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Posted on 11/28/2001 1:30:57 PM PST by mgist

A female general who is considered a hero to Afghanistan's women invoked ex-President Clinton's sex scandals to condemn New York Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, just days after Mrs. Clinton penned a column for Time magazine on women's rights in her country.

"She cannot defend her own rights against her husband. How can she defend the rights of my country?" asked Gen. Suhaila Siddiq. .

Gen. Siddiq is Afghanistan's only woman general, a surgeon, hospital director and heroine to a generation of young women who remained in the country, said the London Times, which first reported her criticism of Mrs. Clinton. .

In a column posted to the Time.com Web site Saturday, Mrs. Clinton presumed to advise Afghanistan on the liberation of its women, offering an extensive list of recommendations..

"A post-Taliban Afghanistan where women's rights are respected is much less likely to harbor terrorists in the future," Clinton observed. .

"A society that values all its members, including women, is also likely to put a higher premium on life, opportunity and freedom - values that run directly counter to the evil designs of the Osama bin Laden's [sic] of the world," she added..

"There is an immoral link between the way women were treated by the oppressive Taliban in Afghanistan and the hateful actions of the al-Qaeda terrorists." .

The former first lady also argued that the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan was "an early warning signal of the kind of terrorism that culminated in the attacks of September 11." .

But instead of complaining about the burqa, said Siddiq - as Clinton did in her column - other matters should take precedence.

"The first priority should be given to education, primary school facilities, the economy and reconstruction of the country, but the West concentrates on the burqa and whether the policies of the Taliban are better or worse than other regimes," she told the London paper. "Let these things be decided by history."

By invoking the specter of Monicagate and other sex scandals that came to characterize the Clinton presidency, Gen. Siddiq threw a monkeywrench into any plans Hillary may have had to make political hay over the plight of Afghan women.

And while the New York senator's anything-goes marriage has apparently cost her fans in Afghanistan, there seems no doubt about where Gen. Siddiq ranks with her countrywomen - particularly if those who know her are any indication.

At the 400-bed hospital in Kabul, where she now heads a separate women's section, her colleagues speak reverentially of her.

When the Times asked female medical students to name the woman they most admired in the world, they replied unanimously, "General Siddiq, General Siddiq."

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