan women I have to be cynical. A scant few months ago the US was an active supporter of the Taliban regime.
Bush’s political advisers are concerned that some key voting groups, while supportive of the war on terrorism, may be growing weary of the constant talk of killing and brutality. The Oprah strategy was devised to dampen the images of global violence.
Despite the rebuff from Winfrey, the president has begun to push that message. He told audiences in three states this week how the young girls finally have been liberated from Taliban rule and are resuming their studies after being banned from schoolrooms in 1996.
“I like to assure my fellow citizens that we don’t seek revenge, we seek justice,” Bush told a Dallas political gathering Thursday, taking a break from his Easter vacation at his Texas ranch. “And it’s important for the young in America to understand that when we went into Afghanistan, we went in not as conquerors, but as liberators.”
Don’t you feel like a liberator? I’m sure all the thousands and millions of Afghans who have had their country invaded and their homes bombed and their families murdered by US bombs feel ‘liberated’.
As much as I hate to see women victimized we should NOT use military might to free the oppressed women of Afghanistan or any other country we feel is doing an injustice. Regardless of how we view the Muslim culture it is THEIR culture. We have no right to jump on them for what they are doing in their own borders. We would react violently to anyone doing the same to us. It is when they bring it out and try to destroy what they feel is wrong, that they face military response. The events of 9-11 are an example. The Taliban has been oppressing women from their beginning. We did not invade. We did invade when Bin Laden attack our culture with violence. And that’s what it was too. He tried to destabilize us because of the affect the United States has on the world and in particular his world. Committing acts of violence against a people to forward an agenda, whether it’s to stop terrorism or free women, is wrong. I am sure Bin Laden thinks what he did is a justifiable act to free HIS people from Western cultural influences. He has no right to come over here and commit an act of violence against us just because he thinks what we are doing is wrong. By the same token we should not fly over there and bomb them into the Stone Ages because of the mistreatment of their people. And we didn’t. We did it because he was not content to just voice his opinion. NO one says you have to follow the United States. You do not have to treat your people fairly for us to have diplomatic relations. The United States has always tried to be negotiable. Ask China. Again I do NOT support the idea of women being subjugated OR the slaughter of innocent people. For Bush to try and rationalize the USA’s action with liberation of Afghan women tells the world that what we deem to be “unfair” deserves a response from our allies and us. And that message is too vague and broad to be acceptable.
And exactly what message would be good enough for you.
please….feel free to offer alternatives as well as a thumbs up or thumbs down for some one else actually in the arena…..
Are you here to merely surface tension “rebel” or are you here to -effect change-