(no subject)
Nov. 23rd, 2005 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasSo, every once in a while, I read right-wing editorial cartoons. And one of the recurring themes is that, sure, maybe there weren't WMD's, but we brought the right to vote to women in Iraq!
Are people actually unaware that women in Iraq already HAD the right to vote, but that they're now talking about taking it away?
Are people actually unaware that women in Iraq already HAD the right to vote, but that they're now talking about taking it away?
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 07:54 pm (UTC)Yay for the spread of democracy! Let's do it to Saudi Arabia next! After all, women can't even drive there.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:12 pm (UTC)http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/comm/events/20040225.pdf
Page 19 & 20.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:56 pm (UTC)He was an equal opportunity oppressor, but on paper women had rights; they went to school; they participated in the professions; they participated in government; and business, and as long as they stayed out of his way, they had considerable freedom of movement.
The bold is mine. None of those rights have been taken away 'on paper'. So that's irrelevant. In fact, the new Iraqi constitution guarantees far more liberty than what she is asserting they had 'on paper' under the Saddam regime.
What's really egregious about that is the 'as long as they stayed out of his way' comment. She doesn't mention that staying out of his (Saddam, or his sociopathic sons Uday and Qusay) way was not a matter of obeying the law. The tens of thousands of Kurdish women who were gassed by Saddam weren't able to stay out of his way due to their ethnicity. When he out of whom's way one must stay is a psycho dictator, it's almost impossible to comply with that. One is dependent on the mercy of someone with no conscience.
Her argument is on par with saying 'Sure, her husband beat her and the kids, and he was liable to lock her in the closet for hours or days on end, but not if she avoided pissing him off he wouldn't, he'd let her have a life.'.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:05 pm (UTC)She talks about her life pre-Saddam. University-educated, worked for a computer company, wore pants, lived a fairly independent life.
Postwar, the company fired her because she's a woman, she can't safely leave the house without men to accompany her, she's threatened by total strangers if she does go outside inappropriately dressed...
How is this at all an improvement?
I strongly recommend you read her account (it's been published in book form and available in most libraries if you'd find it easier) all the way through. Quite an eye-opener.
Also keep in mind there are differences in life and attitudes between urban city-dwellers and more rural folks. So the cities were quite cosmopolitan and liberated in comparison to the more conservative provincial backwaters. Same holds true in America. Riverbend has never specified whether she's Shia or Sunni, but says that thru intermarriage she has friends and family-members in both sects. And yet it's the extremists on all sides who seem to be gaining power.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:12 pm (UTC)This is Hillary Clinton criticizing what's happened since the war not saying it was this bad under Saddam.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:32 pm (UTC)Mr. BMW, I'm not going to engage you further. Given your extremely selective quoting, and your other comments on the thread(s), you clearly have an agenda, and it is not an agenda I care to engage with just now.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:40 pm (UTC)The funny thing is? I got this link for the .pdf file from a neocon site whose moronic poster excerpted even worse/twisted things out of context:
...Note that sentences were chopped (esp. the bit about Afganistan), and that the info isn't even on 36, 37, and 38. Retarded neocons.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:46 pm (UTC)Second, yes, I quoted selectively. But I said as much. I made it clear I was not giving a synopsis, but taking a quote with specific point(s) with which I disagreed and explaining my disagreement.
On the other hand, I absolutely agree with her that we need to work against any slide to religious law taking precedence. Which is part of the reason we should not pull out yet. To do so would lead to exactly the sort of thing she fears. I have no desire to see Iraq turn into another Saudi Arabia or worse.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:03 pm (UTC)I absolutely agree with her that we need to work against any slide to religious law taking precedence. Which is part of the reason we should not pull out yet.
There is absolutely no solution to fighting this war against their religious law. None. That is what Americans do not understand. Things aren't packaged neatly in a little Solution Box with a Direct Pathway to Success, especially when dealilng with Muslim insurgents/people who follow a creed that justifies 'holy war' on ALL people not of their mindset.
I have no desire to see Iraq turn into another Saudi Arabia or worse.
It's probably going to turn that way (in practice), and we have only us (well, Shrub and Co.) to thank for it. Saddam was a brutal secular dictator who fought to keep religion out of government, and now we have a massive bunch of religious fruitcakes fighting against eachother AND against us for control of the government, regardless of what this "Constitution" says.
Not that Shrub & Co. cared to comprehend that idea, because it's just so easy to send our hired guns over there to take over.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:20 pm (UTC)What I meant was that the specific sentences you quoted had a different meaning in isolation than the entire two pages had. (Or whatever portion that the other two folks quoted.) In fact, those sentences in isolation can result in a position diametrically opposed to the position the entire two pages take. (Two pages, or whatever portion has been quoted by the other folks.)
This indicates to me that you are willing to unreasonably distort your facts, both in this specfic case and possibly in other cases. I see no good coming from engaging you in this particular venue or fashion. I seem to be doing so anyway, but I have long had a problem with ignoring discussions I know will do my blood pressure no good.
As to the core of your commentary-- I would agree that Saddam and Co were dangerous, immoral people who were not particularly qualified to be leading a country. (Particularly his sons.)
I am just a tad dubious that the invasion of Iraq was warranted, however, given as they had not (as far as can be determined) provided a justifiable reason for us, in particular, to attack them.
The /current/ situation in Iraq sucks large dead sewer rats for anyone, let alone women, and is difficult to base any conclusions around, therefore I won't. Other instances of a war like this one do indicate that the country in question will probably not be stable or safe for years to come, if not decades.
The evidence I have seen, despite the specific wording of the Constitution, does suggest that there has been more of an upsurge in attempts to establish and/or administer non-secular forms of government, which, in that area of the world, concerns me.
I do not, therefore, take the current situation as a net gain for Iraqis.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 11:09 pm (UTC)I was not attempting to quote her out of context. She seemed to be saying three things; that she perceived dangers to women's rights in Iraq and that we should do what we could to protect those rights. I didn't address those points as I agreed with them. She also seemed to be saying that women were better off under Saddam than they are now based on their rights 'on paper' and provided they 'stayed out of his (Saddam's) way'. I was trying to point out that on paper they had the same or greater rights now. And that 'staying out of his way' was not necessarily something over which women had control at the time, as he was a psychotic madman. I didn't address Afghanistan as that wasn't what the original post was about. I'm trying to stay on point.
This indicates to me that you are willing to unreasonably distort your facts, both in this specfic case and possibly in other cases.
Sorry to hear you feel this way. I was not trying to distort facts, but present my viewpoint. And I think I've demonstrated in this thread that if I've got something provably wrong, I'll admit it. See below regarding the Iraqi constitution where I was apparently looking at an earlier draft.
Is the current situation bad? Yes, it is. But we're under three years into it. We're trying to rebuild a country from scratch, that suffered 20 or 30 years of dictatorship, and fighting off radical Islamists while doing it. Expecting this to be over in two to three years time is just not realistic. It took 8-10 years to rebuild Japan and Germany after WWII after all.
But we are making progress. The votes and the Constitution, even with its imperfections are steps in the right direction. And we are making gains. We're building schools and hospitals and infrastructure. here are large parts of the country that are peaceful and safe. The Kurdish region in particular has had very little violence. I could give you a list of links that detail the gains we're making, but I have a feeling you'd give them no more creedence than I do to the 'Lenin's Tomb' link below claiming there are still state-sponsored rape rooms.
I'm not claiming things are perfect or idyllic, but I honestly believe we are helping create an Iraq that is better for its people and that the removal of Saddam was a good thing. And that's all I have to say.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 12:50 am (UTC)From today's papers:
Date: 2005-11-27 05:04 pm (UTC)http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1651789,00.html
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:15 pm (UTC)I think this is the relevant section on Pages 19 & 20:
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:16 pm (UTC)No problem, I hate .pdf files, too.
Hillary (a.k.a. every neocon's nightmare), ADDRESSING THE NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME: FIGHTING TERROR AND THE SPREAD OF
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-N.Y.) Wednesday, February 25, 2004
[TRANSCRIPT PREPARED FROM A TAPE RECORDING.]
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:29 pm (UTC)Or how about being kidnapped off the street to be used as a temporary sex toy by Uday and Qusay, then killed and dumped in an unmarked grave? That 'right' they had under Saddam too.
Or maybe the 'right' to be gassed for happening to be of the wrong ethnic minority?
Or the 'right' to have your husband or children or parents disappear in the middle of the night and never be heard from again.
Damn shame we took all those 'rights' away from women in Iraq. And we'll just ignore the fact that the new Iraqi constitution in Article 20 specifically guarantees males and females the right to vote and to participate in government while were out it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:48 pm (UTC)Under the chaos of the American occupation, it happens to people at random. More Iraqi civilians have died in the general lawlessness and insurrection of the last two years, than died during Saddam's entire reign.
We invaded, disbanded the military, disbanded the police, left Iraq with no more than a minimum occupation force to keep law and oder, and then -- Whoops! We were shocked, shocked to find that this vulnerability was exploited by organized crime, street gangs, opportunistic criminals, and malcontents from all over the region.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:15 pm (UTC)You want to cite a source on that claim? Disbanding the military and the police was a mistake. You'll get no argument from me. But the majority of Iraq is relatively peaceful. And people don't worry about being dragged from their bed in the middle of the night any longer. The sources I can find put the low end (http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm) at 250,000 killed by Saddam and as high as 1 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm) according to some Iraqi politicians, under Saddam. This doesn't include the 1 million or more killed in the Iran-Iraq war. The estimates I can find for civilian deaths during the Invasion and subsequent occupation are 26,994 to 30,420. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Deaths> Source </a>. Unless they've changed math on me, 27,000 is less than 250,000.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:26 pm (UTC)And people don't worry about being dragged from their bed in the middle of the night any longer.
Stick your figures up where the sun don't shine, because you have no idea what people are really thinking/doing/fearing over there.
Quote for the too-lazy-to-click:
"Recently a new fear has risen; fear of the Iraqi Special Forces (ISF). The ISF are a couple different brigades: the Wolf Brigade and Al Hussain Brigade. They are U.S. trained and work closely with the U.S. military, carrying out house raids, sweeps and major operations. People say they are brutal and that the Wolf Brigade is made up of many anti-Saddam Iranians from a militia called the Badr Brigade."
It's from July but hey, what's four months in this Hellish war.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:26 pm (UTC){had to delete the previous comment because the link was mis-linked}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:56 pm (UTC)Constitution depends on how it's enforced.
The Iraqi constitution also enshrines Islam as official religion and it "is not permitted to legislate anything that conflicts with the fixed principles of the rules of Islam." Depending on which flavor of Islam gets the nod, that could be a very narrow comfort indeed.
Also, the Afghan constitution makes similar noble statements, but falls far short in practice:So, why should I trust your wishful thinking over this evidence/experience?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:26 pm (UTC)Sorry, that's not what it says. It says that: "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed laws of Islam.". (Emphasis mine). That's lots of wiggle room. Esp. with the two clauses just below it which prohibit laws that contradict principles of democracy or the specific laws outlined in the constitution. If, as many claim, Islam is a Religion of Peace, this is no more worrying than the Official Church status given to various protestant churches in Europe.
As for what gives me confidence? Why should I trust her pessmistic proclamations? She's trying to score political points after all.
On the flip side Iraq, as you mention, was once a cosmopolitan and largely secular society. I think they we have given them a chance to return to that by removing Saddam. We screwed up disbanding the army and the police and part of the cost of that is prolonging the time we'll be there rebuilding that. But I believe they'll seize the chance and make a better society from themselves. Reading blogs from Iraq and from talking to and reading the anecdotes from soldiers who have been there, there are just as many stories of how much better things are than they were under Saddam.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:36 pm (UTC)Dunno where you're getting your source for the Constitution, but that's not what it says.
And yet, B conflicts with A already, since Sharia Law (Islamic Law) is far from democratic re: womens' rights. Basically, this "Constitition" is a lovely sham to placate 'Mericans (and some Iraqis) to give them the next feel good excuse to justify the invasion.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:11 pm (UTC)I wonder if she was referring to the 'right' to be dragged into a cement room and repeatedly raped?
Of course she was, because we know damn well that the rapings happened to every single Iraqi woman in Iraq under Saddam--that's why we had to free them!
Or how about being kidnapped off the street to be used as a temporary sex toy by Uday and Qusay, then killed and dumped in an unmarked grave? That 'right' they had under Saddam too.
Yes, because again, all women in Iraq every day faced this horror. We shouldn't listen to Hillary because she's a dirty Democrat, her hearsay (not that you even read the .pdf), or other Iraqi women who tell us what life before vs. life after is like, because fuck y'all, we're brangin' democrissy to I-rack.
Yeah, I love it when Americans behave like Iraq is just some heathen country that needed a shape up and that never had a Constitution before...or like to pretend that stating Islam as the national religion "but freedom to practice other religions" is no big deal/can go hand in hand.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:37 pm (UTC)Sen. Clinton was talking about the potential for women to lose certain rights. Based on a single anecdote. I was talking about the potential for a woman under the Saddam regime to be kidnapped and taken to state-sponsored rape rooms. I was talking about the potential to be abused by Uday and Qusay. That potential threat was real, and occured. It occured repeatedly. Or do you deny that?
Do I agree with Sen. Clinton that we should work with the Iraqi government to prevent women's right to vote and participate from being curtailed? Absolutely we should. But what I am disputing is the specific quote above and the specific addressing of those particular points. You want to actually address one of those?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:55 pm (UTC)I did address those "points". But apparently, you don't want to read/acknowledge the other "anecdotes" from women (or others) in Iraq.
Uday and Qusay are dead. Mission accomplished there, because even Saddam didn't like what his sons were doing (particularly Uday). If the U.S. hadn't killed them, someone else within the country would have, or do you deny assassination attempts on both of the brothers?
But what I am disputing is the specific quote above and the specific addressing of those particular points. You want to actually address one of those?
What exactly are you disputing? Facts in Clinton's transcript? Then now we're just heading into a circular argument, because we (another commenter and I) told you where to find corroborating "anecdotes" to what Hill was saying. Like I said, you just don't want to read them.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:06 pm (UTC)As for the other accounts, I haven't read them. But I've read other accounts by women and men who believe things are better, and that they have an opportunity to really make a difference. I'm not dismissing the accounts, but I am not going to take them as the total picture.
I thread-shifted, my mistake. I was referring to my specific disagreement with Sen. Clinton about rights 'on paper' and that the women of Iraq were perfectly free, as long as they 'stayed out of his (Saddam's) way'. I think she's trying to score political points in that speech by claiming things under Saddam weren't as bad as they, in fact, were.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:21 pm (UTC)No they're not. They're just under different management and equal opportunity offenders (of men and women).
Ian, you probably don't want to read this, but http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005/11/rape-apparently-its-improvement.html has photos and scads of links.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:09 pm (UTC)Heck, senior administration consultants have made similar comments:Yeah, maybe they're not critical for men but you'd think somebody in charge would recognize this is half the population they're writing off...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 09:59 pm (UTC)Regardless, A says nothing about Sharia law. It says 'established provisions of Islam'. So unless you're arguing that Islam /can't/ be egaliatarian, that it cannot be a religion that respects women and allows for tolerance, then you're assertion does not follow that B necessarily contradicts A. B could contradict A, yes, but it doesn't not necessarily do so. But if you read the full text of the constitution it makes it clear that when they speak of the provisions of Islam, they aren't referring to the Wahabbist, fundamentalist version practiced by the Taliban and supported by the likes of Bin Laden and Al-Zarqawi. Are there elements that would like to see that happen? Yes, but it's far from being a done deal.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:14 pm (UTC)Islamic Law is religious law, it's THE law of Muslims, whether or not you'd like to acknowledge it. And if you saw this Constitution from the POV of an Iraqi rather than a safe American, then you'd comprehend what all of it means. Besides, we're already violating the Hell out of their "Constituional rights":
Article 33:
First: Every individual has the right to live in a safe environment.
So let's get the Hell out of there and stop egging on the roadside bomb planters.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 11:22 pm (UTC)Islamic Law is religious law, it's THE law of Muslims, whether or not you'd like to acknowledge it. And if you saw this Constitution from the POV of an Iraqi rather than a safe American, then you'd comprehend what all of it means. Besides, we're already violating the Hell out of their "Constituional rights":
It doesn't say religious law. It says 'provisions of Islam'. From the, admitedly few, Muslims I've met, I don't believe that their religion requires them to be a bunch of violent, misogynist throwbacks to the seventh century. Even if a large percentage of them interpret the hadiths (sp?) that way, I don't believe it's the -only- way Islam can be interpreted.
Last, if we leave now, we guarantee that a radical Islamist regime will take power and we'll open ourselves up to further attacks. The jihadists cannot defeat us militarily, only if we fail to have the resolve to see this through can they win. And in a nutshell that's why I think it's essential we stay and finish this. We're wandering pretty far afield at this point, so I'll leave it at that.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-24 05:58 am (UTC)Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, Islam is incompatible with a secular democracy.
if we leave now, we guarantee that a radical Islamist regime will take power and we'll open ourselves up to further attacks.
"radicalist Islamist regime"s are already very much in the making, and the very term "radicalist Islamists" in terms of the current political climate in Iraq is a redundancy. Perhaps you're too embroiled in the scare tactics and canned mass media junk they feed Americans, but Al Queda is not the only radicalist group out there spouting "fundamentalist" Islamic ideals. Perhaps you never heard of Hizb ut-Tahrir? If not, then you should read Zeyno Baran's "Fighting a War of Ideas" in this month's Foreign Affairs journal. Or bend your ear towards Paul Hackett, one military serviceman who understands that our ideals aren't going to fly in Islamic culture (there's short in this month's GQ and a longer in this month's Mother Jones).
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-23 10:16 pm (UTC)Ha ha, look what you started! XD!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-24 04:02 pm (UTC)