U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with Pakistani Gen. Khalid Shameem Wynne, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, April 20, 2011. DOD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeleyFrom Abbottabad To Worse -- Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair
Hating the United States—which funds Islamabad’s army and nuclear program to the humiliating tune of $3 billion a year—Pakistan takes its twisted, cowardly revenge by harboring the likes of the late Osama bin Laden. But the hypocrisy is mutual, and the shame should be shared.
Salman Rushdie’s upsettingly brilliant psycho-profile of Pakistan, in his 1983 novel, Shame, rightly laid emphasis on the crucial part played by sexual repression in the Islamic republic. And that was before the Talibanization of Afghanistan, and of much of Pakistan, too. Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shame—which is the noble word “honor”—becomes most commonly associated with the word “killing.” Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter.
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My Comment: Love him or hate him, Christopher Hitchens is always a must read for commentary and discussion. He does not disappoint in this post.