THE DAILY BLADE: The Lesser Of Evils?
Liberals are often caught between colliding environmental values (click here and here) but when their liberal values are at odds with their environmentalism, they get a brain freeze. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot, with conservatives caught between being anti-abortion and anti-illegal immigration, reports The Associated Press:
Until early this month, Nebraska had the nation's only Medicaid policy that allowed unborn children to qualify. That meant women who weren't eligible for the government-run insurance program on their own - such as illegal immigrants - got Medicaid-covered prenatal care because their unborn children qualified.
After federal officials told Nebraska it was breaking Medicaid rules, the state tried to come up with a substitute. …
The reports of more women seeking abortions - which some lawmakers are openly skeptical of - spurred a renewed push to create a separate, non-Medicaid program under which illegal immigrants and some legal residents would get state- and federal-funded prenatal care.
Sen. Brad Ashford (R) pitched a proposal to Gov. Dave Heineman (R) to have Omaha donors contribute $3 million so women could continue receiving state-funded prenatal care, but was shot down ("I have repeatedly said that I support prenatal care for legal residents. I do not support providing state-funded benefits for illegal individuals."), leaving conservatives on the horn of a dilemma:
"Whichever way you vote, you are compromising a core principle," said Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln. … A Republican opposed to abortion, Fulton was leaning in favor of extending prenatal benefits to illegal immigrants but phasing out such funding over time.
Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha, a Republican who also describes himself as against abortion but who was leaning against providing state-funded care to illegal immigrants said, "You're darned if you do and darned if you don't."
"This is not a pro-life issue," said state Republican Party chairman Mark Fahleson. "It is about conferring taxpayer funded benefits to illegal immigrants."
As of this posting, it looks like legislators who want to prevent illegal aliens from aborting their anchor babies are losing the debate.
Today’s Letter Is “I.” As In Ingrate.
The Washington Post reports that Kermit the Frog, Big Bird and other venerable “Sesame Street" characters could be pressed into service helping Afghan children learn “their letters, numbers and messages of fair play, ethnic tolerance and national unity.” Never mind that the concepts of national unity are alien to the country’s tribal culture, and that ethnic tolerance is alien to the “deeply religious country … where women rarely go out in public without burqas, which cover them from head to toe” (underscored by the Muppets “need[ing] a crash course in sharia, or Islamic law, and possibly a makeover before they go on air in Afghanistan”).
The Stiletto was struck by the comment of Latifa Akbari, a mother of six who works with an association for parents in Herat, Afghanistan's cultural capital: "Our children lack kindness because our society has seen only war and guns. Even our playgrounds have army soldiers and police officers with weapons. Maybe this 'Sesame Street' could help."
Akbari seems oblivious to the fact that playground have soldiers and police officers trying to protect her and her children from this:
† Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud buying children as young as 7 - some of them kidnapped - to serve as suicide bombers against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets (he pays as much as $14,000 per child – a sum that exceeds per capita income in Pakistan by 400 percent).
† The Taliban - who “operate a shadow government more powerful than the state” in some regions, reports The Wall Street Journal - keeping a tight grip on Afghans through targeted assassination of those who work for local government agencies or on U.S. bases, and on private cellphone providers, who were forced to cave in to an edict that they turn off their antennas from dusk to dawn after insurgents destroyed $400K cellphone towers and killed staff.
† Taliban and other insurgents killing 1,630 Afghan civilians last year - two-thirds of the 2,412 total, according to the U.N. (Meaning, for every civilian U.S. and coalition forces killed accidentally – typically as a result of airstrikes - insurgents killed two on purpose.)
Maybe Akbari was taken in by that slick Taliban PR campaign to soften its image (second item), “Cross us and we’ll slit your throat, but it will pain us to do so.” But until she understands that the insurgents – and not U.S.-coalition forces – are hazardous to her children’s physical and psychological well-being, “Sesame Street” can’t help.
We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part VII
Federal prosecutors charged Chicago cab driver Raja Lahrasib Khan, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, reports The Associated Press:
Khan spoke with another man identified in the complaint only as Individual B on March 11 and appeared to be talking about an attack on an unspecified stadium within the United States, according to the complaint.
Khan allegedly said bags containing remote controlled bombs could be placed within the stadium and then, "boom, boom, boom, boom," prosecutors said. …
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in the statement that there was no imminent danger to the Chicago area but "these charges, once again, affirm that law enforcement must remain constantly vigilant to guard against domestic support of foreign terrorist organizations."
The complaint said that Khan claimed while speaking with an undercover agent to be acquainted with Ilyas Kashmiri, a terrorist leader believed to be based in the tribal areas of western Pakistan.
Although Kashmiri is charged with planning a terrorist attack in Denmark, along with Tahawwur Rana and David Coleman Headley (fifth item), investigators have not connected Khan to that plot.
Unless there was more to her comment, Akbari did not say she wanted the soldiers out of there. The children have known nothing but war and guns. Violence against you or violence on your behalf is still violence. She seems to want an end to the violence. When the Taliban is defeated the soldiers will go home because they aren't necessary anymore. It is like if I had to be under police guard, I would be very stressed. At the same time I would be grateful for the police being there. Maybe she feels the same.
Also Afghanistan had a relatively modern government in the 20s if I recall correctly. Urban women have adopted burqas under duress. Even tribal women can learn freedom. If America's black slaves could learn freedom without the Internet to learn it from, Afghani women can learn it I think.
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In my reading of the quote, she implied that the reason the children were stressed was because they saw soldiers and cops all the time. She didn't say they were stressed because they saw their next-door neighbor beheaded by the Taliban for working as a translator for coalition tropps, or a woman beaten to a bloody pulp because her ankle was visible from under her burqa when she walked.
I was in NYC after 9/11 and there were groups U.S. soldiers on every street corner in midtown Manhattan carrying automatic machine guns that, if stood on end, could have been close to my height. Remember, NYC is a city where the only time a law-abiding citizen ever sees a gun, (s)he is being robbed (or worse). I don't remember anyone being stressed by the presence of the soldiers pr the guns. We were grateful they were there.
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I can see that. (I went back and read the article.) War is not the only thing going on in Afghanistan. There is also the thuggery and brutality which would be unchecked if the war went away. I can't comment on the experience of being anywhere near 9/11 but I'm thinking that this was not permanent and we knew it would not be permanent. Our default condition is the ability to go around unarmed. In Afghanistan not only the kids but their parents have grown up knowing nothing but war. I would like to see an end to the cops and guns- in a way that does not abandon the victims to brutality and thuggery.
I still say that if American slaves could learn freedom, so can Afghani women. I have just been reading about Reconstruction, which is another case of the troops going home halfway through the war. We freed the slaves and then abandoned them to Jim Crow. I hope we know better than to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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