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Sarah Shourd is a global feminist. Now thirty-one, she has been working for over a decade for the rights and welfare of women worldwide. Femicide, gentrification and military globalization are but a few of the injustices she has incessantly combated as an activist and community organizer. She has worked with religious organizations, theater collectives and [...]
“Born Free” was released on April 23rd to promote M.I.A.’s latest album, which will be released on June 29, 2010. Recently, the L.A. Times reported that the video had been banned by YouTube. Although this was untrue, the production did incite strong reactions-so strong, that YouTube ultimately obscured the video in order to appease angry [...]
At first I hesitated to write this review. I am a non-Muslim, Western woman writing a review of a book written by a (presumably) non-Muslim, Western woman about Muslim women in the Middle East. As I read the book, however, I became much more comfortable with the idea. Ms. Coleman’s book is a result of [...]
In the wake of two decades of equality declines, the women of Iraq have been given a glimmer of hope for progress. Iraq’s new constitution mandates that 25% of parliament’s seats must be held by women. Like women around the world, Iraqi women have a history of fighting for their rights.
The 1970s/80s saw an increase in public policy aimed at gender equality in Iraq’s public sphere. Even the constitution of 1970 contained an article stating that all citizens are equal regardless of sex.
Unfortunately, this type of progress didn’t continue in the 1990s which brought sanctions, conflict and an increase in fundamentalist influence on policy. Schools deteriorated and women’s economic development slowed during this time. The literacy rate of Iraqi women dropped from 75% in 1987 to less than 25% in 2000. (Human Rights Watch)
Then came the U.S. invasion in 2003. This so-called liberation put new pressures on the women of Iraq. As with most conflict situations women faced increased assaults, rape and kidnapping. Women are often responsible for meeting the basics need of the family and this became increasingly difficult as infrastructure was destroyed and their mobility limited by insecurity.
In addition, women are often overlooked in the reconstruction process. Most of the economic development projects in Iraq have focused on businesses owned by men. This makes the new parliament mandate even more important. Not surprisingly, some people (particularly men) have taken offense with this mandate. Many female political candidates have faced threats.
Also not surprising is that people in the U.S. are against such quotas and believe it to be a violation of democracy. As I read through the comments on the NPR article about this subject only one was in support of the mandate (shock! It was one of the two women that left a comment).
Those who cry outrage over these types of quotas live in a fantasy world believing that all is truly fair and equal opportunities are available to everyone. This belief disregards the social, cultural, and economic barriers that women face daily, let alone in political life. The United States is supposed to be a role model of equality for the world, yet only 17% of our legislature is made up of women!
Let me be clear, women are not necessarily better leaders, but the different perspective they provide is crucial to making democracy work. As public and private leaders, women tend to focus on issues many times overlooked or patronized by male dominated governments. These include education, childcare, welfare, health care and other family centered policies.
No one denies the theory that people have different experiences based on their gender identity. Therefore, it is logical to have a high number of people with female experiences in order to ensure a more equal (and dare I say fair) representation. Women make up ½ the worlds population after all.
“Art is a powerful medium. It engages people. And I think that’s what we need…[I]t really doesn’t matter what medium you decide to use. I think the objective is to engage people. But now more than ever, artists have a lot more powerful tools to play with…[A]rt does not have to be confined to a [...]
Houzan Mahmoud, the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq’s representative abroad, agreed that the comparison was problematic.
“Both situations are horrible,” she told The Media Line. “Just because we have a terrible situation at the moment doesn’t mean we need to glorify Saddam’s dictatorship.”
“During Saddam’s regime if you were not political you could lead a normal life, but for the majority of us who opposed the dictatorship, it was hell,” Mahmoud said. “You were either for the Ba’ath party under Saddam or you were subjected to torture, persecution and abuse. There was no freedom of speech, no freedom of association, women did not have the right to establish women’s organizations and he also started to bring socially conservative norms into the constitution. So I don’t really like arguments that imply that Saddam Hussein’s regime was great.”
“Now America has invited the most tribalist, misogynist, Islamist extremist groups to join the government,” she continued. “Warlords, ex-Ba’athists, you name it. It’s a government of corrupt pullets that has nothing to do with people’s aspirations for freedom or welfare and which hasn’t brought any normalcy.”
“As a result, there is a lot of gender-based violence at all levels,” Mahmoud concluded. “We have one or two million women who have been widowed and have no access to social benefits. There is widespread violence and the majority of people live under the poverty line, particularly women. There is trafficking of women and young girls for prostitution both internally and externally. Sharia law has been implemented through the constitution and the enforcement of social conservatism has been brought back into the society.”
So, basically, things have moved from sucks to sucks.
Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, both operating in eastern Baghdad under the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, along with their Iraqi counterparts from the 1st Battalion, 4th Brigade, 1st Division National Police, were conducting a coordinated raid as part of a planned operation when they were attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Coalition Forces returned fire and called in attack aviation reinforcement.
Nine insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight. One insurgent was wounded and two civilians were killed during the firefight.
The two civilians were reported as employees for the Reuters news service.
“There is no question that Coalition Forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said Lt. Col Scott Bleichwehl, spokesperson and public affairs officer for MND-B.
Yesterday, a leaked video of the incident was released by Wikileaks (the US has confirmed that the video was authentic). What’s below is footage edited by Wikileaks; a longer, unedited version is available at their site. (Trigger warning: The footage shows 10-15 adults shot to death by US soldiers in helicopters. Two children are also shot, but survived.)
The video shows a group of adults, some of whom may be armed, or maybe not. Two of them are carrying large cameras strapped on, which the American soldiers mistake for weapons. The soldiers shoot all of the adults, creating a huge cloud of dust obscuring all the people on the ground.
After the dust has cleared, all of the adults appear to be dead, except for one who is wounded and attempting to crawl away. A soldier in the helicopter appears eager for a reason to shoot the wounded man (”Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.”) After a while, a black van pulls up; unarmed men get out of the van, pick up the wounded man, and carry him towards the van. The soldiers in the helicopters fire on the van, apparently killing all the adults and (we learn later) wounding two children in the van, who are taken for treatment at an Iraqi hospital.
Most of the discussion I’ve read about this video focuses on whether or not the shooting was legal under the Rules of Engagement operating at the time; or discussing the attitude of the soldiers. Unsurprisingly, the US Army investigation found that the soldiers and their command did nothing wrong; and the soldiers’ attitude about killing seems not only unsurprising but probably a necessary defense mechanism for them to be able to do their jobs.
What’s more interesting to me is that the US Army clearly lied about the incident. (You can parse the press release to not be a lie, as the Weekly Standard does, but it’s really a stretch. The plain and obvious interpretation of the press release is that the Iraquis were actively in a mutual fight with US soldiers when they were killed, and that’s obviously not true. Additionally, the press release lies by omission by not mentioning the people killed trying to rescue the wounded man). And then the army covered up the incident, by refusing to release the video.
So how do we know the army lied? Because of the convergence of two unlikely events. First, that two of the people shot were Reuters employees, causing Reuters to press for information about the shooting. And secondly, that an anonymous person (presumably someone in the army) had access to this video, and was courageous and heroic enough to leak it.
It is extremely unlikely that something like this happened just once, and by a massive coincidence that one completely atypical incident just happened to involve two Reuters employees and a video being anonymously leaked. What’s much more plausible is that there are many incidents of this kind, but only rarely do Americans find out about them. It’s entirely possible that incidents like these happen all the time.
One thing we can conclude for certain from this incident is that the US Army is untrustworthy. They can, and will, cover up dubious acts by US soldiers, and for all we know do so routinely. The US Army is not a credible source.
Tragedies like this are inevitable in war, and particularly in an occupation. This is as true in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq:
In a stark assessment of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in little-noticed comments last month that during his time as commander there, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”
The comments came during a virtual town hall with troops in Afghanistan after one asked McChrystal to comment on the “escalation of force” problem. The general responded that, in the nine months he had been in charge, none of the cases in which “we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it.”
In many cases, he added, families were in the vehicles that were fired on.
Which is why wars should happen only as a last resort. War of choice is a monstrous evil. People who favor the US going to avoidable wars are favoring a situation in which — inevitably — innocent civilians are going to be shot to death by US troops, over and over again. Think about the two children who got shot while witnessing their own fathers being shot to death. That’s the inevitable byproduct of war.
It’s notable that, although in the US the major news outlets typically report whatever the US military claims as if it were fact, that’s not true in other countries. Discussing a different cover-up by US troops of the killing of innocent civilians (this time in Afghanistan), Glenn Greenwald writes:
Put another way, anyone reading about what happened from American news outlets would be completely misled and propagandized, while anyone reading the Pajhowk Afghan News would have been informed, because they treated official U.S. claims with skepticism rather than uncritical reverence.
One reason that the US looks so different “on the ground” throughout the middle east than it does here is that we’re reading and watching different news sources. And sometimes, the news that we Americans are watching is lying to us, in a way which makes our forces seem less harmful, and those objecting to US forces seem less justified.
They hate us, in part, because we slaughter them from helicopters. That’s not unreasonable of them.
There were moments–long moments–during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
There are racist bigots who have argued that Jews cannot be trusted, because they’re inherently deceitful people. These racist bigots are rightly called anti-Semites, and they are despised by anyone with a functioning brain.
Marty Peretz just argued that Arabs can’t be trusted, because they’re inherently deceitful people. He’s a racist bigot, and he should be despised by anyone with a functioning brain.
Tomorrow Iraq will hold its second parliamentary election since the 2003 US invasion of the country. Headlines in the mainstream US media have focused on how the election will predict Iraq’s political direction once US forces withdraw, and on the violent attacks that some have carried out to discourage voters from going to the polls. [...]
I’ve yet to succumb to the vampire craze. Given the growing number of conversations –- with friends over brunch, strangers on a bus, acquaintances at a dinner party – that this excludes me from, at some point I’m sure I’ll give in and read the Twilight series or watch True Blood.
In the meantime, when I [...]
