What we have accomplished in Iraq.

[catsittingstill]

Here's an example.  For those who don't have time to follow the link, it's an article about a 17 year old Iraqi girl, murdered by her father and her brothers for talking--talking-- to a man who wasn't a member of her family.  This is a common practice in Iraq now; it's called "honor killing."

I will just note that, however I might despise Saddam Hussein, while he ruled Iraq, honor killing was prosecuted as murder.  After the regime change we brought about, the police now congratulate these murderers.

Oh, well done!

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I hate the act and I wish it was outlawed worldwide; the sooner that aspect of that culture lands on the junk heap of history, the happier I will be. (I don't use the word "evil" much anymore, partly because it's often used to justify such acts.) But I fear the attitude which says that some particular "evil" is unique to any culture and that therefore we are justified in attempting to exterminate it.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is unique to that culture. But I don't feel like "evil" is too strong a word for an idea that encourages men to murder their female relatives.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, not too strong--"junk heap of history" is not exactly mild language, after all. I think talking about "evil," though, plays into the hands of the holy warriors, the Crusaders and the Jihadi, and so on, so I look for other strong words. All the justified criticisms of the Arab/Islamic treatment of women were trotted out as reasons for the war in Iraq, after all, when just about everyone with any compassion had been screaming about the Taliban in Afghanistan for over a decade, and been ignored by the warmongers.

Those holy warriors--when they go on the war path, they do so because they are secretly making war on themselves, or on something in themselves which can never be extirpated. And they never admit it; the evil is always somewhere else, always someone else. Think of all the anti-gay activists who turn out, after all, to be gay. So these people can always find more evils to fight, and they can keep on fighting evil and avoid their own shame. But for myself, I will look for other strong words.