LAURA BUSH - To address plight of Afghan women

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[Laura Bush, I'm sure, wouldn't have agreed to this if she didn't support the idea--she may even have suggested it herself. Whatever its origin or motive, it's another brilliant move. OG]

Laura Bush to address plight of Afghan women

Posted 12:07 a.m. EST Saturday Nov. 17

By Ron Hutcheson Knight Ridder Newspapers

CRAWFORD, Texas -- First lady Laura Bush will deliver today's weekly White House radio address to kick off an international campaign highlighting the Taliban's mistreatment of Afghan women.

The radio address, the first by a first lady, is the latest example of Laura Bush's increasingly public role in her husband's presidency.

She will urge worldwide condemnation of Taliban policies that block women from jobs and education. The Bush administration has latched onto the treatment of women as a dramatic way to cast the war on terrorism as a conflict between good and evil -- not a war against Islam -- and is deploying the first lady to dramatize the message.

Human rights groups have long complained that the Taliban is one of the most repressive regimes in the world for women. The Islamic government banned schooling for girls older than 8 and barred women from most jobs. Women also are banned from the best hospitals under policies encouraging segregation of men and women. And women are required to be covered head-to-toe when they leave their homes.

Women who violate the strict standards of conduct are summarily beaten by morality police from the "Department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice."

Refugees report that women caught with painted nails have had them ripped out by the morality police.

A 1999 report from Physicians for Human Rights, a Boston-based human-rights group, said this of the Taliban: "To our knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment from showing their faces, seeking medical care without a male escort, or attending school."

The watchdog group concluded that Taliban policies "have had a disastrous impact" on women, forcing thousands of single women and widows into poverty.

Shireen Hunter, director of Islamic programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a conservative think tank in Washington, said the Taliban's policies bear little resemblance to Islamic teachings or Afghan culture. Although other Islamic countries put restrictions on women, including Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, none go as far as the Taliban.

"What we have in Afghanistan is a combination of the most strict and outdated interpretation of Islam mixed with the very, very brutal tribal culture of the Pashtuns," she said. The Taliban's leaders are Pashtuns.

While Hunter endorsed the White House public relations strategy, she cautioned that it could backfire if Afghans and other Muslims view it was an attempt to impose U.S. values on other cultures.

"We have to be a bit subtle and a bit careful how we implement it," she said. "It's important that we involve, as much as possible, Afghan women.

Laura Bush's radio address will be the first by a president's wife, although others have participated in joint broadcasts with their husbands. The State Department will seek to buttress her remarks by posting a report on "The Taliban's War Against Women" on the agency's Web site, www.state.gov.

On Monday, Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will discuss the issue in London with top women in the British government.

High-ranking women in the Bush administration will also pitch in. Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke will hold a conference call with women business leaders Monday, and White House counselor Karen Hughes will talk with women editors and publishers.

Laura Bush's involvement is another indication of her evolving role as first lady. A former librarian and teacher who made her husband promise during their courtship that she would not have to make speeches, she had hoped to make education her signature issue. But following the Sept. 11 attacks she increasingly has helped voice the administration's views.

This week she also dabbled in diplomacy by overseeing arrangements for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Luydmila, during their two-day visit to the Bush ranch near Crawford.

Reflecting on her changing role in a recent speech at the National Press Club, Laura Bush recalled a phone call that she received from a friend after Sept. 11.

"She used to tell me that she was glad she wasn't in my shoes. But the other day, she said that for the first time she saw me on the news and she felt an actual pang of jealousy," Bush said. "She realized and reminded me that I had a great opportunity to reach out to a large audience and help people, while she in comparison didn't know what she could do to help."

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001

Answers

Sweetie and I were just cackling.

HILLARY: You sonofabitch, you never let me do a radio address!

(Chucks another lamp at hapless Bill; he ducks but the ashtray immediately following catches him on his nose again.)

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001


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