“How the Shepherd Saved the SEAL”

July 12th, 2005

A surprisingly good article from Time.com!!!

How the Shepherd Saved the SEAL
Exclusive: The tale of an Afghan’s amazing rescue of a wounded U.S. commando ~ by Tim McGirk in Kabul

A crackle in the brush. That’s the sound the Afghan herder recalls hearing as he walked alone through a pine forest last month. When he looked up, he saw an American commando, his legs and shoulder bloodied. The commando pointed his gun at the Afghan. “Maybe he thought I was a Taliban,” says the shepherd, Gulab. “I remembered hearing that if an American sticks up his thumb, it is a friendly gesture. So that’s what I did.” To make sure the message was clear, Gulab lifted his tunic to show the American he wasn’t hiding a weapon. He then propped up the wounded commando, and together the pair hobbled down the steep mountain trail to Sabari-Minah, a cluster of adobe-and-wood homes–crossing, for the time being, to safety.

from page 2

U.S. officials say the commandos kept up a running fire fight with their pursuers for more than two miles. The known survivor recalls seeing two of his friends shot. At one point he blacked out, possibly from a mortar round landing close by. When he regained consciousness, two of his teammates–Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny Dietz, 25, and Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29–were dead, and a third had vanished in the darkness and fog. The surviving SEAL dragged himself at least another mile up into the mountains. It was there he was found four days later by Gulab the shepherd.

After taking the SEAL to Sabari-Minah, Gulab called a village council and explained that the American needed protection from Taliban hunters. It was the SEAL’s good fortune that the villagers were Pashtun, who are honor-bound never to refuse sanctuary to a stranger. By then, said Gulab, “the American understood that we were trying to save him, and he relaxed a bit.”

The Taliban was not so agreeable. That night the fighters sent a message to the villagers: “We want this infidel.” A firm reply from the village chief, Shinah, shot back. “The American is our guest, and we won’t give him up as long as there’s a man or a woman left alive in our village.” As a precaution, the villagers moved the injured commando out of Gulab’s house and hid him in a stable overnight, until it was safe for Gulab to make the six-hour trek down to the U.S. base at Asadabad and report that the SEAL–by then the subject of an intense search–was alive. Sometime later, Gulab went back to his village and then returned to Asadabad with the commando, this time reuniting the wounded and weary SEAL with his jubilant comrades.

 Afghanistan 1 RAHMAT GUL / EPA

Have you heard about this story before? Was it on the news? Nope, not yet.

Hat Tip: Sawa

Pics & Blogs from those who were there

July 8th, 2005

The latest from London

More than 50 people are now known to have been killed in the terror attacks in the capital, say police - 13 of them in the bus bombing in Tavistock Square.

There are 49 confirmed fatalities, but police insist that will rise with more bodies to be recovered from the tunnel at Russell Square.

Pictures from camera phones and anything else people had to take pictures are flooding on to the net. One website in particular has almost a thousand pictures. A beta version of Flickr has a section for members to send in their pics of the London Bombings. This set of pics is from a user called “fgt” and has about 60 pictures of news reports on the T.V. “bigdaddymerk” has a shot from Sky News where they are telling people to email them to let friends and family know they are ok … as they scroll the messages under coverage of the terrorist attacks.

London 7

The tagging system at Flickr is such that some pics overlap, but here are the top albums about the bombing.
7/7 Community (formerly London Bomb Blasts) [688 photos]
7/7 Community - Bomb [296 photos]
7/7 Community - Blast [170 photos]

British bloggers weigh in.

A fan site blog dedicated to the Chelsea Football Club tells terrorists — “You will fail

One Man & His Blog has a lot of brief posts with his own pictures from yesterday and today. He is a journalist for Estates Gazette. This post being one of my favorites: “We Are Not Afraid

openDemocracy had “Londoners KBO” from member James Crabtree.

Liberal London blogger “Atrios” takes time to remember “The Tube” and links to a great map as “The tube map itself is a thing of beauty - 45 and 90 degree angles only. “

Online Special Reports about the bombing from: BBC News, Fox News, The Guardian, Sky News

Interesting Coincidence

July 7th, 2005

How uncanny that the random quote for today (on the sidebar) is from one of Britain’s greatest leaders.

Quote of the Day
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Winston Churchill

A Break in the Case

July 7th, 2005

Officials: Unexploded Devices Discovered in London

U.S. authorities tell ABC News that British police have recovered two unexploded bombs from the scene of the terror attacks in London.

In addition, British investigators say that parts of timing devices have been recovered from the blast scene that would have been used to detonate an explosive device.

This big break will greatly help the investigating officials in determining how the attacks were organized and who acted out the elaborate plan. It also tells us … that the planned attack was supposed to be much worse.

Hat Tip: WBAP

Pictures from London

July 7th, 2005

From the BBC

London 1

An office worker took this photograph from the safety of her workplace.

London 2

Smoke filled the carriage that Matt Dunn was travelling in.

BBC again

London 3

At least 33 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in four bomb blasts on the Underground network and a double-decker bus in London. Here passengers flood onto the streets from Kings Cross station.

London 4

At Aldgate, fire crews bring the injured up from the underground network…

London 5

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was “reasonably clear” there had been a series of terrorist attacks. He said it was “particularly barbaric” that it was timed to coincide with the G8 summit, before flying back to London.

London 6

At least 37 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in four bomb blasts on the Underground network and a double-decker bus in London. Here emergency services cordon off King’s Cross station.


London Map

Blasts occurred:
* Between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street tube stations
* Between Russell Square and King’s Cross tube stations
* At Edgware Road tube station
* On bus at Tavistock Square

Today in London

July 7th, 2005

It is evening now in London and commuters are cautiously trying to get home without their mass transit system. Four separate bombings have killed at least 33 people. The number is expected to rise as there are at least 300 people injured. (London is 6 hours ahead of CST.)

The security threat level has been raised here from Yellow (Elevated) to Orange (High) in the U. S. for the mass transit systems, simply as a precaution. There has been no credible threat but “we know the tactics and methods of terrorists.”

The State Department has a hotline if you have family traveling in London — 888 407 4747.

BBC Reporters live blogged the day.

Jon Brain : Edgware Road : 1115 BST

There’s been a scene of chaos and confusion all morning here but it’s beginning to settle down. The entire area around the tube station has been sealed off and there are dozens of emergency vehicles here.

We’ve seen a number of walking wounded emerge from the station, many of them covered with blood and obviously quite distraught. They are being treated at a hotel opposite the tube station.

The concern now is whether there are still people trapped inside the tube station underground. I’ve seen a team of paramedics go into the station in the last half hour.

Dominic Casciani : Aldgate East : 1200 BST

It’s midday in what should be one of the busiest parts of the city, but all the areas surrounding Aldgate East have been cordoned off, leaving city office workers trying to make head or tail of what is going on. At the Minories entrance to the cordon, eight London firefighters have just left the scene, covered in grime and looking pretty exhausted.

But for anyone on the outside of the cordon it is very difficult to know what is really going on as the London security plan swings into action.

The Corner at National Review online also live blogged

from K.J. Lopez — “Soledad O’Brien on CNN again, talking about the “awful” things eyewitnesses saw this morning in London–body parts and death and destruction. She said it as if she didn’t get that they ARE IN FACT AT WAR and that’s why they saw that and were attacked….”

Iain Murray asks the question “DOES TERROR WORK?” and John Podhoretz responds … “YES, TERROR WORKS… …until it doesn’t work. That’s the eternal story. Terror works when politicians buckle, and it fails when they respond with resolution.”

Great Britain has been divided over the War on Terror. Negotiation will not work. The only way attacks of this nature will ever stop … is to stop the people planning and committing them.

Update: AP just reported 37 people are confirmed dead and 700 injured.

Update 2: AP — Four London blasts kill 40, injure 700

It is not summer camp.

June 17th, 2005

I do not know if I am more shocked by the beliefs of Senator Durbin or by how many people who are either supporting his statements or claiming its a non-issue. Both groups stun me at their ignorance. Why are they not more outraged?

My cousin wrote this in her comment yesterday, in case you missed it …

Outraged. And here’s the thing these leftist nitwits (sorry, that’s redundant) fail to grasp: When they continuously compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler, and the United States Armed Forces to Nazis and Communist butchers, they minimize the truly horrific actions of Hitler, the Nazis, and the Communists. Such statements are meant to insult President Bush and our military, but what they really do is “soften” the memory of the atrocities. Imagine being alive in 60 years and hearing the liberal media compare a large tax cut to the catastrophe of 9/11. How outraged would you be? How does that kind of reckless comparison minimize the horror of 9/11? You would be screaming at the top of your lungs, “Hey! I was alive when that happened! I WATCHED it happen!” And so, all of us who have seen those grainy black and white films of emaciated, naked corpses piled in mass graves ought to stand up and scream, “I have SEEN what the Nazis did!” Senator Durbin, you should get down on your knees and beg forgiveness from the men and women of the U.S. military, their Commander-in-Chief, AND every last survivor of the Holocaust.

She could not be more correct! There are barely any people living who actually saw the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulags. A man, Troy Harris, that I grew up around was in WWII and witnessed the concentration camps first hand as he was one of those who helped liberate them. He and his eight brothers were all in WWII and only eight Harris boys came home. I talked about earlier about the youngest brother, “Pug” Harris, who was killed in action. Troy, on the rare occasions he would speak of the war, would say that while all the attention was on the big camps, small camps were scattered all over. He said that even more than forty years after the war, he could still remember the smell in the air of burning flesh as if it was yesterday. He could not shake the memory. Burning flesh.

I was not able to catch any of the radio talk shows today but Rush has portions of his show available free for that day only, and this is a particularly good section… referring to Durbin of course …

This is a man who needs to be reminded what the Nazi death camps, the Russian gulags, and the Cambodian killing fields look like. He needs to take some time off from his political gamesmanship and educate himself about the regimes that he used as examples to smear and defame the thankless work of the brave American soldiers working down at G’itmo, and when he’s done taking that tour, Durbin needs to immediate with some of the survivors of these death camps. He needs to educate himself about how they fought to live under these most inhumane conditions. Next on this tour Durbin needs to go back do Ground Zero and that field in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon and take a looked good look at where how 3,000 of his fellow Americans were slaughtered in cold blood. Senator Durbin needs to be reminded of how some of them jumped to their deaths, were burned to death or were crushed to death, and he needs to meet with the families of the dead.

The cops, the firefighters, the wives and husbands, the children, the parents and grandparents who lost loved ones, and then Dick Durbin needs to go to Walter Reed and other hospitals treating our brave men and women in uniform, some of whom are struggling to live because of major head or organ wounds, those who have lost limbs or sight or hearing or are horribly burned. He should talk to these soldiers and their families, and after he visits these hospitals he should go to Arlington National Cemetery where so many of our heroes have been buried defending our country in this war and past wars. And on the last leg of his education tour, then send him to G’itmo. He should witness how our magnificent troupes care for the enemy, an enemy that is in fact the latest incarnation of the Nazis, the Stalinists and the Cambodian communists. Let him see for himself the difference between good and evil, and see that we are good and that they are evil. He will see that these American soldiers he smears and defames are the only line of defense we have against the would-be mass murderers of September 11th. Take that trip, Senator Durbin. I will pay for it, if you will take it.

Every single person who supports Durbin, should take that educational trip with him. Not just read what happened … see it, feel it, really understand what happened. Because it’s obvious .. they have no clue. While the assassination of President Kennedy is a whole different incident, Dallas has what is called the Sixth Floor Museum. Anyone who visits that museum is transported to November 1963. Through the use of video clips, audio clips, pictures, and models … you feel that you are right there when it happens. The emotion is real. This is nothing in comparison to what the emotion and experience of visiting the Holocaust Museum must be like. I can state without reservation, that it is not people who have visited that museum who are supporting Durbin. Everyone should visit and see what torture is, how a repressive regime treats their people, and what

more from Rush …

I don’t want to hear ever again from Democrats how you support the troops. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to get into a waste of time arguing with you about your notion that you can support the troops but disagree with the mission. I don’t want to hear it. It’s intellectually vacant. It makes no sense, and it’s insulting, and I don’t want to. You all are telling us clearly what your priorities are here. You’re telling us on whose side in this you really are. You’ve got al-Jazeera — al-Jazeera on television, and their website — plastering Durbin’s words all over the plays because he know what an assistance those words are. They know how helpful Durbin’s words are in ginning up the very thing Durbin fears is what’s going on at G’itmo. He thinks that’s what’s going on is G’itmo is going to cause more hate to accrue to Americans.

What Durbin is saying is going to do that. Durbin is creating far more than G’itmo or Abu Ghraib ever could, a false impression of the United States. He is telling a bunch of leftist ideologues around the world that this is the new Nazi Germany, that we may as well have Pol Pot running this country. Such is their hatred for Bush and the Democratic Party that some of them may actually believe this. But I think it’s time for Senator Durbin to take this trip, if nothing else, to acquaint himself with the facts so that he can be duly embarrassed — if he’s capable of that.

I fail to see how Durbin connects the dots between the people held in the Nazi camps and Soviet gulags as the same kind of people held at Guantanamo Bay. The only people held at Guantanamo Bay are people who were captured in the act of attacking the United States, or planning a major attack on the United States. If, if you are really concerned about the prisoners well-being, there is a strong argument to be made that they are much better off where they are. Their mission in life is to kill any and as many as possible Americans! They would not be relaxing on the beach somewhere, if we had not snatched them out of their peaceful existence … they would be planning/implementing attacks on the U. S. Military, U. S. citizens around the world, and any nation and their citizens they believe to be enemies. Which is almost every nation in the world. At the point they are at now, their sad childhood does not matter. They do not get special points for being treated poorly by adults around them growing up. Call it callous, call it harsh … there is only so much you can help a person who is consumed by hate and violence. Do not kid yourself … they are consumed by hate and violence and are willing to act on those feelings. Have so many already forgotten what happened no so long ago in New York City? I have not heard any description of the treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that causes me pause and makes me consider what exactly are we doing down there. What exactly are we supposed to do to the prisoners … ask them nicely with sugar on top to give us the information we need to protect our nation? No, not today? Go figure. It is not supposed to be pleasant. It is not summer camp!

“I’m literally just stunned.”

June 16th, 2005

If you listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly, you know that while he finds things shocking … few things actually shock him. Yet, yesterday on his show …

Uh, you know… (sigh) I’m just stunned. I’m literally just stunned.

This, in response to the statement of Senator Dick Durbin made yesterday on the Senate floor. I am linking to Rush’s quote of the remarks and linking where he linked.

“‘On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ….. On another occasion, the (air conditioner) had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.’ If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot ( Photos | history) or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”

When a caller alerted Rush to the unbelievable remarks, I could not imagine a leader (and I use the term loosely) of our nation saying such horrible things. Yet there it is. The Democrats and Liberals at their finest. MainStreamMedia has given little, if any, attention to this story and Sen. Durban’s office claims this is only a big deal because Rush is talking about it. Not true. If you are a Democrat reading this … can you continue to be so in the face of such despicable beliefs by one of your leaders? I find it baffling that the realm of torture is now supposed to include listening to loud music. Not to mention what Sean Hannity has to say about all this, you can imagine if you have ever heard his show.

Sen. Durbin completely believes what he said was a valid critique of the Military and is not backing down. “Sen. Durbin Stands by Guantanamo Remarks,” states FoxNews. Not surprising, since the current face of the Democratic party is to defame the Military, Republicans, Conservatives, and even those in their own party who are not in line with their supremely Left beliefs. The growing number of Democrats who do not follow this crooked line of thought, need to make a stand inside their party and try to save their party.

Can the following be said of any activity at Guantanamo Bay?

I heard already the motor, the gas motor working with a high…You know from the gas motor, the scream. They started…they started very loud like “Ahhh….,” very loud, even louder than the motor. They had a big motor there. Later about 15 minutes down…down and until quiet was. This was Sobibor.
~ Tomasz (Toivi) Blatt (personal stories from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Bloggers are the only ones who seem to care about the repugnant statements of Sen. Durbin.
One of the first to break the story was The American Thinker with:

Illinois Senator losing his mind?
Senator Durbin, what if….?
What’s a bigger national embarrassment - Gitmo or Durbin?
American Thinker accused of lying and propaganda

Wizbang has a great piece: Let’s *Really* Compare U.S. Soldiers to Nazis
Little Green Footballs has this about those defending Durbin’s statements.
Michele Malkin had a post back in March that proves the people being held at Guantanamo Bay are not the innocents that some on the Left want us to believe. Additionally, Ms. Malkin also comments on this whole situation here and here.
From The Editors at The Unalienable Right

That’s right, Dick. The Nazi concentration camps were known for turning down the air conditioning and pumping up the Christina Aguilera music. The gulags were known for providing prisoners with their desired religious texts and culturally appropriate meals. What an ignorant, hateful, despicable comment from this Democratic leader.

… Side note: Though I do not particularly like Christinia Aguilera’s music, I would hardly (in seriousness) call it torture
Pardon My English has Guantanamo Madness: The Left’s Perspective Problem
IMAO weighs in with …

Yeah, I remember the horror stories of the lack of air conditioning in the Nazi concentration camps (who wants to bet my brother in Iraq is dealing with hotter weather right now in his un-air conditioned tank?). Pol Pot, though, loved to turn up on the AC on his dissenters, that monster! Oh, and then there was the notorious use of the Notorious B.I.G. in the Soviet gulags.

You can read Sen. Durbin’s full statement here.
Find Rush on the radio in your area.
Find Sean Hannity on the radio in your area (bottom left on the main page) … and weeknights on Hannity & Colms on the Fox News Network.

Going back to Sen. Durbin’s definition of torture … listening to loud music and the air conditioner turned way down. My street has some new neighbors who almost every weekend and sometimes weekdays play their music very loudly. I can hear it clearly inside my house .. and I live 3 houses down. What would happen if I waltzed down there and demanded they stop, comparing them to the Nazi’s of WWII? I live with 3 hot-natured people, meaning they need more air-conditioning because they get hot easier than normal. I am cold-natured, I get cold sometimes even in slightly warmer temperatures. I shudder to think what would happen to me, if I accused the others of being Nazi torturers because I was too cold in my room. (I am not talking about slightly chilled … I live in Texas … it gets really hot here and I sleep with flannel sheets and an electric blanket always at the ready … year round!) No, neither of these situations compare to the punishment, if you can even call it that, given to the prisoners-of-war at the Guantanamo Bay facility. However … it is no more of a stretch than comparing our United States Military to the thugs and terrorists whose credits included horrific treatments that often ended in a brutal death. How many prisoners have died at Guantanamo Bay … none, not a single one. What kind of “death camp” has no deaths?

Update for this post: Rush’s links are only good for that day, visits after require a paid subscription.

A sad twist in Germany’s welfare reform

May 26th, 2005

My mom brought me an article that came in at her office … “An Immoral Choice” from the Times and Seasons section of the May-June 2005 issue of The Lamplighter.

The London Telegraph recently reported that a 25 year old waitress in Germany was given the choice of either becoming a prostitute or losing her unemployment benefits!

Prostitution was legalized in Germany two years ago and brothel owners, who must pay taxes now like all other businesses, were granted access to official government databases of jobseekers.

Under Germany’s welfare reform’s, any woman under 55 who has seen out of work more than a year can be forced to take any available job — including one in the “sex-industry” — or else lose her unemployment benefit.

Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specializes in labor cases said: “There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being set into the sex industry. The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs in that industry cannot be turned down without risk to benefits.”

“No way this is true” was my first response. I started trying to find articles to prove me right and could not find much of anything either way. It now seems that I am half-right. This being a controversial issue by default, there are strong opinions on both sides and the validity of the implication is still unclear to me.

When I am writing a post that involves internet research, I open a new window so that that all the tabs in that window are related to the post. (Yet another reason to use Firefox!) This one set a record with 15 tabs, and that is just scratching the surface.

The article that “started” this latest debate in Germany’s legalization of prostitution is from the London Telegraph. The article in question is from January 30, 2005 entitled ‘If you don’t take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits’ and written by Clare Chapman.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

With unemployment over 5 million, a record high, the German government is desperate to find people jobs. On the surface, the new welfare system of denying benefits to those who turn down valid jobs, is to do just that .. find people jobs and lower their rampant unemployment. A valid job now includes prostitution and any related job in the sex industry. So it seems logical to me that the same people who consider prostitution no longer immoral by law and that it is any like any other job … would feel the penalties for refusing that valid job should be implemented.

Canada is also considering legalizing prostitution much to the dismay of Daniel Timmons who is “Proud to be Canadian.”

The “world’s oldest profession” is merely a euphemism to disguise the dark truth. Prostitution has always been, and always will be, a sordid and pathetic practice. It diminishes the dignity and sanctity of the human body, where fleeting moments of carnal excitement are bought and sold.

Prostitution exploits the truly vulnerable, young women from broken homes and on substance abuse, for the selfish pleasure of men who betray their wives, dishonour their children, and disrespect themselves. To fully legalize prostitution wouldn’t control or curtail such disgraces, but rather sanction and expand them.

Going back to the original issue … there are a few sites that are claiming that while the penalty of refusing benefits is accurate … it will make an exception for those refusing to work in a brothel.

“And if a prostitute quits her job because she’s sick of it, she won’t face the penalties we usually impose on people who voluntarily give up work.”

~ reports the Washington Times. How nice of them! I am still not convinced that the penalties wound not be enforced and the ones saying that this claim is false are not all that convincing to me. Snopes claims its false because they “were initially skeptical about the literal truth of the version reported in the English press” and it points to a German article that “evidently” stated that the possibility was present and “Although it claimed there had been “isolated cases” of such, it did not provide any source or documentation to back up that statement.” So of course it does not happen! :?

Another twist I had not considered … from JimG @ The Intolerable Banality of Evil

But there is a second element to this story that isn’t exactly from the liberal playbook. Reconsider the above quoted statement. “There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry.” (Emphasis added.) Why only women? I’ve been to Germany. It has a large and vibrant gay community. (And let’s face it, men are the primary consumers of the services of sex industry workers – male and female.) Imagine, even in liberal Europe, if an unemployed straight man was required to have sex with men or lose his benefits. The problem would be fixed - pronto.

Legalization of prostitution for all the “logical” benefits the supporters claim will occur … usually fail miserably. One benefit is to clear up police time to investigate other crimes and free up court time used to prosecute offenders. This is true, it would do that .. as it would when ANY crime is suddenly considered legal … car theft (you have insurance, why punish someone who needs a car), speeding (we all do it at one time or another, which means that it should be legal), name any crime and there is a illogical argument that seems logical to some.

When it [Germany’s legalization] was set up there was much talk of securing proper contracts, proper health insurance, but a lot of this hasn’t materialized because of big holes in the legislation,” said Berlin’s Hydra prostitute advice center spokesman Marion Detlefs.

Sweden legalized prostitution and gave it a good try but none of the “benefits” that were supposed to happen ever materialized.

The country [Sweden] - which legalized prostitution 30 years ago - recriminalized it in 1998, after complaints that legalization had solved few of the problems it set out to address.”

And here is a real thinker … arrest and prosecute offenders and crime goes down!

Sweden has found that much of the vast profit generated by the global prostitution industry goes into the pockets of human traffickers. In response, to fight human trafficking and promote gender equality, Sweden has aggressively prosecuted sex buyers, pimps, and brothel owners since 1999. Two years into innovative focus on punishing the traffickers and buyers, rather than the female victims, Sweden has seen a 50 percent drop in women used in prostitution and a 75 percent decline in sex buying.

I know Germany has struggled in defining their post-war identity. In the grand scheme of things 60 years is not a long time. This is no excuse to try to solve one problem (unemployment) by legalizing prostitution. The only people who would support legalization are the ones who can profit more from it and those who do not want to get arrested. I don’t think either group deserves any help from the government of any country.