Ralph Peters has a great Op/Ed over at USA Today that notes that not only is the GWOT a fight against terrorists but it's also a fight for freedom within the Middle East. Though whole societies in Afghanistan and Iraq have experienced the transformative nature of freedom and democracy, Peters notes that the female half of these nations have benefited the most from these new found freedoms. Peters made one of the best arguments for this fight on behalf of women in the Middle East with the following passage:
The greatest moral advance has been the attainment of basic human rights by women. It's also the most threatening development to those daunted by change, who cling to a mythologized past and fear the future — whether in a Saudi-funded madrassa or protesting outside a U.S. Planned Parenthood clinic. Around the world, troubled souls continue to insist that women are the source of sin and must be kept in line for their own good. Theirs is a prescription for suffering, dreariness and stagnation.Well done Mr. Peters.
In traveling the globe, I've witnessed far more instances of the mistreatment of women than I care to recall, but the one that always leaps to mind is local and superficially benign: In the southern heat of a Washington summer, it's common to see a male Middle Eastern tourist comfortably dressed in a polo shirt and shorts trailed by a staggering woman wrapped from head to toe in flapping black robes, eyes peering out through a mask. It offends me to meet that image in my country — or anywhere.
We do not think of our troops abroad as fighting for women's rights. But they are. This is the titanic struggle of our time, the liberation of fully half of humanity. Islamist terror is only one aspect of it. But we can be certain of two things: In the end, freedom will win. And no society that torments women will succeed in the 21st century.
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