The New "Comfort Women"

It breaks my heart reading this article on CNN about Iraqi women being forced into prostitution, not at gun point, not by soldiers or insurgents, but because of how difficult it has been to get by with no job that pays enough to feed their children and merely going to work might get you killed.

Oh wait, how is all this not because of the continued American occupation in Iraq and the cold-blooded insurgents that care nothing about the lives and wellbeing of their fellow countrymen?

It really doesn't make a difference whether these women are forced to have sex with men with guns pointing at them (as in the case of Comfort Women during the Japanese occupation of China and Korea). A threat of one's child not being able to live past next week, and the complete destruction of one's family, are just as much a gun to one's head as the real deal.

It is at times like this that I wonder how much democracy, or "liberty and freedom", as Mr. President puts it, is really worth when weighed against nothing else but just being able to be with your family, to watch your children grow up, and to grow old with your significant other.

The same strain, of course, is on American soldiers in Iraq desperately needing a reason for why they're there now or in the first place.

Some say that freedom is worth fighting for, worth losing one's life over. Well, really? It seems like a luxury that these Iraqis can't afford right now. More importantly, to truly have freedom, these people shouldn't be told that they should want to fight for freedom now should they?

Oh the hypocrisy of it all...