Weird bikini, but "You go, girl!!"

[ggcarl]

Check out this news article (http://www.msnbc.com/news/986873.asp). What's the world coming to? Yet another reason why I think islam and democracy don't mix. But then, I think that about all people who believe in invisible beings. :(

[American]

Woo-hoo! We win! I rate the girls 10.0. Not for beauty, but for going that long without stepping on a land mine.


Seriously, I'm sure the sponsors did it to promote their image in their Western home-country, and haven't considered the suicide car bomb that's probably headed their way right about now. :eek:

[Monketey Ghost]

They're beautiful. But they could be... thicker. Know what I mean?

[SRW]

Religion and politics do not mix.

I always wondered what was going on behind those burkas, I am impressed.

[kedo1981]

Through out history Afghans have been considered a very attractive people.
Probably because the region is part of the world where several “races” would come together for trade and such (the Silk Road) and do the nasty and make better looking kids.
Alexander the Great married an Afghan princess, the Brits liked them a lot to, don’t know about the Russians.

[Tony]

From the article:


A few mavericks among Kabul’s English-speaking elite confess to a certain admiration for Samadzai. They suggest that the huffing about her “un-Islamic” action is extremely hypocritical, given the cruelty and violence that have dominated life here for the past 25 years of war, civil conflict and religious repression.
“This lady is trying to bring the image of Afghan women to international standards, and in a way she is struggling for their rights,” said Sayeed Daud, the director of a U.S.-funded media center whose daily newspaper, Erada, published a partial photograph of Samadzai in her swimsuit. “If they say that’s not in our culture, what about all the killing that has gone on here for years? That’s not in our culture either.”

[Skeptic]

Well, I dunno...

I have little sympathy for radical islam, god knows, but in this case the point of the criticism seems to be that the minister for women's affairs, herself a woman, called her bikini "lascivious", and "not representing Afghan women".

Well, that's true, isn't it? Whether it SHOULD be the case is another issue. But while this criticism is not exactly Betty Friedman's cup of tea, it is a far cry from the "kill her for disgracing her family" we would have gotten from the Taliban...

At any rate, I would suppose that Afghan women have more pressing problems right now than worrying about their right, or lack thereof, to walk in bikinis in the Ms. Universe contest.

[Dorian Gray]

She's hot. Sorry, but she is. I forgot politics entirely.