http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080518/...h/bush_mideast

Yesterday, President Bush condemned the lack of rights for women behind the Islamic curtain. You cannot address the lack of rights for women politically without addressing the role of Islam in child marriage, female castration, and other abuses of women.

Western progressives need to immediately call the middle east to accountability for crimes against women. I do not know how any progressive, including Jimmy Carter, can make common cause with people who:

1) physical disfigure women sexually in horrific ways that forever deny them sexual pleasure and cause longterm pain and suffering.
2) Marrying underaged women off to old male pedophiles.
3) Deprive women of the right to live their lives freely and openly, including operating motor vehicles, dressing as they choose, and voting.
4) Require the religious murder (called "honor killings") of women who violate religious traditions.

Progressives making any excuse for "negotiating" with these people without immediate social reforms is sickening.

These abuses of women should be publicized, not hidden. And, I'm saying this not as a religious hater, but as a woman who lived for 10 years in Utah and saw at firsthand the abuses of polygamy against adolescent girls and the longterm ramifications on these young women.

Mohammed had sex with a 9-year-old girl. This is the basis of a tradition of female molestation that dates back a thousand years. Women in these scenarios are uneducated and without rights. They cannot rescue themselves. They lack economic skills. This is happening around the world, and in the U.S.

It's time to start telling the truth about it, even if it offends people.

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

As a western woman, I have nothing in common with these repressive woman-hating regimes, and it is time to start saying this clearly and loudly to our political leaders. I do not want to be allied with them until they correct their human rights abuses.

p.s. Jimmy Carter needs to stfu. He does not represent me and is a complete idiot who has totally lost perspective on everything that the Democratic party used to stand for. I volunteered for his campaign, a fact that completely and utterly shames me these days.

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

You must realize that priorities change and our reactions must change to meet them. Today, our main thrust is to discredit Bush and all Republicans once and for all. Since his main "claim to fame" has been tax cuts and foreign policy, we've had to adjust our priority to keep the Reps from gaining the confidence of voters.

We must all be willing to sacrifice women's rights and other important issues until our main objective is achieved.

you are really out there aren't you!

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Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.obamatruth.org/

I have seen so many phony "progressives" over the internet the last several years that the very term seems to signify little more than antisemitic leftists, Islamist apologists and reactionaries rather than people who have adopted anything truly progressive. These are people who only stand against something rather than for, and that's why they give a free ride to these misogynistic Islamists/ all that matters to them is the fact the Islamists are anti-American. an enemy of an enemy is a friend, you know.

Carter has completely lost my respect as well, and I voted for the guy, too. Heck, I campaigned for McGovern years before that. Carter is no progressive, but merely an old man who has totaly lost perspective and has whored himself out to those who finance him.

I generally agree that the Middle East is a lousy place to be a chick. They need to fix that.

But we can't fix that from over here, and I don't see the value of mandating that our relations with them will only be violent. That's not going to help. At least, I don't see how it will.

Because that's what you're saying, when you say that we "shouldn't negotiate." You're saying that the only relationship we will have with those people is a violent one. We either ignore you or kill you. 'Cause without diplomatic negotiation, we're left with what, other than shooting them?

I say, we really want to help? Here's how: we allow women living under oppressed government to find asylum in America. We don't just let them in, either -- we help them in.

The only option you would give us, for helping those women out, would be to drop bombs on them. There's a baby-bathwater thing going on here.

Would you have America stop negotiating with Utah? As you pointed out yourself, this is not an Islamic problem. Women are being abused all over the world, right in our own back yard even. Violent, sexual, institutionalized, church-mandated abuse.

Shall we kill all the Mormons? I know some Mormons, they seem like really nice people ... kind of stoned on God but basically nice. Shall we refuse to negotiate with them?

We didn't negotiate with Japan and Germany. We forced their total surrender and then told them how to get their act straight. The same is necessary here. There is as much point to negotiating with the muslims as hitler, less reason. They aren't going to reform their evil religion because we kiss their ass but because we kick their ass.

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Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

I think there are other options besides "kissing ass" and "kicking ass." I don't think this is a binary equation balancing violence and submission. I bet that would make an awesome episode of some TV show, though. Pretty sexy, I bet. Lots of people would watch.

Besides, I think you've actually got that backwards. When religions are attacked (by which I mean violently, physically attacked and the followers of that religion persecuted, murdered and martyred), do they generally become more or less fundamentalist in response?

Seriously. You want to solve the problem, let the women come here. We want our birth rate to down but we do need to maintain a population, so we're going to have to have immigration. Why not encourage ... y'know ... poor, tired, huddled masses ... folks yearning to be free ... that kind of thing?

I don't believe in tolerating criminal acts under the auspices of polygamy, either. I believe in prosecuting them, aggressively.

By the way, I like the idea of encouraging Islamic women to vote with their feet against repressive regimes--by fleeing.

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

You are wrong. This is exactly how it is with the muslims. If you don't show strength, they will inevitably kill or enslave you. That is what their religion tells them to do!

islam doesn't have to be attacked. It is inherently aggressive and evil because the founder, muhammed was aggressive and evil. muslims consider him to be a wonderful role model and he was a pedophile, thief, and cold blooded murder that spent much of his life running around killing and enslaving people who didn't want to join his evil cult. I do respect you telling the truth about islam though. Fundamentalist is a proper choice of words, meaning the terrorists are fundamentally correct that they are following the orders of islam. This is very important to understand because it means being a "moderate muslim" means you really aren't following the religion. This makes sense when you see the enormous depth of support for terrorism in the muslim community. Sure, they always have excuses for terrorism and want to mince words, but they defend it at all costs because they are terrorists by order of islam.

No muslims should be allowed in Western countries. Its too dangerous. Ex-muslims, or reformed muslims, or whatever, but not people who say they are following muhammed and the quran. These people are openly at war with everything we stand for and want to destroy or enslave us at all costs. Letting them come here is stupid and they certainly don't come here for freedom. They are planning the islamization of America. That is why they come here, to attack us through every means available- some through terrorism and some through political attacks.

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Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.