WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST - AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  Afghanistan may be an "ally" in the war on terror, but some of its practices teach us what we're presumably fighting against.  From The New York Times:

Bowing to international pressure and unprecedented protests by hundreds of women on the streets of Kabul, the Afghan government promised in April to review a new law imposing severe restrictions on women in Shiite Muslim families.

Last week, though, Human Rights Watch discovered that a revised version of the Shiite Personal Status Law had been quietly put into effect at the end of July — meaning that Shiite men in Afghanistan now have the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met and that Shiite women must obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their houses, “except in extreme circumstances.”

The new law was signed by President Hamid Karzai, who is depending on support from Sheik Muhammad Asif Mohseni, the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, in this week’s presidential election.

COMMENT:  Haven't heard a word from the "feminist" movement, which has been strangely silent on the oppression of Muslim women. 

There are plenty of Muslim moderates, but there are also plenty of extremists, and the extremists have essentially declared war on us.  Even President Obama, in a perfectly fine speech to the VFW yesterday, warned about this.  But too many Americans are forgetting.

August 18, 2009