his newest column
"THE RELATIVITY OF LOUTISM"
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In the White House's relentless, multimillion-dollar PR campaign to sell us "homelanders" on the righteousness of George W's high-tech, saturation bombing of that pile of rocks, dust, and impoverished people known as Afghanistan, the Bushites have recently pointed in televised outrage at the horrible way Afghan women are treated by that despicable bunch of louts in the Taliban.
Even the demure and gentle Laura Bush was put out front on this one, declaring in a radio address that "All of us have an obligation to speak out" for "the rights and dignity" of the women treated so miserably by the Taliban.
True enough. But like most presidential snowjobs, the purity of Bush's message covers up a mountain of inconvenient ugliness. Ugly Example Number One: The Bush family, including Daddy Bush when he was president, has long been delighted to deal with the louts of the Taliban. Only a decade ago, Bush the father and Bush the son were cheering these same Taliban louts as "freedom fighters;" the Bush family also approved when billions-of-dollars-worth of U.S. weapons were delivered to the louts during the '80s and '90s the Bushes winked and nodded as Unocal only recently was negotiating an oil-pipeline deal with the louts; and, just this spring, George W. himself celebrated the louts as good partners in our nation's infamous Drug War, gratefully sending 53 million of our tax dollars to them. Through all of these dealings, neither Bush the Elder, George W., nor Laura felt any "obligation to speak out" about "the rights and dignity" of Afghan women.
Ugly Example No. Two: The only group of war lords worse than the Taliban is our darling new ally in Afghanistan––the Northern Alliance. What about their brutish and rapacious treatment of women? Oh, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: "We're talking about different regions of the world where people have their own cultures and histories."
This is Jim Hightower saying...Maybe he missed Laura's radio address.
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Sources: "Hunks and Brutes" New York Times 11/28/2001
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