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First Lady Laura Bush made a surprise visit to Afghanistan over the weekend to push for more world aid for the war-torn country and to lobby for women’s rights/education. She met with Afghan president Hamid Karzai and greeted US troops at Bagram. Unlike some first ladies, she doesn’t need to embellish reports of her trip with tall tales of sniper fire. This is her third trip to Afghanistan–and the second time she has traveled to the war front solo without President Bush. She flew to one of the poorest provinces, Bamiyan, which is now headed by a female governor. At Bamiyan, she met female police recruits and New Zealand troops.
America should be proud of her work.
通过 美国广播公司新闻：
Urging the world to “stand more strongly with Afghanistan,” first lady Laura Bush visited remote Bamiyan province, where the Taliban regime prompted international outrage by destroying two giant Buddhist statues in 2001.
“We have seen a resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda killings and kidnappings in Afghanistan,” Bush told ABC News in an exclusive interview aboard the Air Force jet she flew from Washington to Afghanistan. “I don’t want people to think it means we need to give up. I think it just means we really need to stand more strongly with Afghanistan.”
Bush has made support for Afghanistan’s women — who endured brutal repression under the Taliban regime — one of her signature issues. This is her third trip here, the second traveling alone, without the president. Previously, no first lady had ever stepped foot in Afghanistan.
The first lady’s trip to Bamiyan Province is rich in symbolism. Dirt poor and remote, Bamiyan became a symbol of the Taliban’s backwardness and senseless brutality when two enormous Buddhist statues were blown up in March 2001 by Taliban militiamen.
The statues, which were destroyed under an edict to remove the “gods of the infidels,” had stood for more than 1500 years and were considered among the world’s greatest ancient cultural treasures.
“It’s a destruction of historical magnitude,” Laura Bush said. “I see it as a symbol of what the Taliban did and what al Qaeda does. [It was] a way of destroying the past, a way of destroying what people before you thought or what they believed or what they liked and I think it really is representative of a sort of destruction of civil life, cultural life, civil society that they represented.”
Will Mrs. Bush’s travels and activism abroad lessen the personal hatred the Left has shown her? Of course not. In April, the San Francisco Chronicle’s resident miscreant, Mark Morford, assailed the First Lady in an ad hominem-filled rant as a “docile doormat.” That is what Bay Area loons call any conservative woman who loves her husband, exhibits quiet grace, and doesn’t share the feminist impulse to crush men like soda cans for a living.
The Bush-bashers naturally can’t keep their stories straight. They have assailed and belittled the First Lady for advocating “safe” issues like children’s literacy. But what do they do when she travels alone to the battlefront to challenge oppressive jihadists?
Yup, they complained that she’s wasting fuel. A sampling of comments at the ABC News blog:
Nothing like wasting jet fuel!!! What in the world is she supposed to do there? Answer: Waste more of our tax dollars!!!!! What nerve for W to waste so much money, but of course it is not his money. JERK
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Exactly, a waste of fuel.
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Why are the taxpayers funding Laura’s latest exotic shopping expedition?
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Absolutely absurd. No need to go there Laura. Waste of time and money.
Obama 08!
You know if she were a Democrat first lady, we’d be hearing about her bravery on the frontlines and her commitment to women’s rights endlessly. She’d be lauded by the yappers of The View and gushed over by Oprah, Katie, and the NYTimes.
Instead, she’s “wasting jet fuel.”
不能和这些人一起赢。
