CURRENT MOON

Friday, July 14, 2006

In My Name. With My Tax Dollars.


This certainly isn't surprising and if it wasn't part of the motivation, it's certainly lagniappe as far as assholes of the Bush junta are concerned. Remember when Bush and Laura got all mush-mouthed about how terribly women were treated by the Taliban in Afghanistan and about those rape rooms that Saddam was running?

In a clear, carefully-documented, and well written article by Ruth Rosen Mother Jones reports that, "Since the American invasion of their country, Iraqi women have suffered a marked increase in sexual terrorism." The article explains that, "the invasion and occupation of Iraq has had the effect of humiliating, endangering, and repressing Iraqi women in ways that have not been widely publicized in the mainstream media: As detainees in prisons run by Americans, they have been sexually abused and raped; as civilians, they have been kidnapped, raped, and then sometimes sold for prostitution; and as women -- and, in particular, as among the more liberated women in the Arab world -- they have increasingly disappeared from public life, many becoming shut-ins in their own homes."

Asserting that women have been detained in, and raped at, Abu Ghraib, Mother Jones says, "Writing from Baghdad, Luke Hardin of the Guardian reported that at Abu Ghraib journalists have been forbidden from talking to female detainees, who are cloistered in tiny windowless cells. Senior US military officers who have escorted journalists around Abu Ghraib, however, have admitted that rapes of women took place in the cellblock where 19 "high-value" male detainees were also being held. Asked how such abuse could have happened, Colonel Dave Quantock, now in charge of the prison's detention facilities, responded, "I don't know. It's all about leadership. Apparently it wasn't there."

No one should be surprised that women detainees, like male ones, were subjected to sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib. Think of the photographs we've already seen from that prison. If acts of ritual humiliation could be used to "soften up" men, then the rape of female detainees is hardly unimaginable."
I'm afraid that final sentence has the ring of absolute truth to it. I wonder if those pictures that the Senators saw -- the ones that have never been released -- depicted the rape of female prisoners?

However, girls and women outside of Abu Ghraib have been subject to horrific treatment as well. "After the American invasion, local gangs began roaming Baghdad, snatching girls and women from the street. Interviews with human rights investigators have produced some horrifying stories. Typical was nine-year-old "Saba A." who was abducted from the stairs of the building where she lives, taken to an abandoned building nearby, and raped. A family friend who saw Saba A. immediately following the rape told Human Rights Watch:


"She was sitting on the stairs, here, at 4:00 p.m. It seems to me that probably he hit her on the back of the head with a gun and then took her to [a neighboring] building. She came back fifteen minutes later, bleeding [from the vaginal area]. [She was still bleeding two days later, so] we took her to the hospital."
The medical report by the U.S. military doctor who treated Saba A. "documented bruising in the vaginal area, a posterior vaginal tear, and a broken hymen.'

In 2005, Amnesty International also interviewed abducted women. The story of "Asma," a young engineer, was representative. She was shopping with her mother, sister, and a male relative when six armed men forced her into a car and drove her to a farmhouse outside the city. They repeatedly raped her. A day later, the men drove her to her neighborhood and pushed her out of the car."


And, of course, "Disappearing women

To avoid such dangers, countless Iraqi women have become shut-ins in their own homes. Historian Marjorie Lasky has described this situation in "Iraqi Women Under Siege," a 2006 report for Codepink, an anti-war women's organization. Before the war, she points out, many educated Iraqi women participated fully in the work force and in public life. Now, many of them rarely go out. They fear kidnap and rape; they are terrified of getting caught in the cross-fire between Americans and insurgents; they are frightened by sectarian reprisals; and they are scared of Islamic militants who intimidate or beat them if they are not "properly covered."

"In the British-occupied south," Terri Judd reported in the British Independent,"where Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi's Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death."

Invisible women -- for some Iraqi fundamentalist Islamic leaders, this is a dream come true. "


Thanks a lot Bush. Thanks, Rummy. Thanks. You'd better hope karma's a myth.

8 comments:

Interrobang said...

Is that picture truly what it appears to be? Besides horrifying?

Anonymous said...

After viewing the picture first thing this morning, I felt sick and couldn't read the article. I just came back and forced myself to really look at the picture and read the article all the way through. Although it sickens me, fury is fast replacing that feeling. These are the Dark Ages and the burnings of the Middle Ages and they are happening now, at the same time, for many of the same reasons, the primary one being the deranged perverseness of patriarchy.

Hecate said...

k&y

Whether it's real or not, it illustrates the story. The gas sign showing charges of an arm & a leg may not be "real" either, but it illustrates the story.

I found the picture on a site for a religious group of Friends. Can't vouch for it's authenticity.

I prefer not to use spam blockers as they stop some genuine commenters, but I do appreciate the adivice.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for having the character to post this picture and links to MoJ. I don't know what the actual context of the picture is, don't care, three men with one women whether porno (for money) or not is terrible abuse. I don't expect she's having a great time even if she is paid. The suggestion to ignore this as porn is pretty off the wall, insensitive, and unbelievable to me. How terrible that women could be so desperate and we could just brush it away as being porn.

Anonymous said...

Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it.
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Anonymous said...

porno is terrible abuse? the woman agreed to it and is probably being paid as much as the three men together. some women actually enjoy having sex with multiple partners, you may not but that doesn't make it true for all people. I also think it is shameful that the picture is presented as fact when it is not. It serves a purpose to blame US troops for something they did not do, but it doesn't matter whose name you drag in the mud as long as you get your point across right?

Anonymous said...

This is real, I have others like it.

Salaam.

If you dont mind I would liekt ooffer a "blog exchange" we could exchange links?

Shneez said...

This is fake. They're definitely not Army or Marines, as you'd never see them working with such headgear, or lack thereof. I could only say Air force, but then again, the camo pattern is off, as well as the footwear doesn't even look like boots let alone military issue. And there is also the fact that their uniforms aren't bloused at the legs.... etc.. There's a million things wrong with this picture, another thing is it looks like a motion capture from a video, not a picture from a home camera.