What we're fighting for

When I hear the complaints of feminists in this country I am generally unsympathetic. They want to criminalize ogling a woman (which, in their opinion, constitutes harassment). They want to lower the standards for the fireman's test so that more women can pass. They want to make off-color jokes in the workplace punishable by firing.

Can't say I've ever met a feminist whom I've found persuasive, or charming, or even humorous.

In our country, most of the feminists who use words like "exploited" and "abused" to describe their own condition are in fact abusing those words, rendering them almost devoid of meaning.

But there are women in other parts of the world who really are exploited, abused, and oppressed.

A Reuters article on Yahoo News this morning discussed the case of an Afghan woman who had been jailed for adultery after being raped. The big news was actually that she had been pardoned, although there was some question as to whether the pardon had been predicated on her agreeing to marry her rapist.

Question: What kind of backward society throws a woman in jail for the crime of having been raped -- and then insists she marry her rapist?

Answer: The kind the United States fights for. We are waging a war to support the Karzai regime, which has jurisdiction over the courts which threw the woman in jail.

So our troops are effectively fighting and dying in Afghanistan for the right to.....throw women in jail for being raped.

That's what the feminists -- and everybody else -- ought to be complaining about.