Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Women of Iraq Thank Mr G.W. Bush and the US Government (not)

Extracts from the text of the proposed Iraq Constitution :

Islam is a main source for legislation. No comment.
No law may contradict Islamic standards. I'm sure this has women all over Iraq rejoicing and thanking the US governement for stripping them of their rights and freedoms.
No law may contradict democratic standards. And just how do you reconcile this with the above line, pretty please? I'm sure it's going to entertain judges and lawyers and provide them with endless judicial battles...that only the wealthy and powerful will be able to afford. Meaning all the people who'll need the protection of the constitution will be barred from it.
No law may contradict the essential rights and freedoms mentioned in this constitution. Yeah. Same comment as above.

(...) Iraqis are free to abide in their personal lives according to their religion, sects, beliefs or choice. This should be organized by law.
Wow.
I'm an agnosticist. Tell me, what is the law applying to me?
Oh, and a law to orgnaize all this. Yeah, sure. Piece of cake. And, by any chance, will women, even those of the poorest regions, be allowed to declare themselves other than enthusiastic followers of the most backward sects of Islam and survive?

Okay, I think there's no need to read this proposed constitution any further. But if you want to read what real US journalists have to say about this, you can find it here.

Thank you, Mr. Bush, you have effectively stripped the women of Iraq of what rights and freedoms they enjoyed, and you have given them the charming prospect of lives much harder and painful than under Saddam Hussein.

I'm sure they'll remember this and you with love.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Welcome to the Islamic Theocracy of Iraq (courtesy of the US Government)

Sometimes I think I should stop trying to keep myself informed on what's happening in the world. Lately, it has made me want to puke much too often.

The whole world knows how the Bush government boasted it would liberate Iraq from its dictator, and how the Iraqi people would flock around the US banner and embrace the coalition forces as liberators. Iraq would become a great democracy in a matter of a few months, and be a flame of hope for the whole Middle-East. The whole world also knows how it turned out :

Quagmire.

Chaos.

Deaths and abductions by the thousands, numbers nobody wants to admit to in the Iraqi population. Iraq has in effect been completely destroyed. Shattered. There is nothing left: no law, no order, no security, no electricity to make a fridge work (much less an air-conditioning system, in one of the hottest countries in the world), and let's not even go into the matter of jobs and having a merely decent life. Let's not go into what is happening to the women of Iraq either.

The women of Iraq. 50% of the Iraqi population, who had rights under Saddam Hussein, guarantees of equality unheard of in the Middle-East.

The women of Iraq. 50% of the Iraqi population, who lose their rights a bit more every day. Who are now forced to wear veils or burkhas in order not to attract attention and get into serious problems. Who no longer dare drive a car, work, or display any sign of independence or equality lest they be severely repressed by the oh-so-nice zealous men liberated by the US coalition in the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq.

The women of Iraq, 50% of the Iraqi population that the US government, the self-proclaimed "liberators", are busy selling out to the Shiite clerics and to all those in Iraq who are within the reach of gaining the Islamic Republic they dream about.

Let me quote from today's edition of the Washington Post (you'll find the source of this here) :

Kurdish politicians negotiating a draft constitution criticized the U.S. ambassador to Iraq on Saturday for allegedly pushing them to accept too great a role for Islamic law in his drive to complete the charter on time. Although a Sunni delegate made similar charges, U.S. officials declined to comment publicly while they worked with politicians as a Monday deadline loomed.

(...) The Kurds said current language in the draft would subject Iraqis to extreme interpretations of Islamic law.

(...) Kurds also contend that provisions in the draft would allow Islamic clerics to serve on the high court, which would interpret the constitution. That would potentially subject marriage, divorce, inheritance and other civil matters to religious law and could harm women's rights, according to the Kurdish negotiators and some women's groups.

Khalilzad [the US ambassador to Iraq] supported those provisions and urged other groups to accept them, according to Kurds involved in the talks.

"Really, we are disappointed with that. It seems like the Americans want to have a constitution at any cost," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the constitutional committee. "These things are not good -- giving the constitution an Islamic face.

"It is not good to have a constitution that would limit the liberties of people, the human rights, the freedoms," Othman said.


So, now, even the Kurds, "natural allies" of the US, come forward with fears of what's going to happen in Iraq. The picture they paint is a frightening one: in order not to lose face, the US government is ready to accept anything, even to turn Iraq into something far worse than what it was, into an Islamic theocracy that will enslave women (50% of the population that the US boasted they would liberate...) and be a bitter enemy to every western country.

Even today, the state of Iraq is such that the living conditions for people are worse than when they were suffering under Saddam Hussein.

Instead of frantically trying to find a way to get out of Iraq while deluding yourselves you can still save face, dear members of the US governement, sweet neo-cons, now TAKE REPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR MADNESS, DAMN YOU! Stay, as long as it takes, the full generation it will take, the 20 or more long years of hardship and losses and deaths of American soldiers, and keep your fucking word! You came to Iraq even though the old Europe you hold in contempt (but then fools will do that and go crying in a corner that nobody likes them afterwards, it happens when you play at kindergaten level) told you how it would turn out.

Endure it. Lose popularity back home. Take it like the alpha males you boast you are in friendly media...or prove to the world that you are just theoricians, ideologists who have no grasp of reality, and neither the will nor the strength to shoulder your responsibilities, cowards who'll abandon the people you put into this horrible mess they call Iraq.