U.S. and Pakistani officials have condemned the shooting this week of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani who was shot in the head and neck while riding home on a school bus. But speaking out after an atrocious act is not enough, former first lady Laura Bush wrote in the Washington Post. “We must speak up before these acts occur, work to ensure that they do not happen again, and keep our courage to continue to resist the ongoing cruelty and barbarism of the Taliban,” Bush wrote. “Malala Yousafzai refused to look the other way. We owe it to her courage and sacrifice to do the same.”
“The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee was to examine security lapses that led to the killing in Benghazi last month of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others. But in doing so, the lawmakers reminded us why ‘congressional intelligence’ is an oxymoron,” wrote Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. “Through their outbursts, cryptic language and boneheaded questioning of State Department officials, the committee members left little doubt that one of the two compounds at which the Americans were killed, described by the administration as a ‘consulate’ and a nearby ‘annex,’ was a CIA base. They did this, helpfully, in a televised public hearing.”
U.S. and Pakistani officials have condemned the shooting this week of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani who was shot in the head and neck while riding home on a school bus. But speaking out after an atrocious act is not enough, former first lady Laura Bush wrote in the Washington Post. “We must speak up before these acts occur, work to ensure that they do not happen again, and keep our courage to continue to resist the ongoing cruelty and barbarism of the Taliban,” Bush wrote. “Malala Yousafzai refused to look the other way. We owe it to her courage and sacrifice to do the same.”