Wednesday March 10, 2010 – Lee Smith, Gordon Chang, Caroline Glick

Well, that sounds pretty fundamental wouldn’t you say? Yet, despite these kinds of events at the State Department, it sure seems to me, and I have the feeling it seems to Colonel Shafiqua Kurishi as well, that women’s rights are not going to be all that fundamental in the future of Afghanistan, because as a practical matter, what’s going on there now is the U.S Government is trying frantically to turn the place over to the Taliban. Excuse me, not all of the Taliban, not the ‘really, really bad’ Taliban just the ‘not so bad’ Taliban.

The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, even the ‘not so bad’ Taliban, from our lights, is really, really bad for women. Why is that? That’s because whether you’re at the violently, terrifyingly dangerous end of the Taliban spectrum, or what we are being encouraged to believe is the less violent and terrifying end of the Taliban spectrum, you adhere to sharia; and according to sharia, as you know, as a faithful listener, I’m sure, to Secure Freedom Radio, you treat women like chattle.

They do not have equal rights; they are your personal property. In Afghanistan under the Taliban they weren’t allowed out of the house unless accompanied by a male relative. Who cares if they starved to death because they couldn’t go out of the house? They would not survive under the Taliban. So it is, I’m sure, of more than a little concern to ladies like Colonel Shafiqua Kurishi as she is receiving this award from Hilary Clinton today, that she’s about to be sold out to the Taliban.

Now here’s another point that Hilary Clinton made:

HILARY CLINTON:“Women are absent from negotiations about peace and security to end those conflicts.  Their voices simply are not being heard.  Today the United States is making women a cornerstone of foreign policy.”

Well, I feel better, and I’m sure those women do to a little bit. And in fact on NPR this morning there was a clip from a woman by the name of Soraya Paksad, who previously received the Department of State’s courage award for her role in Afghanistan. This is her clip:

SORAYA PACKSAD: “The peace jirga wants to have our presence and now they have agreed that one woman will be allowed to be part of/a member of the peace jirga, but we’ll try for more.”

Okay, did you get that? The peace jirga is where this diplomatic effort to work out the future of Afghanistan is supposed to take place. I suspect that the Taliban are not going to sit down at a table with a single woman, let alone multiple women, and I suspect that the United States Government will yield on that point despite Hilary Clinton’s statement to the effect that women are not going to be absent anymore from negotiations.

But you know who’s really absent from this? And it’s so stunning, and it’s so troubling. Where are all of those women in America who profess to be committed to women’s rights, who would have us believe that nothing is more important than women’s rights, not just to them but to society at large? Don’t they care that women are being enslaved? Or women who have been freed by force of our arms in Afghanistan are prospectively going to be re-enslaved? Don’t they find abhorrent the idea that women are treated like chattle, or worse murdered? For example, as we’ve talked about on this program several times, in the film The Stoning of Sorayah M, stoned to death for trumped-up charges of adultery? Don’t they care? Well, if they do they’ve disguised it exceedingly well. And it is scandalous. And it seems to me that we are not in need of awards here or there, or promises about inclusion of a token woman in a jirga. We are in need of women of America who care about their sisters overseas. And for that matter, men in America who care about women overseas as well, to stand up against sharia and what it is doing to them. If only because if it is not challenged, if it is not stopped elsewhere around the world, if we continue to concede ground to it, if we try to appease it, if we submit to sharia it will be here.

It will be our women who will be in burkhas and staying home and not driving cars and the rest. Think that’s an exaggeration, folks? Look at Europe. It’s beginning there. It must be stopped. America must remain sharia-free. We are committed to that here at Secure Freedom Radio and we would love to hear what you think about the idea. Want to live under sharia? I hope not – you’re listening to the wrong show if you do! Anyway, check in with us at securefreedomradio.com or the Frank Gaffney Twitter or Facebook accounts.