Number three with a bullet for (at least) the seventh time. Sheesh–being promoted to Al Qaeda’s 3rd in command is like wearing a red shirt on the original Star Trek. But, in an interesting plot twist, the usual unnamed Western officials seem to have since revised Al-Libi’s stature to “”not far below the importance of the top two al Qaeda leaders” — Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri” (CNN) and “”in the top half dozen figures in Al Qaeda”” (The LA Times)–which means that the real 3rd-from-the-top may still be on the lam.
Am I the only one who wants to gouge his eyes out with knitting needles whenever John McCain says “I’m going to give you a little straight talk” before launching into a pander-iffic applause line?
Related: Matt Welch and Johann Hari attempt to derail the media-engineered Man Crush Express.
While the enemy is still dangerous and more work remains, the American and Iraqi surges have achieved results few of us could have imagined just one year ago. (Applause.) When we met last year, many said that containing the violence was impossible. A year later, high profile terrorist attacks are down, civilian deaths are down, sectarian killings are down.
When we met last year, militia extremists — some armed and trained by Iran — were wreaking havoc in large areas of Iraq. A year later, coalition and Iraqi forces have killed or captured hundreds of militia fighters. And Iraqis of all backgrounds increasingly realize that defeating these militia fighters is critical to the future of their country.
When we met last year, al Qaeda had sanctuaries in many areas of Iraq, and their leaders had just offered American forces safe passage out of the country. Today, it is al Qaeda that is searching for safe passage. They have been driven from many of the strongholds they once held, and over the past year, we’ve captured or killed thousands of extremists in Iraq, including hundreds of key al Qaeda leaders and operatives.
Last month, Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he railed against Iraqi tribal leaders who have turned on al Qaeda and admitted that coalition forces are growing stronger in Iraq. Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated. (Applause.)
When we met last year, our troop levels in Iraq were on the rise. Today, because of the progress just described, we are implementing a policy of “return on success,” and the surge forces we sent to Iraq are beginning to come home.
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won’t be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, “part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative,” thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate. But a prerequisite to perpetuating the war — and leaving it to the next president — was to get Iraq off the front pages and out of the nightly news. At least in this context, the surge qualifies as a masterstroke.
On January 28th, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada tendered a watershed decision in the case of R. v. Morgentaler, rendering Canada’s restrictive abortion law null and void.
Judy Rebick recalls the moment she received word that the had court struck down the law:
It was freezing cold. A group of pro-choice activists were standing in front of the clinic along with a mob of media waiting to hear the news from our comrades in Ottawa. They were supposed to call the clinic as soon as the decision came down and the clinic staff would let us know. We didn’t have cell phones in those days.
A reporter called me aside and said she had just heard on her radio that the Supreme Court had struck down the law on the grounds that it interfered with women’s right to security of the person. I didn’t believe her. We thought the Court might very well strike down the law but we figured it would be on the technical grounds of lack of equal access. A decision based on the Charter guarantee of security of the person was too much to hope for. After all, the major argument of the pro-choice movement was that a woman had the right to control her own body and this was close.
Indeed the majority decision written by Chief Justice Brian Dickson stated:
“State interference with bodily integrity and serious state-imposed psychological stress, at least in the criminal law context, constitutes a breach of security of the person. Section 251 (the old abortion law) clearly interferes with a woman’s physical and bodily integrity. Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and thus an infringement of security of the person.”
It was a profound and incredibly long lasting victory that for us was of equal significance to the winning of the right to vote a couple of generations before. In essence, the highest court of the land said that the abortion law violated women’s right to control her own body free from state interference.
Berlynn points to the minority report, written by the late Justice Bertha Wilson, which goes even further in highlighting her recognition that abortion is a necessity:
This decision is one that will have profound psychological, economic and social consequences for the pregnant woman. The circumstances giving rise to it can be complex and varied and there may be, and usually are, powerful considerations militating in opposite directions. It is a decision that deeply reflects the way the woman thinks about herself and her relationship to others and to society at large. It is not just a medical decision; it is a profound social and ethical one as well. Her response to it will be the response of the whole person.
Today we rightly celebrate the vindication of a woman’s right to exercise the “profound social and ethical” decision of controlling her reproductive destiny without fear of condemnation by the state. But we should also remember that, for too many women in Canada, the struggle for reproductive autonomy is far from over. 20 years after R. v. Morgentaler, access is still far from universal:
In Canada, access to health services is guaranteed by the Canada Health Act. Abortion is considered a safe, legal, insured and funded service, meaning that a woman should not have to pay for abortion services in Canada.
However, access is variable across the country and women are charged fees at some facilities. For example:
There are no abortion services in Prince Edward Island.
In New Brunswick, to have a publicly funded abortion a woman has to have approval from two doctors to have an abortion in the hospital. If she has an abortion at the clinic, then she will have to pay as the province will not pay for abortions outside publicly funded facilities, such as hospitals.
New Brunswick funds only abortion care provided by obstetrician/gynecologists, not family physicians as is common throughout the rest of Canada.
Some of these barriers may violate the Canada Health Act and the intent of the decriminalization of abortion in Canada.
According to the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, even though “two-thirds of all abortions are done in a hospital and covered by Medicare”, today “less than one in five hospitals provide abortions, making it difficult for women to access safe and timely abortion services.” This especially affects those women who are financially insolvent and/or reside in remote/rural areas of Canada by placing “undue physical and financial stress on women when forced to travel long distances, find accommodation, take time away from work and, in some cases, have to pay for the abortion themselves.” Furthermore, as Joyce Arthur noted this past November, there are a number of anti-choice activists in Canada who would eagerly re-criminalize abortion altogether, penalizing women (and abortion providers) for engaging in Charter-protected reproductive liberty:
In a disturbing section of November’s The Interim (“Canada’s Life and Family newspaper”), five prominent anti-choice spokespersons plus an anti-choice columnist consider the question of criminal punishment for abortion, if abortion were to be made illegal again. Shockingly, four out of six believe women should be prosecuted and sent to jail, while the other two want women subjected to mental health treatment. All six want abortion providers to be prosecuted for murder
The majority of Canadians would likely be horrified by the idea of sending women to jail for having abortions. Most reasonable people would see it as abhorrent and heartlessly punitive – not to mention totally unrealistic, given the large numbers of women who resort to abortion even when it’s illegal. But the unimaginable prospect and horrific consequences of trying to arrest and jail 100,000 women a year in Canada alone do not seem to faze anti-choicers.
There is a mistaken belief that if abortion were completely outlawed no more abortions would ever be preformed. This of course is ridiculous nonsense. Women have always practised birth control and abortion. And would continue to do so.
For all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less.They’re more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family model. And they’re only “pro-life” up until the moment of birth — then you’re on your own.
Make no mistake: now more than ever, a woman’s body is a moral battle ground. We can’t cede any ground to anti-choice zealots who would fallaciously and callously equate potential people with human beings, acorns with oak trees–no matter how “reasonable” compromise may seem in theory (especially to those who don’t possess a uterus–“objectifying [the decision], thereby eliminating the subjective elements of the female psyche which are at the heart of the dilemma,” as Justice Wilson further noted in her Minority Report). Those who believe in the rights of women as being 100% insoluble–the whole loaf or nothing, no allowance for seemingly tiny nibbles, until there’s nothing left but crumbs–must remain ever vigilant and assertive in the wake of the baby lobby’s concerted assault on a woman’s bodily sovereignty.
Ok, I’m not even going to try and construct a clever one-liner; just go to ACR, read, and try to remember: racism is, like, so 20th century–except in the Hamptons, where they apparently never received the post-everything memo.
Yeah.
Update 01/28: Nice try with the memory holez tricksiness, Independent editors. Luckily the Googles don’t forget so easily.
Oh, and there seems to be a pattern of peddling racist caricatures @ this rag:
Accusing others of voting their race or gender when historically, no one has done that more than white men–is just a backhanded way of questioning the qualifications of any woman or person of color who runs.
On the road till Sunday night; expect sporadic/minimal blogging. Until then, enjoy the choonz and check out Birth Pangs up-to-the-minute coverage of yesterday’s terrorist threat against Henry Morgentaler. Yeah, what’s a 20th anniversary celebration without the requisite retro anti-choicer death threat to liven up the party?
bastard.logic 