Women were more respected under Saddam, say women's groups

[Al-khiyal]

You know your country is in trouble when:

1 - The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.

2 - Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.

3 - The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.

4 - The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.

5 - An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.

6 - Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.

7 - For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.

8 - Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.

9 - People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.

2006 has been, decidedly, the worst year yet. No - really. The magnitude of this war and occupation is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim, Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming apart - a chip here, a chunk there.

That is Iraq right now. The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaafari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.

The question now is, but why? I really have been asking myself that these last few days. What does America possibly gain by damaging Iraq to this extent? I'm certain only raving idiots still believe this war and occupation were about WMD or an actual fear of Saddam.

Al Qaeda? That's laughable. Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the distant hills of Afghanistan. Our children now play games of 'sniper' and 'jihadi', pretending that one hit an American soldier between the eyes and this one overturned a Humvee.

This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous - like whether your name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things - like the Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the checkpoint.

Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head aches just posing the questions.

What has me most puzzled right now is: why add fuel to the fire? Sunnis and moderate Shia are being chased out of the larger cities in the south and the capital. Baghdad is being torn apart with Shia leaving Sunni areas and Sunnis leaving Shia areas- some under threat and some in fear of attacks. People are being openly shot at check points or in drive by killings… Many colleges have stopped classes. Thousands of Iraqis no longer send their children to school - it's just not safe.

Why make things worse by insisting on Saddam's execution now? Who gains if they hang Saddam? Iran, naturally, but who else? There is a real fear that this execution will be the final blow that will shatter Iraq. Some Sunni and Shia tribes have threatened to arm their members against the Americans if Saddam is executed. Iraqis in general are watching closely to see what happens next, and quietly preparing for the worst.

This is because now, Saddam no longer represents himself or his regime. Through the constant insistence of American war propaganda, Saddam is now representative of all Sunni Arabs (never mind most of his government were Shia). The Americans, through their speeches and news articles and Iraqi Puppets, have made it very clear that they consider him to personify Sunni Arab resistance to the occupation. Basically, with this execution, what the Americans are saying is "Look- Sunni Arabs- this is your man, we all know this. We're hanging him- he symbolizes you." And make no mistake about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American. Some of the actors were Iraqi enough, but the production, direction and montage was pure Hollywood (though low-budget, if you ask me).

That is, of course, why Talbani doesn't want to sign his death penalty - not because the mob man suddenly grew a conscience, but because he doesn't want to be the one who does the hanging - he won't be able to travel far away enough if he does that.

Maliki's government couldn't contain their glee. They announced the ratification of the execution order before the actual court did. A few nights ago, some American news program interviewed Maliki's bureau chief, Basim Al-Hassani who was speaking in accented American English about the upcoming execution like it was a carnival he'd be attending. He sat, looking sleazy and not a little bit ridiculous, his dialogue interspersed with 'gonna', 'gotta' and 'wanna'... Which happens, I suppose, when the only people you mix with are American soldiers.

My only conclusion is that the Americans want to withdraw from Iraq, but would like to leave behind a full-fledged civil war because it wouldn't look good if they withdraw and things actually begin to improve, would it?

Here we come to the end of 2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis. We've all lost some of the compassion and civility that I felt made us special four years ago. I take myself as an example. Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them.

Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.

Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so.

Just because Americans die in smaller numbers, it doesn't make them more significant, does it?

'Riverbend': End of another year

[liberte]

The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq recently issued a frightening report documenting the growing practice of public executions of women by Shiite militia.

One of the report's more grisly accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by football field and then hung on the goal post. They pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running to try to defend his sister. He was also shot and killed. Sunni extremists are no better: OWFI members estimate that no fewer than 30 women are executed monthly for honor-related reasons.

Almost four years into the Bush administration's ill-fated adventure in Iraq, Iraqi women are worse off than they were under the Baathist regime in a country where, for decades, the freedoms and rights enjoyed by Iraqi women were the envy of women in most other countries of the Middle East.

Before the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women had high levels of education. Their strong and independent women's movement had successfully forced Saddam Hussein's government to pass the groundbreaking 1959 Family Law Act, which ensured equal rights in matters of personal law.

Iraqi women could inherit land and property; they had equal rights to divorce and custody of their children; they were protected from domestic violence within the marriage. They had achieved real gains in the struggle for equality between women and men. Iraqi women, like all Iraqis, certainly suffered from the political repression and lack of freedom, but the secular -- albeit brutal -- Baathist regime protected women from the religious extremism that denies freedom to a majority of women in the Arab world.

The invasion of Iraq changed the status of Iraqi women for the worse. Iraq's new colonial power, the United States, elevated a new group of leaders, most of whom were allied with ultraconservative Shiite clerics. Among the Sunni minority, the quick disappearance of their once dominant political power led to a resurgence of religious identity. Consequently, the Kurds, celebrated for their history of resistance to the Iraqi dictator, were able to reclaim such traditions as honor killings, putting thousands of women at risk.

Iraqi sectarian conflict has exacerbated violence against women, making women's bodies the battlefields on which vendettas and threats are played out. My organization, The Global Fund for Women, and the humanitarian community have long known that the presence of military troops in a region of conflict increases the rate of prostitution, violence against women and the potential for human trafficking.

While many believed that interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq would result in greater freedoms for women, international women's rights organizations such as the Global Fund for Women were highly skeptical of the Bush administration's claims from the start. U.S. representatives in Iraq failed to even listen to, much less validate, the voices of independent and secular Iraqi women leaders such as Yana Mohammed during the process of drafting the constitution.

As a result, the Iraqi Constitution elevated Islamic law over constitutional rights for matters pertaining to personal and family matters. For the first time in more than 50 years of Iraq's history, Iraqi women's right to be treated as equal citizens has been overturned. This disgrace has happened on the watch of the United States. In many ways, it is no less shameful than the human rights abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib. If left unchallenged, it has the potential to affect many thousands of innocent lives in the years to come.

Because the United States has failed to protect Iraqi women's rights, a new secretary-general of the United Nations must demonstrate the courage and conviction to take action. The women of Iraq deserve nothing less -- we owe them at least that much.

Kavita Ramdas is president and CEO of The Global Fund for Women; globalfundforwomen.org.

U.S. invasion makes life worse for women of Iraq

[liberte]

Decades of war have left many Iraqi women without husbands. Now the violence of post-Saddam Iraq is making it even more difficult to get married. Many women now resort to relationships of necessity in a society that places a very high value on the institution of marriage.

NPR : Iraqi Women Struggle to Find Suitable Marriages

[Al-khiyal]

"I want to stay at home because somehow I will be safer. I prefer to be illiterate than to die or see a friend killed in front of me or maybe kidnapped and have my ears sent to my family as happened to one of my best friends three months ago."

BAGHDAD, 10 January (IRIN) - "I am 10 years old but I have not been to school for the past three years because I'm scared of the killings taking place in Iraq. Many of my friends have either been kidnapped or killed.

"Since I was five I had been attending the Adhamiyah Primary and Secondary School, in Adhamiyah district (one of the most popular Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad). I made many friends there but since last year, many of them have either fled Iraq with their parents or have left school because their parents are afraid for them because of the increase in kidnappings and killing of children and teachers.

"I miss my school very much but in the classroom I used to keep looking at the door to see if someone would break in and kidnap me. My family is poor and if they [the kidnappers] take me, I might die because they cannot pay a ransom.

"My mother usually forced me go to school, saying that if I believed in God nothing would happen to me but nowadays things are not so easy and even people who pray day and night are being killed.

"Two weeks ago, a close friend of mine was killed while she was leaving the school with her father. A car with men wearing black crossed in front of them and the men shot them dead. It was horrible and there were many children at the school's gate at that time.

"I have two brothers, Amir and Younis. Both of them are in school. Amir, who is 13, says he is not afraid of killers or kidnappers and he has become a man and is not afraid. But Younis used to cry every day when he had to go to school with me. He is only seven but was seriously sad and traumatised from the violence but my parents don't understand this and used to force him to go with me anyway.

"I dream of leaving Iraq but this is only a dream because my parents are too poor to do that. Sometimes I think I will go crazy with the tension I have in my head and the pressure from all sides, especially from my mother who insists that I have to go to school to be someone important. Inside me I know that what I want is just to be away from this violence.

"Life is very bad and education is going from bad to worse. Teachers are scared all the time and many of them have left school after receiving threats, making us more scared.

"I want to stay at home because somehow I will be safer. I prefer to be illiterate than to die or see a friend killed in front of me or maybe kidnapped and have my ears sent to my family as happened to one of my best friends three months ago."

Haifa Waleed - "I prefer to be illiterate than to die"

[Al-khiyal]

"My name is Lina Massufi. I'm a 32-year-old laboratory assistant who works 10 hours a day just to make enough money to raise my children.

"My life has been like hell over the past three months. US and Iraqi soldiers have raided my house more than 12 times.

"My husband, Khalil, was killed during the US invasion in 2003 when he drove through a closed road and soldiers shot him dead.

"I live in Haifa Street, one of the most dangerous places to live in Baghdad today. The area is infamous for its huge number of insurgents. This is why Iraqi and US soldiers have increased their activity in the area, constantly raiding homes and arresting men for interrogation.

"Last month, they arrested my 23-year-old brother Fae'ek, who lives with me. He is a pharmacy student but nonetheless they took him and kept him in prison for more than a week - even after knowing he was innocent. He returned with signs of torture on his body and was crying like a baby because of the pain.

"I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home. Every time they [the soldiers] raid my house, they break the door. They don't know how to knock at a door. One day, when I asked them why they were entering like that instead of ringing the bell, they laughed at me and called me an idiot.

"My furniture is all broken into pieces because of the way they conduct their searches. I no longer have dishes or glasses to speak of because they destroyed most of them during the raids.

"I have two children and for most of the time, they are scared. Muhammad, a four-year-old, cannot sleep well at night. He has nightmares every day and when he wakes up he cries, asking me not to let the soldiers take him as they took his uncle.

"Fadia, my daughter, who is only eight years old, doesn't want to go to school because she says that if they raid our home and I'm not around, they would do something bad to her brother. But with her at home, she can help him not be afraid.

"Our neighbourhood is in the middle of a constant war. It is not safe for us to leave or enter our houses. Most of the shops around here are closed. We have to walk about 5km to buy food like vegetables and rice.

"Sometimes, when I return by taxi from my job, which is about 45 minutes from my home, I find the street closed and bullets flying around everywhere.

"I start to cry as I become afraid that something might have happened to my children even though I know that my brother is there. I know that when I get home, I will find Muhammad crying and Fadia scared but I cannot stay all day at home because if I leave my job, there will be no one to feed them.

"It is common to see at least three corpses on Haifa Street each day and sometimes up to eight, as happened last week. They are fighters, innocent civilians or soldiers. No one takes care of them [the bodies] because if you tried to get closer, you could become the next victim.

"I have no where to run to. I have to withstand this desperate situation hoping that one day we will live in peace again, even if it seems that it might take dozens of years for that to happen."

"I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home"

[Al-khiyal]

BAGHDAD, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Five female pupils were killed in a mortar strike on a secondary school in the predominantly Sunni Adil district of western Baghdad on Sunday, the school's principal told Reuters.

Principal Fawziya Swadi said two mortars landed in the schoolyard where many pupils were gathered. The blasts blew in classroom windows, spraying pupils with glass shards that accounted for some injuries. She said 20 people were wounded.

Police confirmed the attack, one of many tit-for-tat mortar strikes in Sunni and Shi'ite areas of the capital every day.

Mortar attack on Baghdad girls' school kills five

[Al-khiyal]

BAGHDAD: The girls had just finished taking an examination at a school in the Sunni Adil neighborhood and were gathering in an inner courtyard Sunday when a mortar shell landed among them.

Witnesses said the explosion killed at least five girls from 12 to 16 years old and wounded at least 20, tearing away limbs, shattering glass, shredding the students' blue and white uniforms and leaving the survivors bloodied and in shock.

"She hugged and kissed me, then went outside and the bomb hit," a teacher at the scene said of one of the victims. "After a few minutes, she was dead.

"We just don't know what to do with the other girls. They're young. They've never seen this."

In a city seemingly numb to bloodshed, attacks on schools still have the capacity to shock. The assault Sunday seemed to confirm that the violence here knows no boundaries.

It was the latest in a series of assaults on schools and those who educate children.

Two months ago, a teacher in a Sunni area of Western Baghdad was raped, mutilated, strung up by her feet outside a school building and left to hang for days, according to American military officers in the area.

In the past month, according to Interior Ministry officials, primary and secondary schools in and around Baghdad have been targets at least six times. In some cases, gunmen ambushed schools during classes and guards fought them off.

In other cases, mortar shells struck, killing 10 at Al Gharbiya, for example, a secondary school in central Baghdad.

Several principals and teachers have been kidnapped and killed, a pattern of terror that started with university professors and seems to have trickled down the educational chain.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Education said this month that more guards would be added at primary and secondary schools throughout the city, further confirming that they were becoming a battleground.

He declined to give reporters permission to visit.

For many Iraqis, the risk that comes with learning has already become too great, regardless of government protection. In many Sunni areas, according to parents and teachers, schools are emptying out, with students going to class only a few days a week, if at all.

In Amman, Isra Qasim, 35, said she had fled Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood, a former Sunni middle-class enclave that now resembles a bombed-out wasteland, because she feared what might happen to her 6-year-old at school. She left a few months ago, in time to register him for classes in Amman.

"I came here for him," she said in an interview. "He said he wanted to learn."

Some schools have lost more than a third of their students to emigration. Others, like Al Gharbiya, remain closed because of the violence.

The all-girls school hit Sunday, Al Khuroud, was in an area near an office of Adnan Dulaimi, a senior Sunni member of Parliament. Several members of his family live close by.

It was unclear whether the attack had been aimed at the girls.

Residents of the neighborhood said that mortar shells had been raining down for days, possibly in retaliation from Shiite areas where large bombings have been concentrated in recent weeks, killing at least 300 people throughout the city.

Windows of the school's three two- story concrete buildings were shattered, and the school yard was covered with blood. About 100 girls had been standing there, chattering and laughing, at the time of the attack.

Teachers and residents said they were not sure when or if they would return.

Schools caught up in the Iraqi carnage