W and Laura "CHAMPIONS" OF WOMAN'S RIGHTS

Laura Bush visits a classroom for women trainees at a police training academy in the Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan, June, 2008. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

One of the most demonstratively false claims by W and his apologists is that his administration and the First Lady had been and continue to be concerned supporters and promoters of Woman's Rights.

It would be true, if you don't include health care, equal pay, equal opportunity, and access to reproductive health care as a right. It is even promoted at "the to be built" W Memory Hole and Library's website.

"Mrs. Bush’s involvement in Afghanistan began in 2001, when she became the first wife of a president ever to deliver the president’s weekly radio address. She used the opportunity to call attention to the plight of women suffering under the Taliban."
-Bush Presidential Center web site, Laura Bush bio.

"We wouldn't have thought that three years ago, that Afghanistan could be on their way to elections and that women can be a part of that."
- Laura Bush White House Interview 2004

"First Lady Laura Bush gave her first speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, in what she called “my opportunity to use the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the [Universal] Declaration of Human Rights to talk about the things I’m interested in”—the rights of women in Afghanistan"
-First Lady Laura Bush gave her first speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

W and Laura are like just like a King and Queen Midas, only in reverse, everything they claimed or attempted, you could, can count on the opposite happening only usually with a Biblical plague attached just ask any Iraqi, Republican, Katrina survivor, Human Rights Dissident in Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, etc.


Here's how W and Laura's "Excellent Woman's Rights Adventure in Afghanistan" is turning out, per Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress.org :

Afghan President Hamid Karzai signs a law that ‘legalizes’ rape. Today, the UK Independent reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has signed the new Shia Family Law, which women’s groups believe will essentially legalize rape. Specifically, the measure “negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home.” Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation, called it “one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century.”

Heck of a job.

NPR/Morning Edition - Pentagon PR Department?

Today on Morning Edition, a report really "chapped my hide" as they say here in Tejas, Mary Louise Kelly's report on Afghanistan was nothing but a series of Pentagon talking points, she didn't interview anyone outside the Pentagon, made no reference to the military's or Bush's last six years of failure, just an open mike for the Pentagon.

Here's my comment, which may get deleted by the moderator, we shall see, they've gotten testier about criticism of their reporting:

Wow, this story was one long series of interviews with military experts: Yes when it comes to understanding foreign cultures, political dynamics in other countries, geopolitical issue, and economic develop the experts you want to talk are the military? NPR seems to be still following the Bush/Cheney policy of isolating and treating as irrelevant the State Department (You know: the people with actual foreign policy expertise? (Last I checked the Pentagon’s job was to blow things up, not foreign policy.-G.D.)
Mary Louise Kelly seems to be nothing but an uncritical Pentagon stenographer, how do we know if any of these sources aren't part of the Pentagon's prior propaganda campaign that NPR has used in the past?

Why didn’t Ms. Kelly interview one of NPR’s reporters in Afghanistan? Or someone from the State Department? Or a foreign policy expert? Just askin’? How about calling former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes, who’s lived in Afghanistan for the past six years? Oh, sorry forgot appears she’s been blacklisted must be she wouldn’t stay on the FOX/Bush script.

Another uncritical open mike for the Pentagon; NPR learned anything the last six year?

If anyone would like a clearer and more actuate perspective on Afghanistan, without NPR's pro-Bush filer, here's an interview with Sarah Chayes on on PBS' "Bill Moyer's Journal". Ms. Chayes worked for NPR during the pre-Tomlinson days, when NPR had real journalist, not the FOX want-a-be it now has.

In the beginning was the Word and it was a rant,

Doonesbury



In the past week my local paper, The Dallas Morning News, has published, with little notice or comment, the obits for three young men in our military, two died in Iraq, the third at a state-side base after returning from Iraq. Yesterday, Obama announced that he will be ending Bush/Cheney's policy of hiding the bodies from their two failed wars by their suppression of photos of our war dead.

I wonder if it will make any difference?

During the last election the National Press, NPR especially, ignored, under reported, white washed, forgot (take your pick) the 250,000+ troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, it seems like there's even less coverage.



As someone that can remember Vietnam, it looks like the Pentagon learned its lesson that knowledge is power. In the name of "protecting the privacy of the troops" the Pentagon has decided to keep the US public ignorant of the consequences of war. The compliant US press has not provided the American public with the images like these from Vietnam:






(Photos by David Douglas Duncan, via Harry Ransom Center University Of Texas. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/ddd/gallery/war/vietnam.html Per Fresh Air: "Life magazine has called David Douglas Duncan perhaps the best war photographer since Matthew Brady. In 1999, Duncan received a lifetime achievement award for excellence and bravery from the Marine Corps.")

Gary Trudeau of "Doonesbury" has a blog "The Sandbox" that features posts by our service men and women: http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/

"The Sandbox, our command-wide milblog, featuring comments, anecdotes, and observations service members currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is GWOT-lit's forward position, offering those in-country a chance to share their experiences and reflections with the rest of us. The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship [snip], but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. "

Be warned, knowledge is a dangerous thing.

As a society we ask our men and women and their families to sacrifice life, limbs, and treasure to protect us. It seems the least we could do is pay attention.

(I will leave the equally distressing issue of civilian causalities for another day.)