Islamic woman elected to office

I've written before that technology; cell phones, TV, Internet, jet airplanes, will allow ideas to change cultures more than invading armies change cultures. Globalization and free trade, when ideas cross borders and armies do not, is the best way to advance civilization.

This story shows no invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the torture, for the greater good, was necessary. The Islamic world of the past cannot survive. Women will change the Islamic culture the same way women changed American culture. The Islamic women will cease to have a large birth rate. They will demand more options, including less family restrictions. Their families units, the foundation of the current tribal system, will fragment, like the American families.

(Kuwaiti women win first parliamentary seats,By DIANA ELIAS, Associated Press KUWAIT CITY - Kuwaitis elected female parliament members for the first time and rejected a number of Islamic fundamentalist candidates in a weekend vote that many hoped would bring stability to the country's rocky political scene.)

Update. This from the Christian Science Monitor of Nov 27, 2009- "But even more significant news – a major step for women – went largely unnoticed outside Iraq. Fifty women graduated alongside male classmates as senior officers in the national police force. In next year's class there will be 100 of them. The jobs are among the highest-paying in Iraq. The majority of the women in this year's class finished law school. There have been some women in lower police ranks, but they have not until now been eligible for the elite officers' corps."

Like most other wars, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are unnecessary. All the torture of innocents for the greater good of the collective, was unnecessary. All the innocence women and children killed by a stealth missile were unnecessary.

We made dueling illegal. We made slavery illegal. It's time we made war illegal. If an individual is harmed by another there is redress in a civil suit. The same should apply to nations. It is crazy human behavior to kill 10 million people as in WW I simply because some madman murdered an Archduke.

We could have dueling between States to settle conflicts. The duelers would be each State leader and the weapons be games of cards, billiards, or chess.

International arbitration to settle disputes between nations has been proposed before. One was presented to the British Parliament in 1849 by Richard Cobden. States do not want an end to war. War gives governments power. Imagine a world with no wars, no veterans hospitals, no bombs. All that energy can be directed to exploring planets and curing diseases.

Imagine if we lived in a world were cowardliness was praised and bravery ridiculed! That would eliminate war. Or, it just might give the advantage to a state that had plenty of unmanned weapons that could be fired by a coward a thousand miles from the battlefield.

Charles Tolleson