Need a reminder that we live in the greatest country in the world?
An Afghan student journalist was arrested in 2007, accused of authoring and distributing an article discussing the role of women in Islam and charged with blasphemy. Parwiz Kambakhsh, in his 20's, denied the allegations, contending that he downloaded the article from the Internet. He received a death sentence. In 2008, an appeals court commuted the sentence to a 20-year prison term. The Afghanistan Supreme Court upheld the prison term in mid-February in a decision that came to the attention of the family and its lawyers only in recent days.
Story here.
I see very clearly how this shows that Afghanistan is quite a bad place to live. (Of course we knew that without the story as well, but it's certainly a strong additional piece of evidence.) But I don't at all understand how this is a reminder that the U.S. is the "greatest country in the world". I think it's safe to assume that such a result would be impossible in many other countries as well, so any positive implication would apply to them, too. But, they can't all be "the greatest". Or is there something I'm missing?
Posted by: Matt | March 12, 2009 at 02:14 PM