She’s just a kid.
My heart is ripped to pieces for Malala Yousafzai. Just 14, she is beautiful, poised and precocious beyond her years. She is also brave.
Were Malala growing up in the United States, she would be a child rock star. But she was born in Pakistan, where girls are forced into marriage before puberty, school is forbidden and full-grown deviants from the disgusting Taliban see children like Malala as monstrous threats to their shaky manhood.
Malala’s bus bringing her home from the school that she defiantly attended was boarded Oct. 9 by bearded marauders from the terror organization. They asked for Malala. As terrified classmates pointed her out, the big men shot the child in the head and neck, leaving her grievously injured. They also shot and wounded two of her girlfriends. The million-dollar question is — why?
Because the girl had become a bit of a celebrity, appearing in the global media advocating for the thing that insults the Taliban more than exposed female hair. Malala wants females to be educated.
“I have the right of education,’’ she told CNN last year. “I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up. I shall raise my voice.
“If I didn’t,’’ she said, “who would?’’
Now, bullets have rendered Malala unable to speak. The Taliban crows.
“Islam orders killing of those who are spying for enemies,” the group said in a gloating statement.
“We targeted her because she would speak against the Taliban while sitting with shameless strangers and idealized the biggest enemy of Islam, Barack Obama.”
Given another chance, the Taliban vowed, they’d shoot Malala until she’s dead.
It’s unlikely Malala knew this. But President Obama, the great appeaser, has been negotiating with the thugs. In a May speech, he sent a message to Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan — make nice with the US.
“We have made it clear that they can be a part of this future if they break with al Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by Afghan law,’’ Obama said. Might as well have asked them to shave.
Vice President Smiling Joe Biden in December told Newsweek, “Look, the Taliban, per se, is not our enemy. That’s critical.’’
Such policies infuriated CBS correspondent Lara Logan. In Chicago last week, she railed that some in Washington are pushing the “major lie’’ that “they are just the poor, moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban.’’
International reaction to Malala’s shooting has been predictable outrage. That hasn’t stopped cynics from making a buck, or advancing an agenda, off the ravaged girl.
“This made me cry,’’ Madonna said before doing a striptease in LA, revealing the name “Malala’’ stenciled on her naked back. I’d cry, too.
The National Organization for Women should have shut it, minimizing the Middle East savagery by comparing it to the so-called war on women at home.
“One in every 30 girls and young women age 12-15 in the US is a victim of violent crime, according to the US Justice Department,” NOW said in a bizarre statement.
None of these victims, I expect, was shot in the head for attending school.
Angelina Jolie alone got it right. In a piece for the Daily Beast entitled, “We Are All Malala,’’ she wrote that her six kids asked, “Why did those men think they needed to kill Malala?’’
Angie answered, “Because an education is a powerful thing.’’
I think of my own daughter, a few months younger than Malala. She’s as bright and vivid as her Pakistani counterpart but differs in one crucial way: She has the luxury of taking education for granted.
She can openly choose a high school, college, a career. Her only fears are excessive homework or unemployment. Not assassination.
This week, Malala was airlifted to a hospital in England. There, two people who claimed to be relatives tried to get inside her room but were turned away, heightening fears that butchers are still out to get her.
Pray for Malala. Pray that no little girl has to risk her life for a book.
And hope that President Obama gets the message. Don’t play nice with the Taliban. Ever.
Unions’ rape of logic
At a rally protesting Success Academy charter school’s efforts to set up shop inside a Brooklyn school next year, a boy wielded a shocking sign. It read:
“Forcing Something Where It’s Not Wanted Sounds Pretty Much Like Rape.’’
The rally was staged by City Council Member Letitia James and education “advocates’’ who claim charters drain precious resources from the school system. But labor backers are threatened by the high quality of charters, which operate without unions.
Please, just leave kids out of your rush to the bottom.
Frugal and very ‘free’gan weird
New York is the cheapest place on earth. Ask Kate Hashimoto, a Harlem condo owner who Dumpster-dives for perfectly good food and intact clothing. She cuts her own hair and eschews toilet paper for soap and water. Guess what? She has a job!
Kate’s an accountant who treats each work day as if it’s her last. Now, she’s turned her frugality into a new career, appearing on TLC’s “Extreme Cheapskates.’’
Great way to make a New Yorker’s neurosis work for you!
Kerik’s brain freeze
Fallen former city Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik whined, whimpered and wept on the Bronx witness stand. He drew the line at squealing.
Kerik is serving a federal prison term for accepting $165,000 in free renovations to his Riverdale apartment. But the bombastic Bernie was cut down to size, led in shackles and prison jumpsuit this week to court.
He testified, ostensibly for the prosecution in the perjury trial of Peter and Frank DiTommaso, brothers who allegedly spruced up Kerik’s home in the hope the then-correction commish would do them favors. But Bernie developed a wicked case of amnesia on the stand.
He said he didn’t know who paid for the flat’s marble Jacuzzi and entrance way fit for a king. Is Kerik hiding something? Or has prison robbed him of brain cells?
One thing is certain: the ex-top cop doesn’t care for upholding the law.
Santa gets tobacco-opted by health cops
In a shout-out to the health police, a Canadian author has self-published “A Visit From St. Nicholas,’’ (known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas’’). She censored verses referring to Santa Claus’ pipe-smoking habit.
“Santa has stopped smoking and 2012 is the year he quit, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,’’ Pamela McColl told The Post’s Susannah Cahalan. What’s next?
A transgender elf? PETA protesting the jolly man’s reindeer-powered sleigh?
Just smoke, already.