Empowering Muslim Grrrls

I take it that Barbara Ehrenreich is using a rhetorical device when she suggests that Kerry and Edwards adopt this line rather than the “manly” veteran image they’re conveying, but some of the ideas within her piece are correct on the merits and contain some smart politics.

I think adding “human rights for women” into the foreign policy and terrorism debate is smart. Bush and his merry band certainly thought it was a good idea in selling Afghanistan. Unfortunately, they have made things worse for the women in Iraq in many ways, while only marginally improving things in Afghanistan (in the areas in which the religious zealotry of the Taliban has really been routed.)

This is an issue that most people can agree that we could possibly affect positively if done respectfully and it is also one which all but the most zealous fundamentalists in the US can agree upon regardless of political ideology. It has the added virtue of being one real, although complicated, approach to dealing with Islamic terrorism.