Robert Scheer: Both dumb and numb

According to Scheer's latest "Are We Dumb or Just Numb?" (alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15773):
The embarrassingly secular nature of the government was summarized in another Los Angeles Times story on the status of women: "For decades, Iraqi women � at least those living in Baghdad and some other big cities � have enjoyed a degree of personal liberty undreamed of by women in neighboring nations such as Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates."

Those freedoms - to drive, study in coeducational colleges and to advance in the professions - are now threatened by the fundamentalist forces unleashed by the invasion. The former U.S. general now governing Iraq has stated that he will not accept a reversal of those freedoms, but our long history of cozy relationships with the oppressive Gulf regimes can't be reassuring to Iraq's women.
"Other than having your fingernails pulled out because you didn't signal your left turn, how did you enjoy your first driving lesson, Amira?"