By Karen Backman, political commentary

Feminists in the United States are lending their support to returning veterans of both Afghanistan and Iraq by badgering our congressional representatives to do right by these returning guys and gals.

Unfortunately, a certain unnamed columnist thinks that feminist bimbos are dissing our vets and that the Taliban has been vanquished in Afghanistan.

If that’s so, why is this happening, according to a Dec. 12 news story in the New York Times:

“Afghanistan remains hobbled by underdevelopment, poverty and illiteracy, a legacy of decades of war. The population’s health problems are acute. But the problems in areas like these villages, the residents said, have been aggravated by the continuing insurgency and the harsh edicts of the Taliban, whose rule survived in such remote places even after it lost control of Kabul, the Afghan capital, late in 2001… The Taliban exist openly here. To limit the influence of the government and prevent it from achieving even its modest development goals, the villagers and the Afghan and American authorities said, the insurgents have sacked schools, threatened teachers and students, scared off private contractors and sharply restricted medical care.”

The Taliban has made it abundantly clear that no outside doctors, no outside medical help, can work in this district, Captain DeMure said.

Meanwhile, in Tacoma, our Congressman Adam Smith recently held a town hall in Tacoma on issues related to veterans and the military.

A feminist in the audience expressed her thanks to all the vets in the audience — and there were many vets in the audience — for their service to our country. Then she raised a question about war planning and asked why, in the rush to go into Iraq, there had been absolutely no planning for the care of returning wounded veterans of that conflict.

She went on to ask, “What happens if we get another Rumsfeld?”

A loud cheer went up in the room at the mention Rumsfeld’s name in this context.

Congressman Smith conceded that absolutely no budgeting had been made for the increased demands of war wounded, and we voters must remember that this budget planning was largely in the hands of the Bush administration and a Republican-ruled Congress.

So much for their support of the troops.

And, we should never forget the work of feminist Jamiell Goforth, who left a promising dance career in Seattle to become an Army combat medic.

According to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Goforth persevered through grueling physical and mental tests of endurance and skill against other soldiers to become the first female “Soldier of the Year” from U.S. Army Forces Command.

The year Goforth spent in Taji, Iraq, with vehicles and medics rushing wounded and injured U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and civilians to her aid station proved her true grit.

“We saved lives; we didn’t lose anybody,” Goforth said with a mixture of emotion and pride.

“Seeing some of those injuries and people trusting you, with their lives literally in your hands, makes you grow up; you are in charge of making sure they go home, that they get back to their families,” Goforth, now based at Fort Hood, Texas, said.

I’m afraid that the only bimbos around are the ones Rupert Murdoch hired for Fox News. You can bet that they aren’t feminists. And you know danged good and well, they’d faint at the sight of blood.

Federal Way resident Karen Backman can be reached at madmaker13@msn.com.