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Originally Posted by Jennifer Purdy
Iraq, "former home to a genocidal dictator that engaged in ethnic cleansing, use of WMD's, oppression, torture, environmental disasters, broken promises, threatened peace and stability elsewhere...
You know, until I realized that you were talking about genocide and Iraq, I was thinking of a completely different country... as far as I know, the States has engaged in torture, environmental disasters, broken promises, has actually broken peace and caused instability elsewhere. Interesting parallels there.
Well first of all I've never said the US was completely innocent, but I find it difficult - outrageous actually - to parallel the modern United States with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In my 47 years I can't recall the type of oppression of women here as they faced under Saddam; "honor killings," dates with "professional rapists," beheadings for suspicion of being a liar or prostitute, etc.
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Torture victims in Iraq have been blindfolded, stripped of their clothes and suspended from their wrists for long hours. Electric shocks have been used on various parts of their bodies, including the genitals, ears, the tongue and fingers. Victims have described to Amnesty International how they have been beaten with canes, whips, hosepipe or metal rods and how they have been suspended for hours from either a rotating fan in the ceiling or from a horizontal pole often in contorted positions as electric shocks were applied repeatedly on their bodies. Some victims had been forced to watch others, including their own relatives or family members, being tortured in front of them.
Other methods of physical torture described by former victims include the use of Falaqa(beating on the soles of the feet), extinguishing of cigarettes on various parts of the body, extraction of finger nails and toenails and piercing of the hands with an electric drill. Some have been sexually abused and others have had objects, including broken bottles, forced into their anus. In addition to physical torture, detainees have been threatened with rape and subjected to mock execution. They have been placed in cells where they could hear the screams of others being tortured and have been deprived of sleep. Some have stayed in solitary confinement for long periods. Detainees have also been threatened with bringing in a female relative, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee. Some of these threats have been carried out...
Some women have been raped in custody. They were detained and tortured because they were relatives of well known Iraqi opposition activists living abroad. The security authorities use this method to put pressure on Iraqi nationals abroad to cease their activities. For example, on 7 June 2000 Najib al-Salihi, a former army general who fled Iraq in 1995 and joined the Iraqi opposition, was sent a videotape showing the rape of a female relative. Shortly afterwards he reportedly received a telephone call from the Iraqi intelligence service, asking him whether he had received the ''gift'' and informing him that his relative was in their custody.
In October 2000 dozens of women suspected of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process in Baghdad and other cities after they had been arrested and ill-treated. Men suspected of procurement were also beheaded. The killings were reportedly carried out in the presence of representatives of the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Women's General Union. Members of Feda'iyye Saddam, a militia created in 1994 by 'Uday Saddam Hussain, used swords to execute the victims in front of their homes. Some victims were reportedly killed in this manner for political reasons.
Najat Mohammad Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in October 2000 apparently on suspicion of prostitution. However, she was reportedly arrested before the introduction of the policy to behead prostitutes and was said to have been critical of corruption within the health services.
A woman known as ''Um Haydar'' was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddamcame to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown...
N 1994 Iraq, through a series of decrees issued by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the highest legislative body in the country, introduced judicial punishments amounting to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments for at least 30 criminal offences, including theft in certain circumstances, monopolizing rationed goods, defaulting or deserting from military service and performing plastic surgery on an amputated arm or leg. The punishments consisted of the amputation of the right hand for a first offence, and of the left foot for a second offence, or the severance of one or both ears. People convicted under these decrees were also branded with an ''X'' mark on the forehead.(5) The Iraqi Government argued that the introduction of these severe punishments were in response to the rising crime rate resulting from worsening economic conditions as a result of the UN imposed sanctions. The punishment of amputation of the auricle of the ears and the branding of the foreheads were suspended in 1996 by the Iraqi Government, through RCC Decree 81/96.
Just like Gitmo, eh?
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And regarding the money that the USA is putting into Africa, again, please note that there is a genocide going on. Money alone will not end that; troops will.
Right, and the African Union has insisted over and over that outside troops would not be needed and in that spirit the U.S. has offered since at least 2004 to help other African nations get their troops to Darfur. We have offered and furnished logistics support for this mission and our UN Security Council efforts have often been thwarted by other council members. As I noted originally we've offered to pay for 26 percent of the total cost of the mission, and seeing as how we're presently engaged in 2 countries and
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Oh, and of course, one wouldn't need as many retrovirals if the Bush administration hadn't killed funding to any African clinics that so much as mention contraception (let alone offer it, my goodness!).
Facts, I say, facts. You may not want to delve very deeply into this subject with me. Being the father of a daughter suffering from AIDS, it's never irrelevant to provide antiretrovirals to one infected with HIV, and trust me, those purveyors of "protection" - Planned Parenthood - didn't do a thing to help her except allow her HIV to go undiagnosed until she had acquired full blown AIDS, lying in a hospital in San Diego with a
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It seems that we'll have to agree to disagree, but I suggest you may want to tune in more often to PBS' Bill Moyers more often and the main American national "newscasts" less. He has a free vodcast (available on iTunes) that is somewhat depressing but a good eye opener about current issues.
Thanks for the Moyers suggestion Jennifer, but Moyers is more than slightly a bit too biased for me. I do appreciate your input though, even if we don't see eye to eye. :) 