Via Volsunga, an interview with Iraqi women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed:
The first priority is to survive. The moment you step onto the street, you are an immediate target just because you are female. If a woman goes out, she may be assaulted, she may be kidnapped. The gangsters are very organised. Ransom is becoming an everyday thing. A gang kidnaps a woman and they contact her family to ask for a fat ransom. Unfortunately, some families will ask whether anything sexual has happened to the woman. If it has, they won’t want her back.
Even apart from this the streets are not women-friendly. Many professional women who drive to and from work get insulted by men travelling around in pick-up trucks holding machine guns and wearing black from head to foot. Going out in the streets is scary. Many females have stopped going to school.
In many mosques they preach that a female should leave school in Grade 6, because otherwise she will be mixing with males and evil will happen.[…]
If you travel from the north down through Iraq to the south, it is like being in a time machine. You travel from the 21st century in Sulamaniya, through Kirkuk to Baghdad, where you see a city which is in ruins. There is dust everywhere, and people are wearing very old clothes. Then in the south you are in the Dark Ages. In the areas dominated by the Sunni Islamists, in Fallujah or in Mosul, women’s situation is even worse than in Basra. You have something there which is new to us in Iraq. It comes from Wahhabism, from al Qaeda, from Saudi Arabia.
In that culture women are just a tool for production of children and sexual entertainment of men. Young females are promised by their families to other males in the tribe, in a very inhumane way. On top of that, women are considered to be sources of evil, and that is why we need to be covered from top to toe.
The entire interview is worth reading.
She’s careful to point out that problems for women’s rights existed under Hussain’s rule as well; The invasion and occupation have made things much worse for Iraqi women, but what existed before wasn’t utopian.
I wish I knew of a solution. That the Republican idea that freedom can be created through invasion has been discredited doesn’t provide much comfort for women in Iraq who have had their rights taken away. We’ve squandered away any shred of moral credibility we had in the region, and we don’t have enough soldiers to remake entire cultures at gunpoint. Frankly, I doubt there is anything substantial the US can do to clean up the enourmous mess we’ve made.
At the very least, we should establish, as much as security concerns allow, an “open door” immigration policy for any Iraqi woman who wants to move to the US in order to avoid the tyranny of radical fundimentalist Islamic law. Since we can’t offer them freedom in their own land from tyrants we’ve empowered, we should at least offer an escape route.
Thank you for posting this Amp. Reading an article like this really drives home how little we’ve done for women in Iraq. I agree with you- a policy for open asylum should be permitted. But the Bush Admin will never allow it. They’ll simply state that these women could be terrorists trying to “further the war on terra”.
I feel like the first step in helping Iraqi women is to listen to them and to understand exactly what they experience. Perhaps we will then be better able to brainstorm solutions once we have accurate information and a proper understanding of the relationship between culture and human rights.
How can a bunch of guys that on some level agree with the Islamic fundamentalists help women in Iraq?
Women as men’s sexual entertainment, incubators, and the source of evil…gee, this sounds familiar.
Does anyone know of any ways in which we can actually help these women? I grew up in the Middle East and, when I was growing up, Iraq was one of the best places for women. What’s happened there is an outrage. It’s driving me nuts that I don’t know what to do to help. Asylum sounds great in theory, but there’s no way it will ever happen. Many of us in the UK fought to try to get the British government to offer asylum to political dissidents from Hong Kong before the handover and we failed, and that was when dealing with a government far more reasonable than this one.
So, does anyone know of any concrete ways in which we can offer assistance to our sisters in Iraq? There are going to keep getting worse, and they need our help. What can we do?
If anyone has any ideas but for whatever reason doesn’t want to list them here feel free to e-mail me.
Send them books.
I’m not sure how books would help when someone tries to kidnap them or when their families decide that they need to be killed because the fact that they’ve been raped is a stain on the family’s honor.
You can’t help them with those things.
You can send them a book.
OWFI, Yanar Mohammed’s organization, is asking for people to write open letters against a Constitution that includes Shariaa law.
If OWFI seems like a reasonable organization to you, you can also donate money to them online.
“At the very least, we should establish, as much as security concerns allow, an “open door” immigration policy for any Iraqi woman who wants to move to the US in order to avoid the tyranny of radical fundimentalist Islamic law. Since we can’t offer them freedom in their own land from tyrants we’ve empowered, we should at least offer an escape route.”
Damn straight.
Since we can’t offer them freedom in their own land from tyrants we’ve empowered, we should at least offer an escape route.
If the suffragists had been extended the option of moving to some hypothetical country which gave women full citizenship rights, should they have done so?
And if they had, what would the United States look like today?
For a society to have decent values and respect for the rights of its members, those members have to stand and fight for the good. There are no shortcuts. Democracy is hard.
>>And if they had, what would the United States look like today?>>
Why is that a problem for Iraqi women to deal with?
It’s not a problem for Iraqi women to deal with. It’s a conceptual question for Americans to answer.
Perhaps we should just send them boots, so they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
/
It is not possible to free a human being. All you can do is create a context in which they can free themselves. That process is inevitably bloody and painful – but nonetheless necessary.
If Iraqi women (and men) want to live in a society where they have freedom and civil rights, then they will have to make that happen. All we can do is knock off whichever flavor of totalitarians are standing in the way, whether Saddam or Sharia – and maybe provide some sustenance for infant liberty. Books are the breastmilk of democracy – or the “bootstraps”, as you prefer.
At least, that’s the conclusion I reach, starting from a premise that Iraqi men and women are human beings, subject to the same historical imperatives as the rest of us. If you start from a premise that Iraqi men and women are victims, who can only be oppressed or comforted by the omnipotence of the West and are incapable of achieving agency over their own lives, I imagine you would reach a different conclusion.
And, therefore, we should not allow those who do not wish to stay and fight an easy way to emigrate to a place where they can find those freedoms that they desire.
Well, that’s certainly compassionate.
Is finding an easy way to get what they want the best service you can perform for someone?
I don’t think that we need to require everybody who wasn’t born with the freedoms that we have to fight for it. Did you have to fight for the freedoms that you enjoy? I would say that you did not – certainly not to the extent that you would require Iraqis to fight. Or should you be required to move to a totalitarian country so that you can show that you deserve the freedoms that you have.
So, to answer your question, no. Finding an easy or easier way to get someone what they want is not always the best way of helping people. However, when their life is in the balance I do think that providing an easier way to have things like freedom of religion & all the other freedoms that Americans take for granted is the best thing one can do.
However, when their life is in the balance I do think that providing an easier way to have things like freedom of religion & all the other freedoms that Americans take for granted is the best thing one can do.
If you had a time machine, would you go back and rescue Dr. King from being assassinated, from rotting in the Birmingham jail, from being heckled and threatened?
It’s not a silly hypothetical. Iraq’s MLK is sitting in a madras or fighting a court battle or trying to feed his or her kids, right now. He or she would be personally better off if they were whisked to Burbank to open a dry-cleaner’s, right now; MLK would have been personally better off if he’d been whisked to 2005. How would America have done?
Individual safety and security are not the highest goods.
O.k.
What about all the non-mlk people? The women who will be murdered or raped. The girls married off at 13 to a man 40 years their senior? Surely, they’re not all the MLK of the Iraqi people? But because one of them *might* be we have to shrug and say “sorry, teach a man to fish and all that.”
And what about a Ghandi? I mean, Ghandi was out of India and went back to stand up against the British. How do you know some woman we let into our country won’t be the next Ghandi?
I think you have a point about people needing to be “free” to form their own governments and have their own revolutions, but uh….we sorta took care of that by removing Hussein, didn’t we. The Iraqis didn’t get much of a choice in that one. So when is it ok to take charge of another country’s progress?
Also I realize “progress” is a loaded word. I meant something more along the lines of destiny/political future.
“Individual safety and security are not the highest goods.”
Please tell that to the majority of the Iraqi people who are struggling to keep themselves and their families alive.
>>If you had a time machine, would you go back and rescue Dr. King from being assassinated, from rotting in the Birmingham jail, from being heckled and threatened?>>
I would see it as his choice to make, not mine. “Suffer and endure, that your daughters may eventually see the inside of a ninth-grade classroom!” is callous in the extreme. We should speak with Iraqi women and their representatives about how they might feel about these kinds of solutions. If Iraqi women, some of them or most of them, want emigration and asylum, it isn’t my right to tell them how to run their revolution.
Plus, separatism is itself revolutionary, can itself provide arguments against sexism and sexist oppression. Look at Umoja.
Rob, I’m not suggesting we legally force Iraqi women to leave Iraq. I’m suggesting that we should make the option available to them.
Our relationship to women newly oppressed by Shariaa law in Iraq is different from our relationship to most people suffering under oppresive governments, because we caused their problems. Regardless of our intentions, we went into a country where women were relatively free of Shariaa law (for that area of the world), and put misogynistic fanatics into power. That makes us responsible.
Regarding your MLK example, MLK was admired in many countries, and could have moved elsewhere if he wanted to. He chose not to. And that’s the way it should be – up to the individual to choose.
It’s not at all clear that Iraqi women working for change will be more effective in Iraq – where they are “on the ground,” but subject to mind-boggling restrictions on their ability to speak, write, read and act – than they would be if they were able to act more freely outside of the country. Again, this seems to me to be a decision that Iraqi women would ideally make for themselves, rather than others deciding for them.
I don’t imagine that you’d argue that you’re in a better position to judge the best way for (for example) Yanar Mohammed to be effective than Ms. Mohammed herself is. Doesn’t it then follow that we should let Ms. Mohammed decide? My bet is that she’d choose to stay in Iraq, given the choice, but she should be given the choice.
I would see it as his choice to make, not mine. ..We should speak with Iraqi women and their representatives about how they might feel about these kinds of solutions.
If its their choice, where exactly do “we” come in?
“Suffer and endure, that your daughters may eventually see the inside of a ninth-grade classroom!” is callous in the extreme.
Yeah, life is rough. There is no soft road to a better life; the answer isn’t to let everyone onto the lifeboat, its to have more than one lifeboat.
Piny and I cross-posted, and said pretty much the same thing. :-)
My bet is that she’d choose to stay in Iraq, given the choice, but she should be given the choice.
OK. You go to Iraq, and she can have your slot in our polity.
There are three billion women whose lives basically suck. “Let them come here” is not a realistic answer.
What j-ha, piny & Ampersand said.
There is no soft road to a better life; the answer isn’t to let everyone onto the lifeboat, its to have more than one lifeboat.
Perhaps you should give up your place in the lifeboat. But, damn, that’s a tortured analogy. First of all, emigration is in no way a “soft road.” Secondly, there is more than one lifeboat – Iraqis should be able to stay in Iraq or emigrate to the USA or to any other country involved in the invasion. Look, right there are 2 lifeboats.
Yeah, life is rough.
Have you ever played StarConII? Because that statement should be more along the lines of, “Yeah, space is a rough place where wimps eat flaming hot death.” I think that is pretty much the sentiment that you are expressing here. I hope that you get to one day experience the grand irony of being on the other end of things.
There are three billion women whose lives basically suck. “Let them come here” is not a realistic answer.
Ahhh, but the USA isn’t directly responsible for worsening the quality of life for those 3 billion women in the same sense as it is responsible for the consequences of invading Iraq. You’re conflating 2 seperate issues.
Jake, I agree with your substantive points, but that statement is way, WAY out of line.
>>If its their choice, where exactly do “we” come in?>>
We offer them choices.
We offer them choices.
How benevolent of us.
I am afraid I am going to persist in my belief that people have to make their own lives. That we knocked off one dictator and have not yet set up a kindly welfare state with peace and harmony for all is, at the end of the day, par for the human course. It really and truly sucks that a lot of people are going to suffer and die in the course of Iraq becoming a better place, but fantasies about mass immigration are just that.
Jake said:
I hope that you get to one day experience the grand irony of being on the other end of things.
That is a terrible thing to wish on another person, no matter how much you disagree with them.
That we knocked off one dictator and have not yet set up a kindly welfare state with peace and harmony for all is, at the end of the day, par for the human course.
I notice that this sentiment was not prevalent when dealing with Germany after WWII. I wonder why that is. I wonder why our occupation of Iraq has been nothing like the occupation of Germany & why we have done nothing remotely resembling the Marshall Plan (do I have that name right? I think so.).
It really and truly sucks that a lot of people are going to suffer and die in the course of Iraq becoming a better place, but fantasies about mass immigration are just that.
I want to address both parts of this sentence. I’ll start with the second half. I don’t believe that there are “fantasies about mass immigration.” First, we’re talking about emigration, not immigration – not in the sense that you imply (millions of Iraqis move to the USA). Secondly, I think that the prevailing sentiment is that relatively few Iraqis would choose to emigrate if given the choice.
As for the first half of the sentence, I would like to note that that is a decidedly unchristian attitude (as I understand Christianity – perhaps I’m wrong) which I find surprising coming from you. I also have grave doubts that Iraq is becoming a “better place” and that the deaths there are in any way advancing Iraq towards anything other than fundamentalist religious dictatorship.
I dunno, seems to me no more callous or hateful than what’s been coming from Robert’s keyboard. I guess that I’m wrong about that. I will bow to the judgement of others & I’ll refrain from saying anything more in that vein.
Step #1 is to pull the US military out of Iraq completely.
Why is it really a puzzle that the proposed Iraqi constitution is repressive, when the US has spent the last several years shooting down Iraqi demonstrators, levelling cities that attempted to govern themselves democratically, appointed corrupt officials, and engineered a completely undemocratic election in which parties were required to be divided on th basis of religious and ethnic sects?
After the US has deliberately sown chaos, factionalism, and corruption, too many liberals are accepting the argument that the US must continue to occupy Iraq because of the chaos, factionalism, and corruption.
I notice that this sentiment [life is hard] was not prevalent when dealing with Germany after WWII. I wonder why that is. I wonder why our occupation of Iraq has been nothing like the occupation of Germany…
Perhaps because Iraq isn’t much like Germany. Most significantly, Germany was an industrialized democracy with an organic national history before becoming enmeshed in national socialism. Iraq was a tribal confederation imposed on itself by a colonial power before becoming enmeshed in national socialism.
& why we have done nothing remotely resembling the Marshall Plan (do I have that name right? I think so.).
Only about 10 percent of Marshall Plan expenditures went to Germany. Most of the Marshall Plan money was spent helping our allies, not our enemies.
The 10 percent that DID go to Germany amounted to $1.3 billion.
Non-military expenditures in Iraq to date: $50 billion, give or take.
As for the first half of the sentence, I would like to note that that is a decidedly unchristian attitude (as I understand Christianity – perhaps I’m wrong) which I find surprising coming from you.
I’m gratified that you find it surprising, but you’re wrong in your understanding of Christianity. One of the bedrock tenets of Christianity is that this world sucks. It has since that whole apple misunderstanding. It always will – until Jesus comes back to beat (or hug) all you hippies into submission.
It is our obligation to try and make it better – but that doesn’t forestall us from recognizing a crap pile when we smell one.
Yes, but the Marshall Plan was actually a formalized plan, IIRC. As far as I can tell, the rebuildment of Iraq has no formal plan and consists of giving money to “private security firms” and Halliburton, etc with little or no accountability for the recipients.
I don’t have the info handy at the moment, but what does $1.3 billion in the ’40s & ’50s translate to in 2003 through 2005 dollars?
Oh, and technically you’re right about the first half of your sentence. I guess I was combining that w/ your cavalier attitude about not providing a “softer road” for people that you recognize in desperate straits.
Step #2 would be the US making enormous reparations to Iraq, by the way.
I don’t have the info handy at the moment, but what does $1.3 billion in the ’40s & ’50s translate to in 2003 through 2005 dollars?
An inflation calculator
Yes, but the Marshall Plan was actually a formalized plan, IIRC…[and HALLIBURTON!!!]
Not on our end. Marshall made his speech, which basically said “you guys over in Europe decide where you want money, and we’ll give you the money”. The governments of the western Allies conferred and came up with wishlists, and we gave them about half of what Truman had wanted to give. (Cheapskate Republicans, again.)
In Iraq we don’t have the luxury of having a dozen established-for-centuries governments to do the organizing. It’s pretty much down to the guys on the street. They do their best.
Ah, the dreaded Halliburton. If you know of a different infrastructure company with the ability to handle billions of dollars in disbursements under very trying conditions, nominate them.
I don’t have the info handy at the moment, but what does $1.3 billion in the ’40s & ’50s translate to in 2003 through 2005 dollars?
Its about an eightfold jump, so call it $10.4 billion.
Well, at least the link showed up.
What cost $1,300,000,000 in 1940 would cost $17,299,223,923.18 in 2005.
I can’t even think in numbers that large. No wonder the papers use the words to report government spending. If folks saw the actual numbers it might be too real.
I think we might be more successful in persuading Iraqi women to leave Iraq if they were to go to another Arab country, rather than the perceived-as-evil-and-decadent U.S. , but then I’d be worried about refugee camps. A previous model for this kind of humanitarian involvement could be the Hmong, thinking logistically. Does anyone know how many Hmong came to the U.S., how they did, how many stayed? I’m sure there are still little pockets of Hmong somewhere in the Midwest. Or maybe Colombian refugees would be a better model. I mean, part of the reason why the Iraqi women are in this mess is through lack of planning on the part of the U.S., so we need to think through how this option would be implemented before we decide whether it makes sense to make it available.
Robert wrote:
I agree, it’s a fantasy – there is absolutely no chance that this administration will take any responsibility for the harm they’ve caused.
However, your easy assumption that the suffering and dying currently going on is in service “of Iraq becoming a better place” is just as much a fantasy – and a much more dangerous fantasy, because real people are losing freedom and dying for that fantasy.
What Bush has accomplished by invading Iraq (likely outcomes)
1) Knocked off a horrible dictator.
2) Vastly reduced the freedom of Iraqi women (the majority of Iraqis).
3) Destroyed one of the few secular states in the region, replacing it with what will be a radical Islamic, USA-hating state with no meaningful civil rights, which will support terrorism. The democracy part is good, but the rest is terrible.
4) Set the stage for years – perhaps decades – of unresolvable, violent conflict between Sunni Arabs and Shiites, during which untold thousands of Iraqis will die. (Have already died, in fact).
5) Vastly improved the regional situation for the most anti-USA, anti-reform Iranian powers – which in turn makes things harder for reformists in Iran.
6) Created greater freedom for Iraqi Kurds.
7) Possibly setting up permanent bases in Iraq, at the price of increasing hatred for the USA – and increasing good will towards anti-US terrorists – among ordinary people throughout the mid-east.
1) is good. Part of 3) is good. 6) is good. The rest is dismal, utter failure, caused by the absolute arrogance and incompetance of the Bush administration. If Bush had been taking bribes from Iran to do their bidding, he could not possibly have done more harm to American interests in the mid-east, or made things any worse for secular and Christian women in Iraq.
I really do hope you’re right, and that a miraculous victory is pulled out of this mess. But right now, that really does seem like a dubious fantasy.
An evil man is a bad thing. A headstrong fool, especially one unwilling to acknowlege error, can do just as much or more damage in the long run.
2) Vastly reduced the freedom of Iraqi women (the majority of Iraqis).
Greatly changed the nature of the political relationship between citizen and state, yes. Women (and men) went from being safe animals in cages to being endangered, relatively free, humans. It is more dangerous to be a human than it is to be an animal in a cage.
(3) and (4) – predictions about what is going to happen. No evidentiary value. Well, (3) does have some evidentiary value – in the part that undermines your case.
5) Vastly improved the regional situation for the most anti-USA, anti-reform Iranian powers – which in turn makes things harder for reformists in Iran.
You mean the Iran where people are boycotting elections and holding growing street demonstrations against the mullahs? That Iran? “Reformists” in Iran are stooges of the same theocracy. You want to improve Iran, destabilize the region and the regime so that the existing power structures can’t hold things together and collapse. Might get a King; might get a republic. Either way, it’d be better than the theocracy.
(7) is another prediction.
Throwing out all your predictions, even the one that helps my side of the argument, you end up with:
1) Knocked off a horrible dictator
2) Made life harder, we hope temporarily, for people who used to be safe in their nation prison but are now on their own
5) Something you think is bad but which clearly isn’t
6) Freed the Kurds
I can live with it.
What about the idea that people be permitted to make their own lives by giving them the opportunity to decide to make their lives elsewhere? My grandmother grew up Catholic in a shithole in Northern Ireland where Protestant kids threw rocks at her on her way to school, and where she watched her little sister almost die of a spreading infection when the doctors at the local hospital made her sister and mother sit in a hospital corridor for days before they’d examine her, which they only did when the Protestant pastor intervened at the hospital and told them they had to treat the little girl with the fever and the swollen leg.
When she turned sixteen, my grandmother ran away from home and lied about her age to get work as a nanny in Scotland and England. When WWII broke out, she was given a choice: return to her village in N. Ireland, or join the army. The army it was. She met my grandfather, and after a courtship and waiting for him to come back from the continent, she married him and left for the US. Her life here wasn’t easy; my grandfather died when he was 35 and she was left with three children under the age of eight in a strange country. One of her sisters (who had emigrated to Canada) offered to pay for her to return home, if she decided to take her children back to N. Ireland. My grandmother refused. And she made things work.
The idea that she made an easier or less courageous decision by choosing to get out of a miserable condition in order to make something better (but by no means easier) for herself and her children is ridiculous. Poor women don’t get a lot of chances to be revolutionaries, outside of fiction. They get a lot of chances to live in danger and be told what to do, either by the political/religious structures in place or by the men who do get to create revolution.
I would imagine that most of us in the US can tell stories about how our families ended up here, and I bet most of them involve the idea of taking a risk to build something better. Not to be given something better, not to thumb noses at what’s left behind, but to struggle with loneliness and homesickness and strangeness out of the conviction that it is possible to make one’s way in the world in the way one sees as best, even if it means leaving everything familiar behind.
If I see Iraqi women as human beings equal in worth to my grandmother, why would I judge them for wanting to leave what, to them, is an untenable existence? Why would I want to keep them from being allowed to decide? Why would I want to define courage and commitment for them?
What about the idea that people be permitted to make their own lives by giving them the opportunity to decide to make their lives elsewhere?
Erin, I have a similar story about my grandparents. Go immigrants, rah rah.
I have no objection to immigration from Iraq, or other places, in numbers that are harmonious to our national security and culture. (Lose the welfare state, and I might vote for open borders.) I simply don’t think that making a special case for Iraqi women to immigrate here because of the change in their country is justifiable.
WHAT democracy? IRAQ IS UNDER MILITARY OCCUPATION. There is no such thing as democracy in a country under foreign military occupation. Military occupation means that if you have the “wrong” political position, you will be brutalized or murdered — which is exactly what the US is doing. US troops have fired on peaceful political demonstrations. When the city of Fallujah created its own government, against the diktat of the US, the US military levelled the city.
And why do accept this nonsense about Iraq “supporting terrorism”? The “terrorists” in Iraq now are a resistance movement fighting a heavily armed and brutal occupying force. Every colonial resistance movement has been labelled “terrorist” by the occupying forces.
The “sectarian” strife is entirely the work of the US occupation, and will largely end when the US pulls out.
Sami Ramadani
“Is finding an easy way to get what they want the best service you can perform for someone?”
Robert’s right – we should all be forced to “fight” for our rights before they are granted to us, it just ain’t fair any other way! I mean we all did so, right?
“It is not possible to free a human being. All you can do is create a context in which they can free themselves. ”
Please do, describe in detail to all of us how you freed yourself. I’m all ears.
“If you start from a premise that Iraqi men and women are victims, who can only be oppressed or comforted by the omnipotence of the West and are incapable of achieving agency over their own lives, I imagine you would reach a different conclusion.”
Strangely enough, one can also arrive at a different conclusion if one starts from the assumption that as a very big country we can have a huge impact on the world, and that when one makes mistakes, the moral thing to do is to try to make amends in some way.
One could say that the women in Afghanistans needed to fight for their freedom without help as well. Or one might recognize the fact that suffregettes in America were helped by suffregettes around the world, and vice versa. One could also bother to acknowledge the fact that American foreign policy in the ’80’s had a profound effect on the state of government in Afghanistan and the radical extremism that came into power afterwards.
” Books are the breastmilk of democracy – or the “bootstraps”, as you prefer.”
Which is why making it easier for them to come to a place where they won’t face perscution or death for reading might be a good idea.
The irony of Robert, a man in American, lecturing about how, for women in Iraq, life is tough, but it’ll build character, so they ought tno to go somewhere safe, is huge.
Robert, I hope you get the change to build character much in the same way as those women do.
Right. Like all Republicans, you’re against the idea of ever taking responsibility for the effects of your own freely-chosen actions.
I’m amazed at your ignorance. It’s impossible to take you seriously when you retreat into fantasy-land like this, Robert. Life is not a Heinlein novel.
Aside from Iraqis in prison, Iraqis didn’t live in cages before we invaded, nor were they animals (could you possibly find a more insulting, condescending way to talk about Iraqis?). They lived under a brutal formal government that severely restricted their freedoms, but they weren’t in cages, and they were still human beings. Nor were they safe under Hussian – not if they wanted to dissent or criticize the government.
Nowadays, many Iraqis – especially women – live under brutal informal governments that severely restrict their freedoms, and are not safe if they dissent or criticize the new Iraq. The difference is that rather than facing one brutal dictator and his minions, they face innumerable brutal religious fascists and their followers. Being subject to brutal beatings (or worse) if you dare to appear on the street is not an increase in freedom compared to what existed before.
As for your rosy-lens view of what’s happening in Iraq, I’m not going to bother arguing over every point with you, because time is limited. I hope you’re right, but virtually all of the recent history indicates that Republicans are hopelessly over-optimistic about Iraq. Your side claimed we would only be in Iraq a few months; your side claimed (idiotically) that the arrest of Hussain would end the so-called insurgency. Your side’s credibility is not high.
For example, in response to my saying that Bush policies helped put in motion years – perhaps decades – of conflict between Sunni Arabs and Shiites, you said that it was “predictions about what is going to happen,” and thus of no value. (That Republicans are unwilling to consider outcomes, aka “what is going to happen,” explains a lot about the Administration’s Iraq policy).
Newsflash, Robert: the “perhaps decades” part of my statement was a prediction, but the rest has already happened. It’s going on right now. Iraqis are dying in the violent, armed conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. And I’m not aware of any realistic scenario for ending the conflict anytime soon.
Brian:
Point well taken.
Regarding terrorism, the most likely outcome of current US and British policies is that Iraq will become an Islamic state, allied with Iran, with a foreign policy hostile to the USA. I’m pretty sure that such a state would find some way to support terrorists, just as Iran and Saudi Arabia have done.
And I just don’t buy that the strife between Sunni Arabs and Shiites will dry up and blow away moments after the occupation ends. I hope you’re right about that, but the Guardian article you linked to seemed horribly over-optimistic to me.
Robert,
I would appreciate it if when you quote me that you did it honestly. Your quote indicates that I capitalized “Halliburton” when I did no such thing. Your point, of course, was to make me look hysterical. I do not appreciate that – it is no different than lying.
Please note the difference between an actual quote from your comments:
Lose the welfare state, and I might vote for open borders.
and a quote in the spirit of yours:
Lose the WELFARE STATE!!!
There is a substantive difference – would you care about this change to your words?
If you hadn’t done that, I would have been more than willing to continue to converse with you (which includes admitting that it is quite likely that I don’t know near as much about post WWII rebuilding of Europe). But now, for me, you fall back into the classification of liar & troll (for emotional reaction) whose substantive input into any discussion is far outweighed by his desire to be annoying & hurtful & disruptive.
Ooops.
which includes admitting that it is quite likely that I don’t know near as much about post WWII rebuilding of Europe
should read:
which includes admitting that it is quite likely that I don’t know near as much about post WWII rebuilding of Europe as you do
What a sweet way to describe global graft, Robert. You’re a veritable poet. Yes, it’s very important to admire colonial thugs, if they’re really really good at colonial thuggery.
What a sweet way to describe global graft, Robert. You’re a veritable poet. Yes, it’s very important to admire colonial thugs, if they’re really really good at colonial thuggery.
“Colonial thuggery”? Put down the copy of “Imperialism” and step away from the bust of Lenin. We have the house surrounded.
I would appreciate it if when you quote me that you did it honestly.
Jake, you are right, I did misrepresent your quote. My apologies. Just trying to be funny.
“Iraq will become an Islamic state, allied with Iran,”
That would be an event in itself. The Persians and that Arabs have not been united along that front in sometime, if that were to be true than it would truly be an indicator of the joint dread of the West, not an alliance of congeniality.
Robert, please ease up on the Dogma concerning Christians and the world. The world is the place we are to live out this life; it is not required, mandatory, or designed to “suck.” That folks happen to treat each other in ways that it often does, is not an edict on the intentions. (What can we do to ease the injustice? Share!) Blessings.
Lenin didn’t talk about colonialism in Imperialism, partly to get around censorship, but mostly because colonialism and imperialism are not synonymous, though they are related phenomena. Imperialism means the trend of dominance of finance capital over industrial capital, and the increasingly direct use of the national state by capitals as a way to compete for markets and resources with other capitals. The upshot of this was that the increasing integrated economies of Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made war more likely, not less likely, as nearly everyone else in the international socialist movement assumed. The Bolsheviks were about the only ones arguing that WWI wasn’t just an accident, but a direct result of the economic trends of the period.
Competition for control of colonies was a facet of imperialist conflict. But colonialism is, at base, powerful states controlling weaker states for the sake of access to natural resources and cheap labor (or denying these things to competing imperialist powers).
The US has had an overt policy since the end of World War II of controlling access to Middle Eastern oil supplies. This comes out of imperialism: US control of oil reinforces US dominance over Europe and Asia, which need access to that oil and have to go through the US to get it. The currently dominant wing of the US ruling class has advocated a shift from indirect hegemony over the Middle East to direct colonial control, and this is a marked shift in US policy, with some of the ruling class objecting strenuously.
Ampersand, I don’t think the factionalism will dry up and blow away within days. I do expect it will take more time than that. However, there have existed and continue exist social forces within Iraq opposed to that sectarianism and the reactionary social values the sects support, the General Union of Oil Employees for example — but those forces are opposed by the US occupation.
The thing to be careful of, in highlighting the sexist treatment of women in Iraq, is avoiding a trap — the implication that, somehow, the Iraqis can’t be trusted to resolve these problems themselves, that “we” have to solve those problems for them. “We” is problematic — it’s a matter of baiting the soft Left into support for colonialist policies. Every colonialist power has made a point of emphasizing the backwards and reactionary political tendencies present in the colonized countries, for just this reason, just as it spends every effort to annihilate progressive forces.
There is, of course, profound sexism and persecution of women in Iraq. The trouble is that we must not trust the US occupation to do anything to liberate women. That’s not what occupations do. If there are independent organizations in Iraq that oppose sexism, and we can support them while bypassing the US occupation and the puppet Iraqi government, I would fully support that, of course.
Robert, if you must patronize, can’t you think of some more novel means than cartoonish red-baiting ? Oh, and your simultaneous decree that the welfare state degrades immigrants, even as you aggrandize Haliburton –which could not enrich its own pockets without the welfare state– is duly noted for its generous, and customary, content of B.S.
Shall I instead refer to colonial and imperial history in the West as “the White Man’s Burden” ? I dunno’… I rather think that would take too long to say.
Oh, and your simultaneous decree that the welfare state degrades immigrants…
Who said anything about it degrading immigrants?
When you have a welfare state, you attract welfare-seekers. When you don’t, you don’t. We have enough welfare-seekers; we don’t need to import more at considerable cultural cost. That cultural cost is well worth paying for high-quality people, however.
Yes, of course we have enough welfare-seekers. Because your position in this country is already assured. No need to give anybody else the chances your own ancestors made so much of. Ho hum.
Of course, when they came here, it wasn’t called “welfare.” Because they didn’t have dark skin, right ?
I’d say the “cultural cost” we might pay by opening our doors to Iraqi refugees is small potatoes compared to the cost we have already inflicted on their culture so that Haliburton could line its pockets. You show a remarkable contempt for people you claim to sympathise with, BTW, in even making the de facto assumption that they would “cost” the culture more than they would enrich it. Why that assumption ? Because they’re women ? Not educated enough ? Too well-educated ? Too un-Christian ? WTF ?