Honor Killings?

There is a horrible irony in the expression "honor killing," which describes a situation where the men of a family grab, drag, and publicly kill one of the women of their own household in order to basically make a statement about how much integrity their family possesses. And where I am amazed that any father is capable of stoning his own daughter, I am even more amazed that the father that does so can pretend that he has just committed a supremely moral act.

I'd like to say to the societies that condone this behavior, that even if they don't get how horrible and hypocritical this act is, they should at least understand that it is practices such as these that will ensure that their societies will basically be at the mercy of relatively tolerant, enlightened societies until such time as they wisen up. Every time an honor killing is permitted, that society is further distanced from viability and independence in a 21st century world. And the more clannish and unenlightened they choose to be, the more sure they can be that the circumstances of their lives will remain hard and precarious.

Having said all that, it would appear that one thing that does not prevent honor killings is for one of our societies to invade, occupy, and attempt to directly control the societies that do this sort of thing. The 17 year-old girl that was stoned by her family a few days ago was a Kurdish Iraqi living in Nineveh, which is the most Coalition-friendly ethnic group and geographic area in Iraq. If THEY still do honor killings, then the war has achieved less than nothing.