This is worth watching. CNN has done a follow up piece on Malala Yousufzai, the brave girl who stood up to the Taliban's efforts to keep girls from going to school in Pakistan. For her courage, she was gunned down on her way home from school.
It's disappointing, but not surprising that our U.S. leaders were cautious in condemning the attack. By that I don't mean they were silent (although I cannot find any direct comments made by President Obama--perhaps they are out there. I see only the statement by the press secretary. Yet Obama had no problem injecting himself into the "attack" on Sandra Fluke by so-called conservative extremists. . . ).
What I mean is that they are not condemning the attack as one of Islamists against humanity. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the shooting should inspire support for “brave young women … who struggle against tradition and culture and even outright hostility, and sometimes violence.” She went on, "She was attacked and shot by extremists who don't want girls to have an education and don't want girls to speak for themselves and don't want girls to become leaders, who are for a variety of reasons threatened by that kind of empowerment,."
All true, but the omission of the fact that the attack was perpetrated in the name of radical Islam is huge. Obama does not accomplish his mission to "fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear" (as he said in Cairo in 2009) when he ignores the extreme elements within Islam--as he is prone to do. In fact he perpetuates those stereotypes by not calling out those who would use religion to justify their barbarity.
