A Rape in Iraq

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A Rape in Iraq

Postby nomo » Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:02 pm

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11415">www.americanchronicle.com...leID=11415</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>A Rape in Iraq<br><br>Suki Falconberg<br>July 11, 2006<br><br>This is no distant story. It holds a personal note for me, this possible gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by American soldiers. The story has been hitting the media for the past week and a half, and—as of today—the New York Times reports that six soldiers might be implicated.<br><br>The personal note is that I have been gang raped by American soldiers. (See my <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=9947">“War and Sex”</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> article for my description of this experience in my past.) The cold fear of male violence never entirely leaves raped bodies. Unexpectedly, things surface, and this story is triggering those things in me--phantom rape pain, jumpiness, feeling startled if a man comes too near. Since I am used to reading about rape, living with it, writing about it, even experiencing it, why such an impact from this one incident?<br><br>It may be because this is the first time the “R” word has surfaced in Iraq. In our three-year occupation of that country, is this the only time our men have raped? Given their war/rape record elsewhere, it would be hard to believe. It is a real puzzler to me that the U.S. Military is admitting to this possible rape of one Iraqi girl when they have done little, if anything, to acknowledge the rapes of thousands upon thousands of other girls by our soldiers during wartime. Widespread violation of girls took place in Vietnam. (One vet I know said it was so common the men called it SIMR, Standard Issue Military Rape.) After WWII, rape by American soldiers in Europe was “extensive,” according to the Oxford Companion to American Military History. Rape of French girls by our men was so widespread that General Eisenhower actually had to acknowledge it was going on. He did nothing about it, of course, but he did admit it was happening. Our men produced roughly 200,000 Amerasian children upon the bodies of destitute Japanese girls after WWII—an indication that massive rape of prostituted/brothelized bodies was going on in the Pacific. During the battle of Okinawa, our boys raped a whole village of women and girls too sick and weak to even run away from them.<br><br>Wartime rape/prostitution is common, the norm. Why is the military only taking note of this one incident, when the bodies of hundreds of thousands of girls have been sexually brutalized by our military?<br><br>According to the Oxford book mentioned above, in Vietnam, from 1970-73, thirteen marines and one navy serviceman were convicted of rape. The book goes on to say that this in no way reflects the actual number of rapes. According to some reports, and Vietnam vets themselves, the numbers probably ran in the hundreds, even thousands, per day. And, in Vietnam, the rape sometimes led to murder as well—a soldier would simply “blow away” a girl when he was finished using her.<br><br>In the July 7 New York Times, we read of “a strongly worded apology issued by the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, Jr.” for the possible rape-murder crimes. “The alleged events of that day are absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable behavior,” says his statement.<br><br>AP writer Katharine Dunbar quotes Gen. Casey as follows: "Coalition forces came to Iraq to protect the rights and freedoms of the Iraqi people, to defend democratic values, and to uphold human dignity. As such, we will face every situation honestly and openly, and we will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the facts….We will hold our service members accountable if they are found guilty of misconduct in a court of law.”<br><br>All of these apologies and statements about human dignity hit me like blows since they have not been made before, to all those hundreds of thousand other women and girls. Nor to me. (The way I see it, the U.S. military owes me several million dollars in severe trauma damages for having trained men to rape, with impunity, and then setting them loose on me.)<br><br>In his long military career, Gen. Casey must have been aware of numerous rapes and instances of enforced prostitution. Why is this particular rape so important as to be noticed? A hint may lie in the way the July 7 New York Times phrases Casey’s response to the incident as “revealing the deep concern among American officials over the criminal episode's potential to damage the entire American project in Iraq.” So, it is the American image in Iraq that might be ‘injured’? The rape-murder of the girl, her agony, is not really the issue. Such a relentlessly male point of view “reveals” that what happens to the sexually vulnerable female body is still secondary, incidental, something off in the corner, never at the center of “male” concerns.<br><br>Along these same “male” lines, I keep waiting for someone to suggest that there aren’t enough brothels in Iraq where our men can let off steam—that’s why they’re raping. The same idea as in Okinawa when several American soldiers raped a 13-year-old girl and the politicians said, “They should have used a prostitute.” Or when Occupation Comfort Girls were forced into brothels to service GI’s in Tokyo after WWII so the men would not attack ‘decent’ Japanese girls. (Since most of the destitute victims were virgins before our army bought their bodies, were they at one point ‘decent,’ too?) Despite cheap bodies available in the brothels, American soldiers raped on the streets of Tokyo anyway, for fun and ‘sport.’<br><br>Should the U.S. military traffic in girls from Eastern Europe, Thailand, and the Philippines for the troops? (In my satiric article on “War and Civilians,” I suggested that these girls are already being trafficked everywhere else—why not to Iraq?) Are girls already being sexually trafficked into Iraq I would like to know? It happened during Desert Storm—prostituted bodies were shipped in for our soldiers who lined up to use them.<br><br>The Iraqi rape broadens out into these other concerns—the entire picture of sex and war. It troubles me that military officials may start trafficking in girls (Filipinas, perhaps?-- Filipinos are already working on the bases over there) for sexual use in order to prevent further attacks on ‘decent’ Iraqi girls.<br><br>(The role of the U.S military/government as pimp is not new. Agreements between the U.S. and Korea during that engagement in the l950’s ensured that prostituted bodies would be supplied to the American soldiers. Similarly, agreements between our government and Thailand during the Vietnam War set Bangkok up as a major R & R destination, with the inevitable sale of young girls to the soldiers. Instead of R & R, the men called it I & I, Intercourse and Intoxication. One imaginative vet I spoke to said he called it D & D, Drinking and Dicking.)<br><br>Unfortunately, placing some girls into brothel beds, where they are subject to ongoing serial rape, so that girls on the streets won’t be assaulted doesn’t work. The men who violate the girls in the brothel beds learn that that the forcing of sex on a body is an accepted norm. They are far more likely to rape the girl on the street than they were before they raped the prostituted body. And far more likely to come home and rape those ‘decent’ American girls next door.<br><br>The Casualties of War incident has been haunting me since the Iraqi gang rape-murder announcement. That movie was based on a true event: a group of American soldiers kidnapped a Vietnamese village girl and kept her for several days while they raped, beat, and tortured her, including putting cigarettes out on her body. Eventually they killed her. One soldier, who refused to participate, tried to later report the event but no one cared to listen. Finally, a chaplain did, and the soldiers were tried, but given only light sentences—just a few months in jail. Similarly, the mass rape/massacre called My Lai drew only light sentences. Of the 13 marines and one navy man convicted between 1970-73 mentioned above, I wonder if any were subject to substantial punishment?<br><br>What will happen if the alleged assailants in the Iraqi case come to trial? According to a July 10 AP story by Robert H. Reid, they have now been identified: “Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spc. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard are accused of rape and murder and several other charges as alleged participants. They could face the death penalty if convicted. A fifth, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, is charged with failing to report the attack but is not alleged to have been a direct participant. The five will face an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, to determine if they should stand trial. They are charged with conspiring with former soldier Steven D. Green, who was arrested in the case last month in North Carolina. Green has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of murder and is being held without bond.” The article goes on to say that the soldiers had targeted the girl earlier and that they got drunk before the alleged rape-murder incident.<br><br>If they stand trial and are convicted, will a military-style gang rape finally draw a severe punishment, maybe even the death sentence? Why has this not been the case in the past? And why have all the soldiers who have raped girls forced into prostitution never been tried for this crime? The Iraqi girl’s rape-agony was finite. With girls held in brothel beds, the rape goes on and on. Some girls manage to commit suicide: one such, Takita Natsue, walked in front of a train after being used for several days by dozens of American soldiers in a Tokyo comfort station. Her rape-agony was disguised as a financial transaction: take a number, unzip, bang the girl, pay, and leave. No guilt, no accountability. “We will hold our service members accountable if they are found guilty….” says Gen. Casey. Isn’t the ongoing serial rape of a prostituted body an act just as “guilty” as a one-time rape? Or more so, since the body is violated thousands of times, rather than just five, as is the case with the Iraqi girl, Abeer Qassim Hamza.<br><br>Perhaps the crime of raping the brothelized goes unnoticed because of the sheer numbers involved. During WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, access to cheap sex with starving girls was simply there—a fact of going to war. Historian John Dower estimates that almost 100% of the American soldiers stationed in Tokyo after WWII used Japanese prostituted bodies. It was considered such an everyday activity by the military that they refused to recognize it as rape.<br><br>What is the difference now, with this Iraqi case? Why is Abeer’s rape-murder being taken seriously, whereas Takita’s passed almost unnoticed? Six decades have passed since Takita, just a teenager, with a life ahead of her, couldn’t bear the agony of brothel rape. Death was the way out that she chose. And, of course, every American soldier who used her is responsible for that death. Six decades in which some women have finally started talking about rape and forced prostitution as harmful to us. Almost never in my youth would a girl even bring up the “R” word, or the “P” word. Now I can log on to the internet and find other voices. I can actually find some women who care that I was raped. Some women who might be outraged at what happened to Abeer—and Takita. Amazing. Women who have finally recognized that not just what we term ‘rape’ is reprehensible but that enforced prostitution is actually the torture of gang rape—multiplied thousands of times.<br><br>Another difference between Takita’s era and Abeer’s might lie in the fact that in the early 1990’s, the Korean Comfort Women told their stories. This was unprecedented. Woman actually admitting they had been raped/prostituted. (In brief, for those of you who do not know the story, roughly 200,000 women were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military before and during WWII, held in rape camps, and violated 30-50 times a day. Those who survived were permanently crippled and broken, both physically and psychologically.)<br><br>This telling opened up awareness, following upon Bangladesh and Bosnia. Women finally speaking up. All the shame of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam that kept the raped/prostituted women of those conflicts silent was still there—but, despite it, women were finally speaking. Finally.<br><br>So, now we have the U.S. military forced to pay attention to Abeer. I’m sure they would just as soon hide it. I’m sure they’re angry at whatever journalist decided to break the story. (The incident took place last March, so it was hidden for quite a while.)<br><br>Will Abeer’s case be pivotal in the history of military rape? Will we finally recognize this as something serious, rather than men having fun?<br><br>Abeer’s alleged rape stirs other disturbing questions. In the Iraqi world, rape is too shameful to even be talked about. So, would other Iraqi girls even dare report their ordeals? Would a ‘defiled’ girl be killed to erase her shame and avenge the honor of her family?<br><br>Will journalists in Iraq ever tackle the other question I keep asking—are girls (Iraqi or of other nationalities) being prostituted for our men in Iraq?<br><br>Can Iraqi girls be prostituted is maybe the first question. Would this draw forth the murder of the girl, to erase her shame, restore honor? Hussein trafficked in teenage girls from Thailand for brothel rape by his army since it was forbidden, under his rule, to turn an Iraqi woman into a prostitute. Is this still so?<br><br>Some Vietnam vets I’ve talked to have expressed the following ideas: The Vietnamese girls were really lucky getting to sell their bodies to the American soldiers because they were hungry and it was the only way they could make a living. Prostitution was good for the economy of Vietnam. That country made millions selling us their women.<br><br>Okay, I can sort of understand this point of view. After all, war is about death and sex, thanatos and eros. (I’m not sure if someone else said that, or if I just made it up, but it makes sense.) Men destroy towns and villages, crops and animals, and then the girls left alive have to have survival sex with the conquerors.<br><br>Having worked as a prostitute myself, near a military base, I can see the destitution aspect. One incentive that pushed me into prostitution was that I was hungry. And I was afraid of being homeless. To survive, women will sell themselves.<br><br>Now, the case in Iraq seems to be rather different. Women are hungry in this war-ridden country. Malnourished, anemic was what I was reading about the majority of them. And their children are in bad shape, hungry, sick. One heavy reason women will sell themselves during war is to feed their children. Is this an option for the desperate women of Iraq?<br><br>Were the Vietnamese women ‘lucky’ because they could sell their bodies?<br><br>I am not down on men or soldiers, despite my outrage at their sometimes savage behavior. I can see why they might rape: young men, in a strange country, Iraq, which is completely alien to their American world. Young men angry when a friend is killed. Terrified themselves of death. I am sorry for these young men, my American men, even when their fear turns to our brutalization.<br><br>This rape in Iraq is not a cold act on the other side of the world for me. This whole Abeer misery has stirred up all these other miseries and questions in me. I always see the world from the point of view of a raped/prostituted body. Layers of shame and sexual battering will always be somewhere inside me.<br><br>My hope is that Abeer’s pain may lead to a huge shift in the attitude of the U.S. military. That there will be, from now on, for all time, a strict policy of soldiers never forcing sex on a woman in any form. A policy of respect for the vulnerability of our bodies. Give us food, protection, and money if we are in wartime need. Never rape us or force us to sell our bodies. I would revamp the whole ‘core of warrior ethics’ to include these as golden rules of compassionate conduct. True warrior values of honor.<br><br>Abeer, gentle sister, I am sorry for what men did to you. <p></p><i></i>
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how important is it?

Postby blanc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:15 pm

I'd like to have an honest assessment from any men posting on this board - how important is it that rape becomes history?<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby nomo » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:49 pm

"Rape becomes history" -- as in "exists no longer", or as in "becomes part of the narrative"?<br><br>I don't think rape, like murder, will ever be history in the former sense. But essays like this one are very necessary to make people (men) see that war is never glorious. That even the "good guys" commit wanton crimes just because nobody deems it worth a mention. <p></p><i></i>
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history

Postby blanc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 5:06 pm

as in no longer exists, as in 'make poverty history' <p></p><i></i>
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Re: history

Postby jc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 5:41 pm

top priority. but that i think would involve something most of my contemporaries by common consent ridicule: chivalry. non ideological, non political, neither left nor right, just just.<br><br><br>but its "outmoded." as in we've "evolved," we drive cars and microwave our food, and kill off multitudes impersonally at a distance. we are <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>so</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> much more <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>civilized</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.<br><br>funny word that: civilized, means "live in a city."<br><br>i read somewhere that Cervantes "killed chivalry." my impression is that he lamented its passing. <br><br>who knows. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jc@rigorousintuition>jc</A> at: 7/12/06 3:42 pm<br></i>
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Re: chivalry or amor fin

Postby jc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 5:49 pm

this is a poem by troubadour Marcabru. love those folk. they all got killed of too by lecherous churn and businessmen. wonder why?<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Marcabru? <br>you'll not find him<br>sniffling in the corner, he knows the score,</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>His lady's of the good school where<br>Joy is master.<br>And when the license is given outright<br>he always extends himself a mite<br>more than he has to…<br><br>But to return to these birds,<br>despaired of reaching the clouds, and being<br>by nature fools, they bow<br>for all (and more than) they're worth.<br>And whether or not it's said amiss,<br>barons who sell out for cash<br>have hearts below their umbilicus.<br><br>He has his heart below his unwashed navel,<br>that noble baron<br>who dirties himself for cash…<br><br>Damned blackguards and blockheads, these boobs-gone-bad,<br>can't even imitate what their fathers did.<br>Towns like Cazeres and Sarlouch<br>you'd say are worth Montpellier? and Toulouse?<br>I know what deaths their fathers had–<br>made foe themselves!<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>And the best of these bushes is an elder.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->You can say he would be damned lucky<br>to look and find among them olive and laurel.<br><br>Even the gardner and the trunkey go, flee, eyes<br>closed, as if wind blew them out.<br>These later scions have made a villainous swap:<br>for smock and clogs<br>they leave fine britches and their cloaks of vair,<br>there's nothing to gain from the new locataire.<br>All that they can raise in way of fire<br>is my anger!<br>These willows and elders…<br>if they weren't backed up by kings or counts or dukes<br>they'd be plain vags, roadmen, thieves, con-men…<br><br>God aid the valiant who have their price entire,<br>for these malevolent rich appear as elders–<br>one reason the world's a mixed up stupid mess<br>that grubs<br>and rots<br>and vegetates<br>in its own disease.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Laudator . Temporis . Acti …<br><br>He who acts straight as he talks<br>will not have the same laments as<br>yeah,<br>Sir Eglain, that balancing grain-sack.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>For myself I hold no more<br>with Sir Eble's theory of <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>trobar</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br>that's made a stack of foolish decisions<br>and upholds them against all reason.<br><br>I say, and've said, and will again:<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>they feed us only rationalization.<br>Love weeps to be differentiated<br>from lechery</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. Plain, it's plain<br>that he who whines against Fine Love<br>'s a botch. Let him complain<br>yeah…<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Seducers, drunkards, false priests, false<br>abbots, nuns, the false recluse<br>will get theirs then, says Marcabru.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>For each one has his seat reserved,<br>Fine Love has promised it will be thus:<br>great lamentation and gnashing teeth.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>O Noble Love, source of all giving,<br>by whom the whole world is illumined,<br>I cry mercy!<br>Keep these whiners from me! and<br>may I be defended against the fire!<br>On every side I hold myself your prisoner,<br>and comforted by you in all things, hope<br>that you shall be my guide and all my light…</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>the Marseillaise is Provencal. the Laurel returns… ah, merci Zizou. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jc@rigorousintuition>jc</A> at: 7/12/06 5:37 pm<br></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby Seamus OBlimey » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:02 pm

Most important, I'd say, but to make it history we need a history of it. Here's Blyth Power's contribution..<br><br>Katherine's Will<br><br>Unwilling lips your majesty <br>Unwilling kisses give though seeming keen to please <br>But I've no affection left to spare now for anyone but me<br><br>I early learned to entertain <br>To shut my mouth until he called it into play <br>To bite my tongue and keep my cool while the fool had his way<br><br>To think of England in my dreams <br>At reminiscences of other English queens <br>Beneath his passion saddled gored by the boor I lay serene <br>Stifling my screams<br><br>I know his route from day to day <br>I can mark his leaden tread from several rooms away <br>I know all the widows and their schemes and the rooms where they play<br><br>He's getting older getting slow <br>He's no straw and I've no camel's back to bear him so <br>Nor steady hand to mop his brow when his bowels lose control<br><br>I know his belly every fold <br>Each damp depression where the canker's taking hold <br>Each sweating crevice to my fingertips is a well travelled road <br>But I will lay down my load<br><br><br>And I will survive him I will last <br>I'll be alive to see him wormcast <br>To watch the carriage bear his cask and the pallbearers pass <br>I set the flags to halfmast <br>Bought the candles paid the priest to say the mass <br>Had marble columns raised <br>And fools paid to praise him <br>To parade <br>And read his epitaph<br><br>Chords:<br>Intro.B F# E B F# Abm<br>Verse/Chorus B F# E B F# Abm<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.blythpower.co.uk/lyrics/King/katherine.htm">www.blythpower.co.uk/lyri...herine.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Rape is another control device like torture..<br><br>Burning Joan<br>        <br>The lament sung by the amorous prison guard, when he fails to engage the affections of the indifferent Joan.<br><br>I was a yeoman and I was a soldier <br>When I sailed from Dover the weather was fine <br>For Loval and Launceston Sir Thomas of Taunton <br>For Ranolf and Rudall my comrades and I <br><br>But I earned my spurs as a turnkey <br>For St George and a farthing a day <br>My battles were fought through the dungeons and vaults <br>My enemies battered with pulley's and chains <br><br>But shock-headed Joan was my beauty <br>She was my jewel and my prize <br>Scratching her tits in the blood and the shit <br>Plucking the lice from her thoroughbred thighs <br><br>Sometimes at her cell I would linger <br>To watch while she crouched in the straw <br>I'd be stroking her hair and she'd sullenly glare <br>But she never acknowledged my presence at all <br><br>So I shed no tears as the brazier crackled and rang <br>The arquebusiers and the flower of chivalry sang <br><br>Oh Joannie oh Joannie the tumbrel and the pony <br>Through the ranks of the yeomanry steer <br>The gallows is cold and the gibbet is lonely <br>We'll make things hot for you here <br><br>See I thought that I was her friend and protector <br>Compassion I readily gave <br>And oft of a while sympathetically smiled <br>As the callous inquisitors hammered away <br><br>But she never returned my affection <br>Nor ever my homage received <br>And since in my dreams as she spatters and screams <br>I secretly doubt she was thinking of me <br><br>As the flames licked her arse and her belly <br>For she never a glimmer betrayed <br>So I cast off my conscience I joined with the band <br>And I fiddled while Joan burned away <br><br>Chords:<br>Intro. E E7<br>Verse/Chorus A D A E A D E (A)<br>Alternate Verse/Instr. D A D A D A F#m E<br>Bridge D A F#m E<br>Ending E E7 A<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.blythpower.co.uk/lyrics/Paradise/joan.htm">www.blythpower.co.uk/lyri...e/joan.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Sorry to post songs but when I know someone who says it better, why not?<br><br>PS I have no connection to Blyth Power either professionally or implied, the author does not know me and I either do or do not believe anything he says.<br><br>Edited to add 'no' <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seamusoblimey>Seamus OBlimey</A> at: 7/12/06 4:31 pm<br></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby jc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:58 pm

<!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.uruknet.info/pic.php" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>The United States now officially admits what we already knew: Abir Hamza, the victim of that vicious assault, was born in 1991. She was only 14 when a squad of all-American "Christian" good-old-boys killed her family, raped her, and burned her body. Not a single member of the unit shirked from this task. None of them felt guilty about what they had done to her (although they did regret the retaliatory measures against Americans).<br><br>"Our boys," raised within our suposedly enlightened "Christian" culture, considered this girl a sub-human -- a thing to be used. After all, she was Muslim.<br><br>The photo above, taken when Abir was but a toddler, is the only one we have at present. I don't mind admitting that when I enlarged the image and smoothed over the jpg artifacts, I got a little choked up. And angry.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m24532&hd=0&size=1&l=e">www.uruknet.info/?p=m24532&hd=0&size=1&l=e</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jc@rigorousintuition>jc</A> at: 7/12/06 5:03 pm<br></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby havanagilla » Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:21 pm

from the blogs/backtalks and street talk in Israel, rape is a protected basic human right...women who complain here about sex offenses are derided and named 'baracudas', namely, evil predatory women. <br>let alone sexual harassment, considered here as an "alien, dangerous <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>concept"</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> which recklessly arms every bimbo with a virtual gun, against all and any good, law abiding, slightly oversexed, males. <br>Rape as "history" ? not here, in the foreseeable future. But the Rabbis had to issue an edict against polygamy following the pressure from the Christian hosts in diaspora. Surely, if the west abolishes rape, they shall follow reluctantly... <br>--<br>The monogamy edict, a pretty recent custom/law in the Jewish tradition/religion, has never really sunk, i suspect, among the varoius Jewish communities. Instead, the Jewish male still feels that a god given right to 'redeem' any female from her sexual deprivation - has been ilegally snatched from him. <br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby jc » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:02 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>rape is a protected basic human right<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>i've read and re-read that and i just can't get my head around it. makes absolutely no kind of sense to me.<br><br>it's english, i get the individual words. i can READ the sentence. but can make no sense of it.<br><br>reminds me of MALbright on 60 minutes c 1995. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jc@rigorousintuition>jc</A> at: 7/12/06 9:04 pm<br></i>
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Re: how important is it?

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:06 pm

Read "basic <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>male</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> human right". <p></p><i></i>
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Re: A Rape in Iraq

Postby StarmanSkye » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:13 pm

Thanks for posting this, Nomo;<br><br>Rape is abhorant, one of the attributes that keeps the human species from evolving and maturing, reaching greater potential of beingness -- a throwback to primal, animalistic urges, thus a part of the crude and vulgar militaristic mindset that continues validating industrialized forms of violence and coersion.<br><br>An important observation by Suki Falcanberg's re: the nature of prostitution as encouraged, resulting by/from economic coercion -- a type of enforced bondage, part of the seamy underbelly of capitalism, revealing it's potential for parasitical exploitation according to the calculus of power relationships of advantage and privelege.<br><br>Rape IS assault.<br>It must NEVER be accomodated or condoned or excused.<br><br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
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Sexual Terrorism

Postby nomo » Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:16 pm

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=101034">www.tomdispatch.com/index...pid=101034</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Tomgram: Ruth Rosen on Sexual Terrorism and Iraqi Women</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Five American soldiers have been charged in a horrendous rape and murder case in Iraq (and a sixth for not reporting it). In the United States, rape is now a public crime. Cases are regularly discussed and followed in the media; victims are far less often blamed; if you turn on a TV program like Law & Order: SVU, rape cases are national drama and even entertainment.<br><br>In Iraq, rape remains a crime largely kept out of the sight of a society that finds it almost too heinous to imagine (which doesn't necessarily make it uncommon). Consider, for instance, the comments of an Iraqi journalist, Raheem Salman, who works for the Los Angeles Times and who interviewed the first relative to enter the house of the 14 year old victim after she had been raped and murdered, and her body partially burned by American soldiers:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> "Well, indeed, to tell you frankly that it has a great impact upon the whole society, upon all Iraqis. This is one of the worst crimes, you know, to be committed against a girl in this age. Some people describe this murder and rape as horrible and gruesome and disgusting, indeed. Others describe it even as a brand of shame, even in the American Army's history. Others consider it as example of the atrocity of some of the soldiers. Among the lawmakers here in our parliament, some female lawmakers, you know, protested strongly under the dome of the parliament. They asked the parliament to call the prime minister and the minister of interior. They also asked for a real participation of the Iraqi side in the investigation, and not only the Americans."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Or consider the young Sunni blogger, Riverbend, who writes Baghdad Burning and now seems to live as a semi-shut-in in an Iraqi capital caught in a heightening state of civil war. ("It's like Baghdad is no longer one city, it's a dozen different smaller cities each infected with its own form of violence.") In a post in which she discusses the death of a friend -- a twenty-six year-old civil engineer caught in sectarian violence in his neighborhood -- she also turns to the rape case in this fashion:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> "Rape. The latest of American atrocities. Though it's not really the latest -- it's just the one that's being publicized the most. The poor girl Abeer was neither the first to be raped by American troops, nor will she be the last. The only reason this rape was brought to light and publicized is that her whole immediate family were killed along with her. Rape is a taboo subject in Iraq. Families don't report rapes here, they avenge them. We've been hearing whisperings about rapes in American-controlled prisons and during sieges of towns like Haditha and Samarra for the last three years. The naiveté of Americans who can't believe their 'heroes' are committing such atrocities is ridiculous. Who ever heard of an occupying army committing rape??? You raped the country, why not the people?"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Finally, consider the fine reporter Nir Rosen, who has spent much of the last three years as an independent journalist in Iraq -- and who looks Iraqi enough (his father was Iranian) to have been able to experience both sides of the occupation. He has been embedded with U.S. troops, but also embedded with ordinary Iraqis. ("My skin color and language skills allowed me to relate to the American occupier in a different way, for he looked at me as if I were just another haji, the "gook" of the war in Iraq.") At the Truthdig website, he writes a summary account of the American occupation ("creating enemies instead of eliminating them") as he encountered it that has to be read to be believed. He concludes:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> "In reality both Abu Ghraib and Haditha were merely more extreme versions of the day-to-day workings of the American occupation in Iraq, and what makes them unique is not so much how bad they were, or how embarrassing, but the fact that they made their way to the media and were publicized despite attempts to cover them up. Focusing on Abu Ghraib and Haditha distracts us from the daily, little Abu Ghraibs and small-scale Hadithas that have made up the occupation. The occupation has been one vast extended crime against the Iraqi people, and most of it has occurred unnoticed by the American people and the media."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>In a similar way, the now highly publicized rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers focuses attention on one horrifying case of sexual terrorism, but not on the larger issue of what has actually happened to the majority of Iraqi women in the wake of the American invasion and occupation of their country. Ruth Rosen, a former columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, as well as the author of a superb history of the modern women's movement, The World Split Open, explores this distinctly under-reported but crucial topic: What, in fact, has the Bush administration's "liberation" of Iraqi women meant since 2003? <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Tom</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END--><br><br> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The Hidden War on Women in Iraq</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>By Ruth Rosen</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br> Abu Ghraib. Haditha. Guantanamo. These are words that shame our country. Now, add to them Mahmudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad. There, this March, a group of five American soldiers allegedly were involved in the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza, a young Iraqi girl. Her body was then set on fire to cover up their crimes, her father, mother, and sister murdered. The rape of this one girl, if proven true, is probably not simply an isolated incident. But how would we know? In Iraq, rape is a taboo subject. Shamed by the rape, relatives of this girl wouldn't even hold a public funeral and were reluctant to reveal where she is buried.<br><br> Like women everywhere, Iraqi women have always been vulnerable to rape. But since the American invasion of their country, the reported incidence of sexual terrorism has accelerated markedly. -- and this despite the fact that few Iraqi women are willing to report rapes either to Iraqi officials or to occupation forces, fearing to bring dishonor upon their families. In rural areas, female rape victims may also be vulnerable to "honor killings" in which male relatives murder them in order to restore the family's honor. "For women in Iraq," Amnesty International concluded in a 2005 report, "the stigma frequently attached to the victims instead of the perpetrators of sexual crimes makes reporting such abuses especially daunting."<br><br> This specific rape of one Iraqi girl, however, is now becoming symbolic of the way the Bush administration has violated Iraq's honor; Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has already launched an inquest into the crime. In an administration that normally doesn't know the meaning of an apology, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., both publicly apologized. In a fierce condemnation, the Muslim Scholars Association in Iraq denounced the crime: "This act, committed by the occupying soldiers, from raping the girl to mutilating her body and killing her family, should make all humanity feel ashamed."<br><br> Shame, yes, but that is hardly sufficient. <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>After all, rape is now considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br> It wasn't always that way. Soldiers have long viewed women as the spoils of war, even when civilian or military leaders condemned such behavior, but in the early 1990s, a new international consensus began to emerge on the act of rape. Prodded by an energized global women's movement, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 1993. Subsequent statutes in the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, as well as the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court in July 2002, all defined rape as a crime against humanity or a war crime.<br><br> No one accuses American soldiers of running through the streets of Iraq, raping women as an instrument of war against the insurgents (though such acts are what caused three Bosnian soldiers, for the first time in history, to be indicted in 2001 for the war crime of rape).<br><br> Still, 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.<br><br> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Rape and sexual humiliation in prisons</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br> The scandal of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib focused on the torture, sexual abuse, and humiliation of Iraqi men. A variety of sources suggest that female prisoners suffered similar treatment, including rape.<br><br> Few Americans probably realize that the American-run prison at Abu Ghraib also held female detainees. Some of them were arrested by Americans for political reasons -- because they were relatives of Baathist leaders or because the occupying forces thought they could use them as bargaining chips to force male relatives to inform on insurgents or give themselves up.<br><br> According to a Human Rights Watch report, the secrecy surrounding female detentions "resulted from a collusion of the families and the occupying forces." Families feared social stigma; the occupying forces feared condemnation by human rights groups and anger from Iraqis who saw such treatment of women by foreigners as a special act of violation.<br><br> On the condition of anonymity and in great fear, some female detainees nevertheless did speak with human rights workers after being released from detention. They have described beatings, torture, and isolation. Like their male counterparts, they reserve their greatest bitterness for sexual humiliations suffered in American custody. Nearly all female detainees reported being threatened with rape. Some women were interrogated naked and subjected to derision and humiliating remarks by soldiers.<br><br> The British Guardian reported that one female prisoner managed to smuggle a note out of Abu Ghraib. She claimed that American guards were raping the few female detainees held in the prison and that some of them were now pregnant. In desperation, she urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail in order to spare the women further shame.<br><br> Amal Kadham Swadi, one of seven Iraqi female attorneys attempting to represent imprisoned women, told the Guardian that only one woman she met with was willing to speak about rape. "She was crying. She told us she had been raped. Several American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight them off, and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, 'We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"<br><br> Professor Huda Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University, also told the Guardian that women in Abu Ghraib have been sexually abused and raped. She identified one woman, in particular, who was raped by an American military policeman, became pregnant, and later disappeared.<br><br> Professor Shaker added, "A female colleague of mine was arrested and taken there. When I asked her after she was released what happened at Abu Ghraib, she started crying. Ladies here are afraid and shy of talking about such subjects. They say everything is OK. Even in a very advanced society in the west it is very difficult to talk about rape."<br><br> Shaker, herself, encountered a milder form of sexual abuse at the hands of one American soldier. At a checkpoint, she said, an American soldier "pointed the laser sight [of his gun] directly in the middle of my chest… Then he pointed to his penis. He told me, 'Come here, bitch, I'm going to fuck you.'"<br><br> 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."<br><br> 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.<br><br> But how can we be sure? In January, 2004, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. military official in Iraq, ordered Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba to investigate persistent allegations of human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib. The Taguba Report confirmed that in at least one instance a U.S. military policeman had raped at least one female prisoner and that guards had videotaped and photographed naked female detainees. Seymour Hersh also reported in a 2004 issue of the New Yorker magazine that these secret photos and videos, most of which still remain under wraps by the Pentagon, show American soldiers "having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner." Additional photos have made their way to the web sites of Afterdowningstreet.org and Salon.com. In one photograph, a woman is raising her shirt, baring her breasts, presumably as she was ordered to do.<br><br> The full range of pictures and videotapes are likely to show a great deal more. Members of Congress who viewed all the pictures and videotapes from Abu Ghraib seemed genuinely shaken and sickened by what they saw. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn called them "appalling;" then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle described them as "horrific." Ever since the scandal broke in April 2004, human rights and civil liberties groups have been engaged in a legal battle with the Department of Defense, demanding that it release the rest of the visual documents. Only when all those documents are available to the general public will we have a clearer -- and undoubtedly more ghastly -- record of the sexual acts forced upon both female and male detainees.<br><br> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Sexual Terrorism on the Streets</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br> Meanwhile, the chaos of the war has also led to a rash of kidnappings and rapes of women outside of prison walls. After interviewing rape and abduction victims, as well as eyewitnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S. military police and civil affairs officers, Human Rights Watch released a report in July, 2003, titled Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad. Only months after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, they had already learned of twenty-five credible allegations of the rape and/or abduction of Iraqi women. Not surprisingly, the report found that "police officers gave low priority to allegations of sexual violence and abduction, that the police were under-resourced, and that victims of sexual violence confronted indifference and sexism from Iraqi law enforcement personnel." Since then, as chaos, violence, and bloodletting have descended on Iraq, matters have only gotten worse.<br><br> 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:<br><br> "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."<br><br> 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."<br><br> 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.<br><br> As recently as June 2006, Mayada Zhaair, spokeswoman for the Women's Rights Association, a local NGO, reported, "We've observed an increase in the number of women being sexually abused and raped in the past four months, especially in the capital."<br><br> No one knows how many abducted women have never returned. As one Iraqi police inspector testified, "Some gangs specialize in kidnapping girls, they sell them to Gulf countries. This happened before the war too, but now it is worse, they can get in and out without passports." Others interviewed by Human Rights Watch argued that such trafficking in women had not occurred before the invasion.<br><br> The U.S. State Department's June 2005 report on the trafficking of women suggested that the extent of the problem in Iraq is "difficult to appropriately gauge" under current chaotic circumstances, but cited an unknown number of Iraqi women and girls being sent to Yemen, Syria, Jordan, and Persian Gulf countries for sexual exploitation.<br><br> In May 2006, Brian Bennett wrote in Time Magazine that a visit to "the Khadamiyah Women's Prison in the northern part of Baghdad immediately produces several tales of abduction and abandonment. A stunning 18-year-old nicknamed Amna, her black hair pulled back in a ponytail, says she was taken from an orphanage by an armed gang just after the US invasion and sent to brothels in Samarra, al-Qaim on the border with Syria, and Mosul in the north before she was taken back to Baghdad, drugged with pills, dressed in a suicide belt and sent to bomb a cleric's office in Khadamiyah, where she turned herself in to the police. A judge gave her a seven-year jail sentence ‘for her sake' to protect her from the gang, according to the prison director."<br><br> "Families and courts," Bennett reported, "are usually so shamed by the disappearance [and presumed rape] of a daughter that they do not report these kidnappings. And the resulting stigma of compromised chastity is such that even if the girl should resurface, she may never be taken back by her relations."<br><br> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Disappearing women</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br> 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."<br><br> "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."<br><br> Invisible women -- for some Iraqi fundamentalist Islamic leaders, this is a dream come true. The Ministry of the Interior, for example, recently issued notices warning women not to go out on their own. "This is a Muslim country and any attack on a woman's modesty is also an attack on our religious beliefs," said Salah Ali, a senior ministry official. Religious leaders in both Sunni and Shiite mosques have used their sermons to persuade their largely male congregations to keep working women at home. "These incidents of abuse just prove what we have been saying for so long," said Sheikh Salah Muzidin, an imam at a mosque in Baghdad. "That it is the Islamic duty of women to stay in their homes, looking after their children and husbands rather than searching for work---especially with the current lack of security in the country."<br><br> In the early 1970s, American feminists redefined rape and argued that it was an act driven not by sexual lust, but by a desire to exercise power over another person. Rape, they argued, was an act of terrorism that kept all women from claiming their right to public space. That is precisely what has happened to Iraqi women since the American invasion of Iraq. Sexual terrorism coupled with religious zealotry has stolen their right to claim their place in public life.<br><br> This, then, is a hidden part of the unnecessary suffering loosed by the reckless invasion of Iraq. Amid the daily explosions and gunfire that make the papers is a wave of sexual terrorism, whose exact dimensions we have no way of knowing, and that no one here notices, unleashed by the Bush administration in the name of exporting "democracy" and fighting "the war on terror." <br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Historian and journalist Ruth Rosen teaches history and public policy at U.C. Berkeley and is a senior fellow at the Longview Institute. A new edition of her most recent book, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (Penguin, 2001), will be published with an updated epilogue in 2007.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <p></p><i></i>
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