"This Is Where I Get Off The Bus"

[Mutaman]

Islam will be "the main source" of Iraq's law and parliament will
observe religious principles, negotiators said on Saturday after what
some called a major turn in talks on the constitution and a shift in
the U.S. position.

So, let me see if I understand this-- After all the other excuses for
why we invaded Iraq turned out to be phony, the administration settled
on telling us that we were creating democracy. But now it urns out that
there won't be any democracy either. Americans just "freed" the Iraqis
so they could live under Islamic law. That's quite an achievement. So
much for women's rights in Iraq. Some freedom.

"How about you Condi? Are you proud of what you've done? You just
"freed" 13 million women into second class citizenship -- probably into
hell. Tough luck ladies. Don't worry, though, your granddaughters might
get their rights back in their lifetimes. You can't stop progress, you
know."

Digby 8/20/05

Or as rightwinger Andrew mcCarthy said today (in the National Review of
all places) -"This is where I get off the bus".

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_21_corner-archive.asp#073754

I particularly liked McCarthy's last line--

"And if the United States, in contradiction of its own bedrock
principle against government establishment religion, has decided to go
into the theocracy business, how in the world is it that Islam is the
religion we picked? "

What a debacle.

[pedro]

small distinction. I read the Islam would be a main source, not the main source. Although in practice it probably won't make any difference.

Apparently they were having heated disagreements over whether they were goign to use the definite (the) or indefinite (a) article regarding Islam in the constitution.

It is possible that they could still have a constitution that respects womens rights, although I am very dubious considering the circumstances.

[Mutaman]

The Shame Game
Posted by James Wolcott

Roger L. Simon, August 16: "Women's rights are the very center of the War on Terror. In fact I would argue Islamofascism at its core is more than anything else an expression of rage against women and that Islam itself is not much better on that score."

[snip]

"Those who think this war is not worth fighting chose to ignore the fate of hundreds of millions of Muslim women. Shame on them."

Reuel Marc Gerecht, discussing the forthcoming Iraqi constitution on Meet the Press, August 21: "Women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there, I think they will be there, but I think we need to keep this perspective."

So those who think this war isn't worth fighting are shameful because of their craven indifference to women's rights while one of the leading neocon architects of the very war that Simon champions--and not just any architect, but a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century--isn't that concerned that a new Iraq constitution might roll back and restrict women's freedoms, subjecting them to Islamic law.

His exact words to MTP guest host David Gregory were, "Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this."

Why am I reminded of George's boss Kruger on Seinfeld, who shrugged off every crisis with, "I'm not too worried about it"?

Simon has been conned by his new comrades, which is no excuse for conning his readers, whose gullibility could fill a pelican's pouch. Women's rights aren't at the center of the War on Terror, nowhere near the center. They're a flimsy, detachable rationale that neoconservatives won't hesitate to discard if inconvenient to their goals. If neocons have to choose between women's rights or permanent US military bases in Iraq, it'll be, "Burkas are a small price to pay for democracy. Besides, black is so fashionably slimming!"

Digby has more: "Iraqi women have enjoyed secular, western-style equality for more than 40 years. Most females have no memory of living any other way. In order to meet an arbitrary deadline for domestic political reasons, we have capitulated to theocrats on the single most important constitutional issue facing the average Iraqi woman --- which means that we have now officially failed more than half of the Iraqis we supposedly came to help. We have 'liberated' millions of people from rights they have had all their lives."

http://jameswolcott.com/

[alex trevino]

The thing about a democracy is majority rules...no matter how bad it is...case in point the current US administration.