A Descent Back to the Dark Ages

As the last days of the presidential campaign wind down, I’ve had two thoughts on my mind that won’t go away. The first pertains to the ongoing discussion about a “War on Women” taking place in the United States and the fear held by a surprisingly large number of liberal people I know who feel America will end up back in the mid-20th Century should Mitt Romney and the Republicans claim victory on November 6th.

President Obama has made abortion and contraception a major part of his campaign – several speakers at the Democratic Convention dedicated their time slots almost entirely to this issue. The Democrats, seeking new fuel for these arguments, have seized on statements made by Republican senatorial candidates Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin about rape and whether or not it justifies abortion, tying it in with whether or not taxpayers should fund contraceptives for college students. Add a steel worker's wife who allegedly died of cancer because of Romney's greed and actress Kerry Washington's warning that even a woman's “right to vote” is under threat in America, and voters are left with one frightening caricature glaring up at them from the ballot. The second thought has been reality, which has kept a low-profile in the election lately, and how easily it disassembles the fake narrative put forward by the Democratic Party. Let's start with President Obama's comments on Egypt and Tunisia during last Monday's debate, something I found to be one of the most offensive things he has said during his four years in office. When defending his foreign policy, the president stated “One thing I think Americans should be proud of, when Tunisians began to protest, this nation – me, my administration – stood with them earlier than just about any country. In Egypt we stood on the side of democracy, in Libya we stood on the side of the people.”

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How nice…if not for a severe inconsistency, one I have done my best to highlight before. When people in Iran took to the streets three years ago to challenge a government with one of the worst women's rights records in the world, Obama had nothing to say. He gave the protesters the cold shoulder, declaring that it would do no good for the US to comment on the situation. Its one thing for the US president to adhere to an isolationist foreign policy that falls in line with what Ron Paul or Gary Johnson would embrace, but Obama’s reaction to the unrest in the Middle East is far worse. In other words, he should have either supported Iranians in 2009 like he endorsed the Arab Spring or he should have left left the whole region alone entirely. By choosing to voice strong support for “change” in Egypt and the Arab World when their time for protests came, Obama ended up giving legitimization and support to the same kind of misogynistic, bigoted forces that Iranians tried to break away from in 2009. This doctrine has been so devastating that it makes even his worst failures on the domestic front seem trivial. Despite all the praise Cairo's Tahrir Square received for its large numbers of female protesters fighting for change in the beginning of 2011, Egypt today – under President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood – could not be farther from being a role-model for equality, hope, or women's rights. The overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak on February 11th – the same date, tragically, as the Iranian Revolution in 1979 – was crescendoed by the brutal sexual assault on CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who fortunately escaped with her life, albeit with severe trauma. Hundreds of jubilant revolutionaries were involved, but to this day, no one has been prosecuted over the assault, which is not isolated. Since Logan went through her ordeal, several other reporters have suffered similar fates that are horrifying to describe, while Egyptian women who protest for more rights and representation have been met by mobs of angry men who attack and rape them. Meanwhile, away from Tahrir and in the halls of Parliament, an assembly with an Islamic fundamentalist majority drafts a new constitution that will address a woman's role in the new Egypt. In Tunisia, the constitution has already been written and panicked female citizens have started protesting over a section that declares women “complimentary” to men. The murder of a secular activist, an “indecency” charge against a women who filed a complaint against police officers who allegedly raped her, and a black flag adored by Al-Qaeda flying above the US Embassy last month are just a few more of the many challenges holding the North African nation back. With all of these crushing developments, President Obama and his supporters have the gall to praise these countries and then talk of a “War on Women” in America. If all of this isn’t enough to illustrate how reprehensible the situation in the Middle East has become, consider a survey recently given to the Egyptian people by the polling firm Greenburg Quinlan Rosner and published in Foreign Policy Magazine. According to the results, 62% of them consider the Iranian regime to be “a friend of Egypt”. But wait, it gets even more comforting. While 62% defend the Iranian Government, an even higher number – 68% – have negative views of Shiite Muslims (Egypt is primarily Sunni Muslim). That means at the very least a huge chunk of the sycophants in the first group are against the religion Iran's regime lives by. Shiite Muslims, like in Iran, are also majority in Iraq, which might explain why Egyptians have taken leading roles in that country’s Sunni-extremist/Al-Qaeda presence and why Tahrir Square remains silent every time a “resistance” bomb wipes out Iraqis shopping in markets. Yet for some reason, despite their lack of sympathy for the most innocent of all people, Egyptians have warm, fuzzy feelings for the worst actors the Shiite faith has given the world. There is no reason for the United States to be supporting the fledgling theocracy that is Egypt, yet billions of dollars from American taxpayers are in the pipeline for it and President Obama has rebuked certain members of Congress for trying to stop this. People the world over may have had a heart for the young people who protested in 2011 and toppled Mubarak, but either their iPhones and Levis masked their true beliefs or they have been marginalized by a dark and silent majority that supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is the only beneficiary of American aid money to the country. If Obama wanted to make a real last-ditch effort to save his foreign policy agenda, he would cut this basket case loose, let it go its own way, and encourage the people of Iran to rise up and save the Middle East from sealing itself off in the dark ages. He won't though, because in his mind and the minds of his supporters, the revolution in Egypt is something to be celebrated, just like in Tunisia. To them, these milestones stand for a new beginning, while a possible Romney Administration is the monstrosity threatening to take away equal rights for women. Despite all the evidence that reveals the house full of straw men they've built and indicts the real villains, they will carry this message to the finish line...even if Romney and the Republicans are already waiting there.