I remember when feminists were rightfully outraged at the treatment
of women around the world. The plight of the Afghan women, brutalized
during the criminal Taliban regime, was (and still is) a major focus
of the feminist establishment. The barbaric treatment of women and children
was decried, fund raisers were held, our government was urged to act
against the oppressors.
Funny what happens to principles when shallow hypocrites are running the show. The feminist and liberal establishment’s abandonment of Iraqi women and children, in the name of partisan politics, is nothing short of obscene. After all, the “anti-war” demonstrations are actually “anti-Bush” rallies.
On March 7, International Women’s Day, several women, including the Very-Self-Important-Black-Woman-Author Alice Walker and Not-Very-Important-At-All–Attempted-Actress-and-Malcontent Janeane Garafalo, demonstrated at the White House to, in the words of one organizer, “stop this immoral and unnecessary war from happening.” How disgusting that a day meant to show support for women around the world showcased how selfish and cruel American feminists have become.
Of course, NOW was there in all its irrelevance. While acknowledging that Saddam Insane is a “maniacal tyrant, cruel and vicious,” they bravely called for the U.S. to do nothing, allowing that brutal and vicious man to torture and gas more of his own citizens, including women and children, to death. Is this suddenly okay because the women being tortured aren’t wearing burqas?
The feminist establishment’s political game with women’s lives is particularly disgraceful as they, of all interest groups, have a special duty to support ridding the world of Saddam.
Consider a 25-year-old Iraqi woman known as "Um Haydar," who, as Amnesty International reports, was beheaded in front of her children and in the street without charge or trial at the end of December 2000 after her husband was suspected of illegal political activity. Security men took her body and the head away in a plastic bag. The fate of her children and mother-in-law, all of whom were also taken, remains unknown. [See "Iraq: Stop the torture"]
It’s interesting how the fate of women and children – so righteously declared as the special and unique charge of the American leftist feminist movement – means nothing when the president is a Republican. Yes, Um Haydar, you only count to the American Feminist Elite when it suits their politics and makes one of their boys look good.
I am reminded every day during this crisis why I resigned my leadership position in NOW back in 1996. I finally saw the feminist establishment for the political sham it was. Obviously, nothing much has changed.
For Ms. Walker, Ms. Garafalo, NOW, and every other unconscious and misguided feminist who thinks that removing Saddam is “immoral,” remember that Um Haydar is just one of thousands of women who have been raped, tortured and murdered in front of their families.
Think of Um’s children, her daughters, whom you have abandoned. Then go to sleep at night and pray to God that the dead can’t really invade your dreams, because there are thousands of dead Iraqi women who know how you betray them, in the name of politics, in the name of hating George W. Bush, in the name of your own cynical political hypocrisy.
Today’s “liberals,” including their pathetic representatives in Hollywood, don’t really care about people or principles – all their braying has nothing to do with stopping war, or caring about “innocents.” No, it’s about sacrificing innocent women on the Altar of Politics. It’s about slogans and partisanship and political power.
Forget about the real struggle, the real women dying, the real rape of children, the real beheadings. The pond scum of Hollywood to leftist special interest groups to communist traitors who give aid and comfort to our enemy with anti-USA and anti-George W. Bush marches prefer to let Saddam Insane’s innocent victims struggle and die so they can make political points here at home. Because they want Republicans to look bad.
Just a few weeks ago Susan Sarandon, one of our more empty vessels, exposed her self-obsessed narcissistic agenda by complaining that we shouldn’t go after Saddam Insane by saying, “What has he ever done to us?” Thank God Sarandon and her ilk had nothing to do with foreign policy in the first half of the last century. After all, none of those millions of Jews and gays and gypsies Hitler was murdering were “us” either.
As a classical liberal I know that true liberalism is indeed about helping people less fortunate than ourselves. It’s about ridding the world of tyrants so people can live in freedom. It’s about expanding democracy so people can control their own lives. It’s about risking our lives so people other than “us,” like Iraqis, Kurds and Afghans, cannot only live through the day, but also have hope at the end of it.
In Iraq, women and children are slaughtered to punish Saddam’s enemies. New gas techniques are tried out on prisoners and animals. Homosexuals are murdered by the state simply for being gay.
This is a war in which the feminist and gay elite, human rights advocates and even the animal rights movement should be out in front fanatically supporting. Instead, they remain silent or actively oppose ridding the world of a man who has killed more women, children and gays than the Taliban ever could have dreamed.
While I am proud of you readers who identify as conservative, based on the e-mail I get I know plenty of liberals read this column as well. Take note of this if you are liberal and have fallen into a zombified lockstep with your favorite movie star or activist group against the liberation of Iraq: The exact same arguments, the exact same demonstrations, the exact same appeasement won out in the 1930s when fascism was rising in Europe and Asia. Containment, agreements and promises made by tyrants manifested into genocide.
There was an excuse for appeasers in the 1930s – they did not know what hell awaited them or the rest of the civilized world. We do.
So continue to wring your hands, pound your desk and hate the president while you chant “not in my name.” Then go get your double-mocha nonfat latte, send money to NOW or Amnesty International to make yourself feel good, and continue your charade as a “feminist” or “liberal.”
In the process, you guarantee your cowardice and betrayal of the suffering
will be in your name, while the decent and brave risk and give
their lives for women like Um Haydar, her children and thousands more
like them, wherever they may be.
Tammy Bruce
This
article was originally published at NewsMax.com.
Preorder Tammy Bruce's new book, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values.
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