Absolutely I agree with that.

Education of girls and family planning opportunities are sorely lacking in any aid packages to developing countries. It should always be sanitation first, then basic infrastructure, then education.

I have only recently become aware of just who the IMF and World Bank loan packages really benefit and it is nauseating to me. Business classes in the US turned me into a raging radical liberal, and I don’t mean someone who approves of the neo-liberal economic policies shoved down the throats of developing nation governments.

You do realize just how pathetic the education system (including college) is here?

I was disappointed when I came across the story about Karzai signing the law - even more disappointed that the American media has tried to ignore it (for fear that our puppet-president might be exposed as being anathema to what we’re trying to do).

Significantly, the law says nothing about the veil - mostly because it’s a traditional and cultural thing. You’re exactly right- it’s NOT progress, and someone needs to point it out in the mainstream media.

Here in India, most Muslim women do not wear a veil - many don’t even cover their hair (and almost an equal number of Hindu women cover their hair). It’s tradition and culture, and is not related to their freedoms (or lack thereof).

Thus, the veil is really not an accurate measurement of women’s freedom, but perhaps a reflection of what happens AFTER women acquire freedoms and begin to insist on their own development.

In the US, there are times and places when the veil is inappropriate (i.e., DL photos). But given that America is a collection of all people, all cultures, and all religions, it’s not automatic that everyone will assimilate our own values and culture.

Either way, the focus of US foreign policy needs to be on development - and in how to partner with those groups capable of helping. So far, we’ve tried to impose our own goals, ideas, and values with little regard for realities on the ground, and have ignored Muslim organizations to our own (and their) detriment.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090401_silence_meets_despair_of_afghan_women/

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just signed a law that forces women to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, keeps women from leaving the house—even for work or school—without a husband’s permission, automatically grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers, and favors men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. In short, the law again consigns Afghan women to lives of brutal repression.”

Progress? NO.

This does not mean I watch Fox newz, nor does it mean I have ever supported or agreed with the “War on Terror.” I want the US forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq and I want corporate control of the mainstream media to end.

I don’t care if they eliminate the veil or not in majority Islamic countries. If women want to wear it that’s ok with me.

If a woman is driving erraticly in this country and the cops pull her over and they cannot identify her from her driver’s license, that is a problem. If a woman wants to live here in the US and drive then she needs to follow the law here and take off the niqab for her driver’s license picture.

If I moved to Saudi Arabia, you can bet that I would follow the law there.

Women want to hide behind that thing in places where men are protected from their own sexual urges, fine.

Wimpy assholes.