Time magazine’s new cover: Woman whose nose was cut off by Taliban
Not just her nose, though: They ordered her husband to saw off her ears too for the crime of running away from home. Time’s editor insists that “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” but that’s nonsense, of course. The image is as stark an argument as you’re likely to see for continuing the war, which is why lefties naturally have been griping about it all day. Some offer legit complaints — instead of putting a mutilated girl on the cover to make the case for staying put, why not put a dead soldier on there to make the case for pulling out? — and some not so legit, like the idea that because this happened last year when U.S. troops were already in the field, it portends nothing about what’ll happen on a wider scale when we leave. I’m glad that Time’s trying to reintroduce the moral complications of withdrawal into the debate at a moment when the anti-war Narrative would prefer to ignore the messy aftermath, but this may be a case where “the story about the story” overshadows the actual, you know, story. Most of the bloggy links that I’ve seen today have gone to the piece at Time defending the decision to publish the photo, not the actual cover story about the catastrophic social backsliding to come once Islamist fanatics regain power (not to mention the inevitable retrenchment of Al Qaeda).
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According to Jim Verhulst, Times' Perspective editor and photos by Emilio Morenatti, Associated Press:
We typically think of terrorism as a political act.
But sometimes it’s very personal. It wasn’t a government or a guerrilla insurgency that threw acid on this woman’s face in Pakistan. It was a young man whom she had rejected for marriage. As the United States ponders what to do in Afghanistan — and for that matter, in Pakistan — it is wise to understand both the political and the personal, that the very ignorance and illiteracy and misogyny that create the climate for these acid attacks can and does bleed over into the political realm. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist who traveled to Pakistan last year to write about acid attacks, put it this way in an essay at the time: “I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region. . . .
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You have to wonder if America is "cutting off our nose to spite our face" (no pun intended, well maybe) to continue to fight the war in Afghanistan when the Taliban has such deep ingrained hatred for what they consider non-compliant women and non-muslims.
July 2010 was the deadliest month for our troops with over 66 killed and hundreds injured. It is time for America to quit playing footsie with Pakistan and the corrupt leaders in Afghanistan and make a decision to fight this war to win or get the hell out. Nine years is too long. The sacrifice too great.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/29/time-magazines-new-cover-woman-whose-nose-was-cut-off-by-taliban/
Too see more grotesque pictures go to:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2009/11/terrorism-thats-personal.html
