Don’t Democrats Care About Human Rights?
With so much turmoil in the Middle East and the recent reports of the horrible infringements upon human rights and common decency it makes me wonder if Democrats even care about human rights anymore?
Obama thus far, believes that Iran is full of gumdrop mountains and chocolate falls, but yet they make statements like the one earlier today in which they say that “it will take 11 days to wipe Israel out of existence!?”
Afghanistan has violated various human rights protocols and most recently shot and killed a man and a woman whom they felt were committing adultery and flogged another woman for some other sexist law.
Saudi Arabians don’t allow women to make eye contact or even drive cars, but we still conduct plenty of business with them and feminist liberals don’t seem to have as much outrage when it comes to crimes that are committed by these regimes.
There are other countries that also have human rights issues (China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.) and lately it seems like the majority of these cruel dictatorships are now on Obama’s ally list.
The latest act that violates human rights took place in Iran over the weekend, where a 23 year old girl, convicted of murder as a juvenile, was hanged. Authorities executed the 23-year-old woman Friday in northern Iran without informing her lawyer or allowing the family to be present, said the lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei. She was 17 at the time the crime was committed, in 2003.
Which leads me to this op-ed written in the Boston Globe of all places:
ARE HUMAN RIGHTS still a Democrat priority?
To Democrats of a certain age, such a question might seem incomprehensible. After all, it was a Democrat, John F. Kennedy, whose inaugural address proclaimed “to friend and foe alike” that Americans would resist “the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed.” It was another Democrat, Jimmy Carter, who made support for human rights an explicit foreign-policy concern, declaring at his inauguration: “Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere.” It was Senator Henry Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik – Democrats both – whose landmark Jackson-Vanik amendment helped win freedom for tens of thousands of Soviet dissidents and refuseniks.
But somewhere along the way, Democratic priorities seem to have changed.
For example: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have used her recent trip to China to vigorously defend human rights – to make it clear to those who rule the world’s largest dictatorship that the new administration in Washington cares about the liberty and dignity of China’s people. Instead, she more or less announced in advance that talking to Beijing about human rights was pointless, since “we pretty much know what they’re going to say.” Besides, she told reporters, human rights must not “interfere” with more important issues, such as the economic crisis or climate change.
China got the message. As Clinton arrived in Beijing, dozens of pro-democracy dissidents were placed under virtual house arrest. True to her word, the secretary of state made no fuss about the regime’s brutality.
[...]
Closer to home, President Obama last week relaxed US policy toward Cuba, making it easier for Cuban-Americans to travel and send money to relatives living there. The president’s order was titled “Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba,” but in fact it said nothing at all about democracy and human rights in Cuba. Nowhere did it mention the Communist tyranny of the last 50 years – there was nothing about the denial of free speech; the abuse and murder of political dissidents; the persecution of journalists, librarians, and human-rights activists; the relentless surveillance and secret police; the regime’s stranglehold on property and employment.
Unfortunately, I think that over the years the priorities of the Democrat Party have become power and control. This in turn has lead to less freedoms, liberties and more infringement upon our basic values like freedom of speech.
The party of JFK, it is not.
Anarchy Abroad; “Just Another Manic Monday..”
Some countries abroad are on the verge of collapse, while others are coming close to anarchy exemplified through violent, as well as, deadly protests.
Thailand, Pakistan and Afghanistan are three of those very countries that are facing this uprising and one is in a more precarious state than the others due to the radical terror groups that surround the area and have a significant influence over the region.
I am talking about Pakistan. Pakistan has various regions that are run by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and the possible collapse, which some say could happen in the near future, could be detrimental to Europe and the United States. When governments collapse there is the possibility that an extremist group could wind up taking control of the country and U.S. forces are worried that Al-Qaeda would be able to maneuver this.
PAKISTAN could collapse within months, one of the more influential counter-insurgency voices in Washington says.
The warning comes as the US scrambles to redeploy its military forces and diplomats in an attempt to stem rising violence and anarchy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we’re calling the war on terror now,” said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.
Why should we be concerned with an extremist terror group taking control of Pakistan when it already exists over there? Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and a decent defense arsenal in comparison to the other countries, like Afghanistan, in the Middle East. We don’t trade with many of the countries there, but Pakistan has been on and off the export list for a time being now. So, when Pakistan has been allowed to trade, they have been sold weapons that we have created and manufactured in the United States.
Laying out the scale of the challenges facing the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen put the two countries invaded by US-led forces after the September 11 attacks on the US on a par – each had a population of more than 30 million.
“But Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control,” he told the Herald .
Added to that, the Pakistani security establishment ignored direction from the elected Government in Islamabad as waves of extremist violence spread across the whole country – not only in the tribal wilds of the Afghan border region.
Pakistan is more complex than Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s terrain and primitive defense make it a tougher physical fight/war, but Pakistan would be more dangerous.
“In Afghanistan, it’s easy to understand, difficult to execute. But in Pakistan, it is very difficult to understand and it’s extremely difficult for us to generate any leverage, because Pakistan does not want our help.
“In a sense there is no Pakistan – no single set of opinion. Pakistan has a military and intelligence establishment that refuses to follow the directions of its civilian leadership. They have a tradition of using regional extremist groups as unconventional counterweights against India’s regional influence.”
Thailand has also been in the news recently and is on the brink of anarchy. The protest have finally subsided today and the leaders of these protests have “given up.” But many still state that they will fight and be the opposition to their government. We could see plenty more in Bangkok in the coming months.
Monday’s clashes occurred two days after protesters forced the cancellation of a high-profile Asian summit in Thailand, a big embarrassment for Abhisit who took office only in December.
Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, both of which already have a negative outlook on Thailand’s sovereign ratings, said the renewed political unrest increased the risk of a downgrade.
[...]
Last year, politicians backed by the “Red Shirts” were in power and royalist “Yellow Shirt” supporters of those now in government held nearly non-stop protests, culminating in a week-long occupation of Bangkok’s main airport.
This sounds unusually like our situation right now – all those protests against George Bush, Iraq and Republicans in general and now the flip side is occurring.
The political strife died down for a while after Abhisit came to office through parliamentary defections that Thaksin supporters say the army engineered. They demand a new election.
[...]
“I believe the darkest days in Thailand’s history are yet to come as we see no swift solution to ongoing divisiveness,” said Prinn Panitchpakdi, a CLSA Asia-Pacific analyst.
Obama Requests $83.4B More in War Funds and Will Stay in Iraq; But I Thought He Was Anti-War?
Obama has continued to state that he was going to pull out of Iraq, that he did not believe in “dumb” wars. He also stated that he was opposed to the surge in 2007 and thought it would make things worse, but in 2008 stated that he was for the surge. Obama said he had a plan to get the troops out of Iraq by March 2008 – that obviously did not happen – but he said he had a plan that would then get them out some time in 2009.
New reports from the White House state that Obama will plan to keep the troops in Iraq for another year until August 2010 - and there is now an agreement with Iraqi’s that state all troops must be gone by 2011. Will we hear the anti-war crowd who voted for Obama under the impression that he was anti-war or at least anti-Iraqi Freedom? At least those women in Code Pink who I disagree with stand by their principles along with Cindy Sheehan who are in an uproar over this. They are radical but at least they aren’t hypocrites when it comes to their stances.
Obama has voted continuously for funding for both Afghanistan and Iraq. So how can he be against a war and vote to continue funding it?
Obama continues to flip-flop on all of his funding, war and defense positions.
He is requesting an additional $83.4 billion for BOTH wars. And here is his voting record on war funding:
Afghan Law That Legalizes Rape Poses Problem for Obama and Clinton
WASHINGTON — As first lady, senator and then Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton was vocal in her fight for the rights of women in Afghanistan.
But, as President Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton now finds herself in the uncomfortable position of watching as the U.S.-backed Afghan president signs a law that critics say gives Shiite men the right to rape their wives.
International criticism pressure forced President Hamid Karzai to say Saturday that the law is under review, and he has spoken to Clinton about it.
The developments come as Obama seeks NATO support in Europe for his plan to ramp up the war against terrorists in Afghanistan. Back at home in Washington, administration officials have struggled this week with how to respond to Karzai’s signing of the so-called Shia Family Law without debate in the Afghan parliament. The law’s most controversial provisions address sexual intercourse in marriage.
“As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,” Article 132 of the law says. “Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”
Such a law runs contrary to the stated goals of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan — to pursue human rights and to help liberate women from religious oppression. It is a cause that has been championed by previous administrations, and particularly by previous first ladies.
The details of the law surfaced this week, just days after one of those former first ladies, Clinton, told the International Conference on Afghanistan at The Hague, Netherlands: “Women’s rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal; they are not an add-on or an afterthought.”
Afghanistan’s constitution, which was passed in 2004, calls for equal rights for all men and women. But the constitution also says that no law can contradict the laws of Islam. And in situations where the constitution lacks provisions, courts are allowed to use Islamic law, which critics say does not allow for equal rights.
This is so outrageous, I just don’t know what to say. Unbelievable. Beat, Kill, Rape. It’s all good in Afghanistan.
Taliban Publicly Flogs Woman in Pakistan
I guess this would go along with all those humane, pro-female laws that Afghanistan just passed – like being able to rape women…/major sarcasm!
