Sexist comments directed toward Clinton (or Chelsea) are dwarfed by the death, violence, and deprivation suffered by Iraqis, and particularly Iraqi women and children.

I think it's time both candidates speak to this issue of American (ir)responsibility.

I was really struck by this: One woman interviewed said, "They gave us freedom and they took from us security ... but if I have to choose, I will choose safety and security."

Not least because it reminds me so much of a certain Ben Franklin quote.

Many US citizens, including our politicians are choosing "safety and security" over freedom here in America. Soon our democracy will be hollow as we give up our rights one by one for an illusion of safety from an enemy that is itself, part illusion. Unlike the woman quoted above we are not living with constant death and violence, there is no excuse for our giving up freedom for security...

we fill their stomachs alright,

with DU bullets and sperm. Such a civilized nation..

What is "free" about most girls not being allowed to attend school?

What is "free" about the vast majority of families not getting enough to eat?

What is "free" about the continued violence against factions, neighbors, rivals, classes?

What is "free" about the uptick in Sharia law, including the beating of women for not being properly covered?

I think this woman is saying, "If this is "freedom," the price is far too high for far too little."

sorry for mangling your screen name.

"As Women for Women International founder and CEO (and Iraqi native) Zainab Salbi wrote in the report: . .. 'Unless there is a clear understanding of the obstacles and avenues to women's access to development resources and the political will to enact gender equitable policies, any blueprint for sustainable peace risks being placed perilously out of reach ... It is time for women to be involved, not just in symbolic ways, but through full participation at every level, from the family dinner table, to community councils, to the United Nations. Strong women lead to strong nations.'"

Pitch that to your imams, lady, not us. It's not the Americans who are preventing your daughters from going to school and butchering women on the street for failing to wear Islamic headgear. It's not the Americans who have kidnapped, threatened and murdered so many religious minorities that they have essentially fled the place in order to stay alive. It's not the Americans who are stealing humanitarian supplies to sell for guns and blowing up whatever infrastructure is rebuilt in order to make some sectarian point.

Here's your "clear understanding of the obstacles": It's the imams, clerics, and Islamist thugs who are driving these disasters. They're the ones who don't have the "political will." No self-righteous, utterly Westernized lecture about "gender equitable policies" is going to do a damn thing so long as those folks have fundamentalist Islam to build on. Case in point: It's hard to call Saudi Arabia anything but a "strong nation" in terms of influence on the rest of the world, and yet their women are treated as lesser in freedom, rights, dignity, and even humanity.

Um, 76 percent of girls are not permitted to go to school? People can't even buy food? I'm sure the rich are eating. How is this freedom again? They have neither freedom NOR security. What exactly is she talking about? The fact that they have many dictators fighting with each other instead of a single dictatorship?

Kasmira, but we ARE the ones who put those imams in power in the first place. Saddam Hussein was secular. Women in Iraq enjoyed more freedom before we got there than women from any other middle eastern country. It was OUR meddling, as usual, that made circumstances such that these imams could come in and take power. If we had minded our own business, and not invaded a sovereign nation that was no threat to us at all (and that we were quite cozy with at one time) none of this would be happening. WE allowed the religious fools to move in and take power. WE bear responsibility for what is going on over there.

"But. If Hillary supporters are pissed off, and maybe even taking it out inappropriately on their Obama friends, I'd say we have reason to be."

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You have reason to take out your frustrations about Hillary's campaign on Obama supporters? Really? Shouldn't you be blaming her for campaign malpractice instead of hating on Obama supporters because he has outmaneuvered, outspent, outspeeched, out everythinged her?

Women crying the victim when things don't go their way. You really HAVE come a long way, baby. Or maybe that should say "wrong" way.

Cultures are largely either mostly good or mostly dysfunctional. Feminists and liberals can no longer afford to micro dissect all these foreign cultures and declare which parts of them are 'good' or 'bad' vis a vis the Ebul Western world and the US in particular. You can't afford to sit there defending radical madrassas because 'That has a long storied history in those far away places we have business judging' and then turn around and complain about the results they derive.

Either we need to ignore what happens way over yonder or we need to kick heads in. You don't like how women are treated there? Ok hand out a million M-16's to the women and train them. Radical woman killing Islam would be over in 60 days. Or we can have a consciousness raising sessions advertised on the sides of our hemp shopping bags and hope for the best.

one year of anarchy,

or something like that.

As Americans when we hear this quote, we tend to dismiss the wisdom it contains and assume people who feel this way don't appreciate the precious gift of "freedom."

We as Americans have never suffered the anarchic circumumstances that Iraq has suffered. We don't understand the horror of Anarchy. Its like 9/11, only every day for months on end. Really it is the rare American who even tries to understand what life is like in Iraq. Its just too depressing to contmeplate.

Those people are going to hate us for a long time.