[Yes, this is at the heart of my sadness here - that a woman is being vindictively punished for a lot of hypothetical claims of what she has personally been responsible for and is being made to stand in as a kind of superbad transgressor, a fantasy figure in her own right, a lilith or jezebel rather than the mother/madonna.
I also think that a lot of the much older commentators on this thread are looking through their own personal prism of male experience and political knowledge which, I sincerely doubt was a motivating factor in this woman's life. Whilst I have no wish to downplay the utter stupidity of this woman, I am having difficulty ascribing to her all the ills of the ME. I have no doubt that she was starring in her own epic adventure with little awareness of the real grief and pain her actions caused but there is also no doubt that the claims of her 'evil doing' and malice have not been substantiated in anything other than role-playing, dressing up and, for me, the worst aspect of it, attempting to persuade others to join her. Had she actually been complicit in bombing, killing and maiming rather than spending her time locked up with other women, used as cattle by men, I would also be judging her more harshly...but I cannot really find it in me to punish someone so harshly because she defied expectations.
