A family in Pakistan is living in poverty and avoiding neighbors calling for their deaths. Their offense? The oldest daughter was raped and the family did not kill her as demanded as a matter of honor. Unlike hundreds of such girls killed in honor killings each year, Kainat Soomro, 17, is being supported by her family and refuses to back down in demanding justice for her kidnapping and gang rape.
Soomro was kidnapped in Mehar, Pakistan and held for days as she was gang raped. After she escaped, she and her father went to police who allegedly refused to act. In the meantime, the family was told by religious elders to kill the girl.
They declared her kari (or “black female”) for losing her virginity outside marriage.
The local court has ruled against her due to the lack of independent evidence. However, the lack of evidence is reportedly due to the police failing to investigate. Her case is again focusing on the abuses of these religious edicts in Pakistan and the mistreatment of girls under radical Islamic principles.
Source: The Atlantic
O.S.-
Amen.
-30-
“No doubt that a US government incinerating babies is morally superior to Japan bayoneting them.”
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This has not been a good week, a good month nor a good year for me. I am irritable and cranky, and have no patience or time for the willfully dense or obtuse.
As I told someone else yesterday, I can explain it for you but I cannot understand it for you. Logical fallacies of the false equivalence and strawman type seem to be your forte. I am done with you.
What are the coordinates we needed to put in for a nuclear attack to stop the genocide in Darfur?
Pick your innocents wisely.
No doubt that a US government incinerating babies is morally superior to Japan bayoneting them.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Elaine, I have seen some of the captured film of what went on. The worst one was the Japanese soldier who was having babies thrown into the air and catching them with his bayonet like spearing meat on a shish-kabob.
There was a Bataan survivor who lived in the same town as my grandparents and I talked to him after the war. He was a shell of a man.
Otteray,
I read a book about the rape of Nanking about fifteen years ago. There were times that I had to put the book down. The atrocities perpetrated upon the Chinese were horrible. It’s said that about 350,000 people were killed in a period of approximately two months.
puzzling-
You just make one stupid comment after another. Maybe you should read some history before you make these senseless comments.
puzzling said, “And Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked attack? The U.S. should have expected such (and indeed knew such) after the U.S. embargo on Japan was implemented”
Since when was it proper diplomacy to reply to an embargo with an attack on another country’s military base and an attempt to destroy it’s navy?
puzzling said, “No doubt it was worth it then…and of course keeping China safe from Japan’s empire allowed another billion to be served by communism (less 70 million or so Chinese along the way).”
Did you know in 1941 that China would become Communist in 1946? If you did, why didn’t you tell FDR?
And finally, regarding your post of Sept.29, 2011 at 11:42pm that insinuates that I was warmongering on Afghanistan- apparently you weren’t around when I ripped both Bush and Obama for not pulling out of Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora in December, 2001. Not to mention also ripping Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et.al. for lying us into Iraq and Obama for staying there.
As for Japan in 1945, they deserved everything they got. There are wars that must be fought, and then there are wars that must be condemned and opposed-like Iraq. And Afghanistan after December, 2001.
China was our ally and the least of our concerns in 1945. The whole idea was to end the war and keep Joe Stalin from getting a chunk of Japan and all of Korea. It was in our interest that China and the Soviet Union had no real love for each other.
Communist China was still in the future in August 1945.
OS,
No doubt it was worth it then… and of course keeping China safe from Japan’s empire allowed another billion to be served by communism (less 70 million or so Chinese along the way).
Given that someone like Pat Toomey is in the senate and he wants to see doctors put in jail for performing abortions and the increasing restrictions put on abortion services as well as birth control counseling, access to SDI info, etc. seems like a lot of folks would not be unhappy if the Pakistani rules were put in place here.
“Matthews: Would you outlaw abortion, would you put people in jail for performing…?
Toomey: I think that Roe v Wade was wrongly defined, wrongly decided and I think states should be free to restrict abortion and I would support legislation in Pennsylvania that would ban abortion and I would suggest that we have penalties for doctors who perform them if we were able to pass that law.
Matthews: Would you put people in jail for perfoming abortions?
Toomey: At some point doctors performing abortions, I think would be subject to that sort of penalty.” http://toomeywatch.com/?p=13
Pearl harbor was a sneak attack. Nanking had already been raped and horrible war crimes committed. But karma is something the Japanese should have understood when the crimes against humanity started in the late 1930s. They have yet to apologize for Nanking or Bataan, unless I missed something.
I have no apology for either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. We had a taste of what a mainland invasion would entail on D-Day, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. That would have been piddling compared to an invasion of mainland Japan. The two bombs got it over with and the Emperor ordered surrender. The Japanese military tried and failed in a palace coup in an attempt to keep him from surrendering. The bombs, as horrible as they were, saved untold lives. I have no apology for doing what had to be done to effect a surrender.
In case you missed it above or did not read, I suggest you read and reflect on the stories in the link below. It is long, so take your time. Let us know what you think about the way they conducted themselves from the time of Nanking in 1937 up to the last days of the war eight years later. Then tell me you would have wanted to drag the war out for maybe another year.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html
And Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked attack? The US should have expected such (and indeed knew such) after the US embargo on Japan was implemented.
At least Pearl Harbor was a military target unlike the two civilian population centers chosen for annihilation by the United States.
Bumper sticker I saw on an old Vet’s car some years back when the revisionists were condemning the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
If There Had Been No Pearl Harbor
There Would Have Been No Hiroshima
Otteray Scribe:
“The Japanese war machine sacrificed any pretense of moral or ethical superiority well before 1945.”
You are right about that, they were terrible.
HenMan and Pete,
To add to the thought, Truman did not just make the right decision, but probably the ONLY decision possible.
For the history revisionists, look at the link below. This is the enemy we were dealing with from 1941 to 1945. Ever talk to a Bataan or Nanking survivor? The Japanese war machine sacrificed any pretense of moral or ethical superiority well before 1945.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html
Pete-
Another factor I didn’t mention that may well have been in Truman’s mind was the reaction of the American people if they learned that we invaded Japan and lost 250,000 to 1,000,000 American servicemen’s lives while we had, but didn’t use 2 (or more) atomic bombs. Had that happened, Truman would certainly have been impeached and removed from office, if not lynched.
I agree with you that Truman was very pleased to learn at the Potsdam Conference that the A-bomb test was successful and would give him a strong hand in future dealings with Stalin. No one knew at the time how short that advantage would be.
HenMan
you wrote
The future relations of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were not known at that time and were , of course, not a factor in Truman’s decision, which I will again state was the correct decision.
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i can’t point to any one thing in truman’s speeches or papers but i’ve always felt that given the way the soviets were consolidating in eastern europe that dropping atomic bombs in japan might send a message to stalin.
i am in no way saying that was the only reason or even the main reason, given the japanese defense of okinawa an invasion of the home islands worried most if not all military commanders. (i bet there were one or two privates that weren’t looking forward to it either).
either way hiroshima and nagasaki definitely got joe steel’s attention.
So now the NYPD is thinking they’re in Pakistan? Next suggestion is that women don’t go anywhere without a male escort. I’m stunned by this disgusting article!!!
In Response To A String Of Sexual Assaults, New York Police Tell Women To Cover Up Instead Of Catching The Attacker
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/30/333291/sexual-assaults-new-york-police/