The US is somehow a naive country
(for no good reason) with more
money than wisdom about 'foreign
adventures'. So, the US messes up
a lot. I wish we didn't. As
Churchill observed long ago, the
US always does the right thing
after trying everything else.

Some countries a lot less democratic
than the US end up with much more
wisdom in foreign policy.

If you have some specific objection
with what I wrote, then quote it
and argue against it. If I return
to this thread, then I will try to
respond.

There was a case in the news today:
Some US woman reporter went into
Syria (she couldn't have been too
bright) and met in a room with
a lot of women and children. The
men were mostly off fighting.

One of the women was 14 and had
a small baby. The reporter explained
that the main reason was that the
family wanted the girl to get married
so that she would have more protection
against rape (the reporter didn't
go into what might have been the result
had the girl been raped). Then the
reporter went on about how horrible
it was for the girl to have a baby
at age 14 (and get married and pregnant at age 13).
Yes, there are potentially some
medical problems due to her young
age and lack of physical development.
And, as the reporter made clear,
the girl was not going to be able to
finish high school.

Gads! The US reporter was projecting
onto that poor family in Syria
her strong US views about women
in the US.

Instead, consider: The women and
children in the room looked well
enough fed and clothed. They
were not obviously suffering.
The young mother actually looked
quite happy and calm and really
happy holding her baby. The baby
looked good, calm, happy, well
fed and cared for (the US reporter
did mention that the baby had not
yet had some inoculations it should have).
Otherwise the young mother looked
like she was being a good mother.
Moreover, the young mother was just
surrounded by family -- her mother,
brothers, sisters, likely aunts,
etc. She was in an 'extended
family' and no doubt just
awash in emotional support and
feeling of belonging. There was no
shortage of expertise on how
to care for the young baby.
That
she had a baby at age 14 is not
ideal but, apparently, Mother
Nature is not wildly against it.
Also, likely in some Muslim
countries, such young mothers
are not so rare. As far as
finishing high school is concerned,
commonly in Muslim countries that's
not a big consideration for girls
(although maybe Syria, like some
Muslim countries, except for the civil war,
is more advanced
about such things).

That's just the way it is in
some Muslim countries. I don't
want to live that way, but
since they've been
living that way for 1000+ years,
it can't be all bad. For the
person under stress, it looked to
me that it was only the US reporter.

Net, the US needs to be more accepting
of other cultures. That doesn't
mean we want US girls 14 being mommies,
but it does mean that what that girl
was doing in that house and extended
family in that country was
not so bad there.

If the US
gets itself all bent out of shape
over lives such as that of that young mother, then
we will be chasing absurd
'foreign adventures' until
we are white from loss of blood.
To avoid this, we have to wise up.