Many Iraqi women say life was better under Saddam Hussein – AND OTHER ASSOCIATED ARTICLES

Many Iraqi women say life was better under Saddam Hussein – AND OTHER ASSOCIATED ARTICLES

The Manila Times

Opinion

Wednesday, March 26, 2008



Many Iraqi women say life
was better under Saddam

By Nafia Abdul Jabbar and Marwa Sabah, Agence France-Presse

BAGHDAD: Iraqi women say they are now worse off than they were during the rule of dictator Saddam Hussein and that their plight has deteriorated year by year since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Now they are demanding not just equal rights but the very “right to live,” says Shameran Marugi, head of the non-governmental organisation Iraqi Women’s Committee.

“The ‘right to live’ is a slogan that we have begun using because a women’s life in Iraq is being threatened on all sides. Laws are not being implemented equally and society is ignoring women,” Maguri told AFP.

“Before the 2003 invasion it was possible for a woman to lead a normal life as long as she followed state policy,” she said.

“It was even possible for a woman to engage in political and economic activities through the official Union of Iraqi Women.

“When the regime change occurred in 2003, women, men, and children went out on to the streets to celebrate. We were very happy,” she said.

“Unfortunately there was no qualified leadership to handle the situation and society was not equipped to deal with the changes.”

The Union of Iraqi Women was dismantled after the invasion as it was affiliated to the former Baath Party of Saddam.

In the past few years, Marugi said, violence against women has increased significantly.

“At home a woman faces violence from her father, husband, brother and even from her son. It has become a kind of a new culture in the society,” said the women’s rights campaigner.

Out in society, women are subjected to verbal abuse on the streets if they are not wearing a hijab and in extreme cases face being abducted by unknown gunmen, who sexually abuse and then kill them.

“It has also become normal for women to receive death threats for working for example as a hairdresser or a tailor, for not wearing a hijab or not dressing ‘decently’,” said Marugi, adding: “In addition to equal rights we are now demanding the ‘right to live’.”

Although there are no official nationwide figures available, rights activists report numerous cases of so-called “honour killings” in the southern city of Basra, in the northern Kurdish area and in the capital Baghdad.

A United Nations report said police in Basra registered 44 cases in 2007 where women were killed with multiple gunshot wounds after being accused of committing “honour crimes”.

In Baghdad, the report said, several women teachers have been shot dead by armed men, some of them in front of their students.

A report by the US-based Women For Women International released earlier this month said the state of Iraqi women has become a “national crisis” since the March 2003 US-led invasion.

“Present-day Iraq is plagued by insecurity, a lack of infrastructure and controversial leadership, transforming the situation for women from one of relative autonomy and security before the war into a national crisis,” said the report.

It said 64 percent of the women surveyed complained that violence against them had increased.

“When asked why, respondents most commonly said that there is less respect for women’s rights than before, that women are thought of as possessions, and that the economy has gotten worse,” it said.

The report also found that 76 percent of the women interviewed said that girls in their families were forbidden from attending school.

Selma Jabu, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s consultant for women’s affairs, said apart from being sidelined politically Iraqi women are subjected to abuse and intimidation on the streets and face violent sexual abuse.

“There is terrorist violence, including bombs, against the Iraqi people in general on the streets. But there is specific violence against women who are being abducted for sex and subjected to many other crimes,” Jabu said.

“The Iraqi constitution protects and supports women on some issues, but there are other issues we have not agreed upon and we are doing our best to get them in to the constitution,” she said.

Iqbal Ali, in her forties, said death threats had forced her to close her hairdressing salon in Baghdad’s central Karada neighbourhood.

“In the beginning everything was going all right but afterwards the situation in the country deteriorated, women hairdressers started getting threats. My work was affected and I closed my salon down.”

She has now opened a cosmetics and perfume shop which she has named Alwarda Albaidaa (white rose).

“I was in a difficult situation financially with no access to rations, no assistance from the government. I was without a job. So I decided to borrow money and open this shop,” she added.

Suad Mohammed, an employee in Adhamiyah municipality in northwestern Baghdad, carries a pistol in her handbag.

“As an Iraqi woman I don’t think it is safe for me to step out of my house freely. So whenever I go out I carry a weapon with me to defend myself,” said Mohammed.

She said that last year she had gone to a bank to pick up the salary of an old woman who was unable to get there herself, and on the way back the taxi driver turned off and began driving towards the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City.

“He refused to stop and I started screaming. And then I remembered I was carrying a weapon, so I decided to defend myself. The only thing I was thinking about was the woman’s salary.

“I pulled my weapon from my purse and hit him on his neck and hands. He started bleeding but still did not stop. Finally, the taxi was stopped by a passing military convoy and the driver was taken away.”

Since then, said Mohammed, “every time I leave my neighbourhood I make sure I carry my weapon”.









Editor and Publisher






















5 Years Later: Pundits Who Were Wrong on Iraq Are Silent
To choose just one example: David Brooks. Exactly five years ago, on the verge of war, he even attacked his current employer, The New York Times, for calling for "still more discussion" before attacking Iraq.

(March 25, 2008) -- Given the current tragedy in Iraq--hell, given the past five years--you would think the many pundits who agitated for an attack on that country, largely on false pretenses, would have take the opportunity of the arrival of the fifth anniversary of the war (or the 4000 dead milestone) to drop to their knees, at least in print, and beg the American public for forgiveness.

With more than 60 percent of their fellow Americans now calling the war a "mistake" and agitating for troop withdrawals--and the president's approval rating still heading south, thanks to their war--it would seem to be the right thing to do. We won't even mention the maiming of more than 20,000 young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

You can probably name your favorite candidate. Let's take David Brooks of The New York Times, for example, and what he wrote exactly five years ago. He hasn't bothered to revisit his errors in judgement lately. At least Richard Cohen, another favorite whipping boy of antiwar critics, has accepted responsibility for some of his lapses.

Brooks is among those who have long argued that they actually got the war right, but Donald Rumsfeld made it wrong. In other words, war good, Rummy bad. He has emphasized that he and many of his fellow pundits had it right at the time in urging more boots on the ground. They were "prescient," he relates. But Rumsfeld and his crowd "got things wrong, and the pundits often got things right."

He never cites any of his own views at the time, obviously hoping that readers will place him among those pundits that "got things right." And also: please forget that he was a strong supporter of the invasion to start with.

In fact, he bears special blame -- or shame, if you will -- not only for his writing, but for serving as senior editor of the most influential (inside the White House) pro-war publication, The Weekly Standard, headed by Bill Kristol, who has been even more consistently wrong on the war, yet rewarded with a prestigious New York Times slot.

Come to think of it, Brooks got the same reward -- two for the price of two!

Brooks may want you to forget what he wrote five years ago, but here's a trip down memory lane with Our Mr. Brooks.

From his column in The Weekly Standard, March 10, 2003:

"The American commentariat is gravely concerned. Over the past week, George W. Bush has shown a disturbing tendency not to waffle when it comes to Iraq. There has been an appalling clarity and coherence to his position. There has been a reckless tendency not to be murky, hesitant, or evasive. Naturally, questions are being raised about President Bush's leadership skills.

"Meanwhile, among the smart set, Hamlet-like indecision has become the intellectual fashion. The liberal columnist E. J. Dionne wrote in The Washington Post that he is uncomfortable with the pro- and anti-war camps. He praised the doubters and raised his colors on behalf of 'heroic ambivalence.' The New York Times, venturing deep into the territory of self-parody, ran a full-page editorial calling for 'still more discussion' on whether or not to go to war.

"In certain circles, it is not only important what opinion you hold, but how you hold it. It is important to be seen dancing with complexity, sliding among shades of gray. Any poor rube can come to a simple conclusion--that President Saddam Hussein is a menace who must be disarmed--but the refined ratiocinators want to be seen luxuriating amid the difficulties, donning the jewels of nuance, even to the point of self-paralysis.

"But those who actually have to lead and protect, and actually have to build one step on another, have to bring some questions to a close. Bush gave Saddam time to disarm. Saddam did not. Hence, the issue of whether to disarm him forcibly is settled. The French and the Germans and the domestic critics may keep debating, which is their luxury, but the people who actually make the decisions have moved on to more practical concerns. . . ."

From his Weekly Standard column two weeks later:

"The president has remained resolute. Momentum to liberate Iraq continues to build. The situation has clarified, and history will allow clear judgments about which leaders and which institutions were up to the challenge posed by Saddam and which were not.

"Over the past 12 years the United States has sought to disarm or depose Saddam--more forcefully since September 11 than before. Throughout that time, France and Russia have sought to undermine sanctions and fend off the ousting of Saddam. They opposed Clinton's efforts to bomb Saddam, just as they oppose Bush's push for regime change. Through the fog and verbiage, that is the essential confrontation. Events will show who was right, George W. Bush or Jacques Chirac.

"What matters, and what ultimately sprang the U.N. trap, is American resolve. The administration simply wouldn't let up. It didn't matter how Hans Blix muddied the waters with his reports on this or that weapons system. Under the U.N. resolutions, it was up to Saddam to disarm, administration officials repeated ad nauseam, and he wasn't doing it. It was and is sheer relentlessness that has driven us to where we are today.

"Which is ironic. We are in this situation because the first Bush administration was not relentless in its pursuit of Saddam Hussein. That is a mistake this Bush administration will not repeat."
*
Greg Mitchell's new book is "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq." It features a foreword by Joe Galloway and preface by Bruce Springteen.









Editor and Publisher






















5 Years Ago: Why Was Public So Misinformed on Facts Leading to War?

By E&P Staff

Published: March 23, 2008 11:10 AM ET

NEW YORK Five years ago today, as the U.S invasion of Iraq continued in its early stages, E&P published an article by Ari Berman, then an intern here, that examined the public attitudes on the eve of the war. He probed polls that found, on the most basic point, that roughly 2 out of 3 Americans backed an assault on Iraq.

But the attitudes driving those numbers raised serious issues about a misinformed public and the media's role. He found that a startlingly high percentage falsely believed that Saddam helped plan the 9/11 attacks or Iraqi hijackers were involved that day, and that Iraqi WMD had already been found.

An excerpt is reprinted below.
*

When the war dies down, editors and media analysts should catch their breath and ask themselves: How much did press coverage (or lack of coverage) contribute to the public backing for a pre-emptive invasion without the support of the United Nations?

When it came down to crunch time, the American people — as evidenced by opinion polls conducted after President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam on March 17 — supported the attack by about a 2-to-1 margin. Some of this reflected the usual rallying 'round the flag that accompanies every war, but the truth is, Bush always had strong (if nervous) popular support.

So, what motivated Americans to back their president throughout the winter of discontent — when much of the rest of the world strongly disagreed with the need for war now?

Of course, there were many reasons, ranging from partisan politics to genuine hatred and fear of the evil Saddam. But there was another key factor: Somehow, despite the media's exhaustive coverage of the post-9/11 world and the Saddam threat, a very large segment of the American public remained un- or misinformed about key issues related to the Iraqi crisis. Let's look at a few recent polls.

In a Jan. 7 Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll, 44% of respondents said they thought "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17% of those polled offered the correct answer: none. This was remarkable in light of the fact that, in the weeks after 9/11, few Americans identified Iraqis among the culprits. So the level of awareness on this issue actually plunged as time passed. Is it possible the media failed to give this appropriate attention?

In the same sample, 41% said that Iraq already possessed nuclear weapons, which not even the Bush administration claimed. Despite being far off base in crucial areas, 66% of respondents claimed to have a "good understanding" of the arguments for and against going to war with Iraq.

Then, a Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations survey released Feb. 20 found that nearly two-thirds of those polled believed that U.N. weapons inspectors had "found proof that Iraq is trying to hide weapons of mass destruction." Neither Hans Blix nor Mohamed ElBaradei ever said they found proof of this.

The same survey found that 57% of those polled believed Saddam Hussein helped terrorists involved with the 9/11 attacks, a claim the Bush team had abandoned. A March 7-9 New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that 45% of interviewees agreed that "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," and a March 14-15 CNN/USA Today/ Gallup poll found this apparently mistaken notion holding firm at 51%.

The significance of this is suggested by the finding, in the same survey, that 32% of those supporting an attack cited Saddam's alleged involvement in supporting terrorists as the "main reason" for endorsing invasion. Another 43% said it was "one reason."

Knowing this was a crucial element of his support — even though he could not prove the 9/11 connection — the president nevertheless tried to bolster the link. Bush mentioned 9/11 eight times during his March 6 prime-time news conference, linking it with Saddam Hussein "often in the same breath," Linda Feldmann of The Christian Science Monitor observed last week. "Bush never pinned the blame for the [9/11] attacks directly on the Iraqi president," Feldmann wrote. "Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public."

Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Center, told me last week: "It's very rare to find a perception that's been so disputed by experts yet firmly held by the public. There's almost nothing the public doesn't believe about Saddam Hussein."

The question, again, is: Did the press do a solid enough job in informing the public about the key contested issues?

"If the U.S. war against Iraq goes well, then the Bush administration is likely not to face questions about the way it sold the war," Feldmann conceded. "But if war and its aftermath go badly, then the administration could be under fire." Newspapers could be, too.
*
E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's new book, "So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq," explores public opinion and the media in-depth. To learn more, go to blog



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informazione dall'iraq occupato
information from occupied iraq

أخبار من العراق المحتل


Thanks To The Iraqi War Syria Has A Booming Sex Trade
Moments In Time

image2445940g.jpg

March 25,2008

Wealthy Middle Easterners looking for sex now travel to Syria for a cheap thrill. They have their choice of girls, some as young as 13 thanks to the Iraqi War. Syria has taken in 1.2 million refugees since George Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

With no legal work available an estimated 50,000 female Iraqi refugees are now prostitutes in Syria.

"70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis," 23-year-old Abeer told the New York Times. "The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available."

Because the United States invaded a country that posed no threat to the United States could George Bush and the country as a whole be blamed for these women’s new jobs? Many citizen tribunals have already convicted President Bush for war crimes. What’s one more crime on the list?

These women fled to Syria as United States troops invaded their homeland. The war was too dangerous for them to stay in Iraq with husbands and fathers were dead. There was no protection in their homeland. The reality though in Syria was thousands of refugees and very little jobs for single women. Except for one.

50,000 Iraqi refugees have been forced into prostitution to survive. Legal work has been banned for those who became refugees as the war in Iraq forced them out. For many sex work is the only possible way to feed their families. It’s a job where in one night they can earn about $60, the same as working in a factory……for a month.

Some of the women working these clubs are as young as 13. Do they have a choice? It is often a trade off of morals and dignity to feed and house a family.

Five years ago the war started. Not all the victims of this war live in Iraq. Not all the mourners live in the United States. Millions have no home. Millions have lost their dignity. And about 50,000 women now provide for their families on their back.

:: Article nr. 42397 sent on 26-mar-2008 01:54 ECT

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