How can we give them democracy if they insist on voting?

[shereads]

Coincidentally, I picked up the only fresh magazine in my mom's doctor's office last week - "Marie Claire" - and found an article about the state of women's rights in Iraq since we, um, liberated them. Women are living a fundamentalist religious nightmare that was, ironically, suppressed under Saddam Hussein. Women are in danger of being molested and worse, in any public place - whether alone or in the company of other women. There is an unofficial but open disdain of girls and women who charge a man with rape. It is rarely prosecuted, even if there are witnesses - In the specific case followed in the magazine article, a sixteen-year-old girl and her younger sister were kidnapped from their home at gunpoint, and the kidnapping was witnessed by their mother. The girls were held prisoner in an apartment, repeatedly raped by their kidnappers and other men, pistol-whipped, and told they would be "sold." The sixteen-year-old escaped and went to the police; her fourteen-year-old sister remains missing. The journalist, who had been interviewing women in preparation for a story, was contacted as a last resort when the police refused to take action. The journalist accompanied the older sister to the police station for a second attempt, and was told that "any woman who said she was raped is a liar."

We've managed to reduce the quality of life for people who were living under a brutal dictatorship.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Give them some time, Sher. If they evolve along the same lines we did they'll soon be liars who asked for it by wearing a skirt that didn't fall to the top of their feet.

And if they continue to evolve, they'll find that once pregnant by inviting their own rape and lying about it, they'll be given no options but to birth the child and add them to the ever evolving madness.

~lucky

 

[shereads]

Give them some time, Sher. If they evolve along the same lines we did they'll soon be liars who asked for it by wearing a skirt that didn't fall to the top of their feet.

And if they continue to evolve, they'll find that once pregnant by inviting their own rape and lying about it, they'll be given no options but to birth the child and add them to the ever evolving madness.

~lucky

I don't think there's much of a wait for any of that. Of course, we're told that the new constitution will give women equal rights.

 

[BigAndTall]

But might these rapes have always been happening but just not reported?

 

[Couture]

The issue with these rapes and murders is a little more complicated. Granted, the new surge in religious fundamentalism is to blame, but you also have to keep in mind that right before the war, Hussein released the criminals from prison. Could you just imagine what would happen in the US if all the prisons just opened their doors?

 

[BigAndTall]

I am wondering if this might not have been happening all along but just now the lights are on and the all the filth can be seen?

 

[KarenAM]

My understanding is that whenever you have a breakdown in law and order, the incidence of rape goes up. Also other crimes. It's also true that in dictatorships, certain types of crimes are underreported, and although Iraq is one of the most cosmopolitan nations in the Middle East, there is still a strong tradition there of women being both controlled by and protected by their immediate male relatives, whether by birth or by marriage. The fact that the story as reported here does not mention the girls' father or uncles, etc., makes me wonder if this family was targeted by the rapists because its males were either absent or dead.

It's hard to say without more information, but my guess is that the circumstances of this atrocity are more the result of the breakdown of law and order in Iraq during and after the war. Of course, before the war, I have no doubt that powerful members of the Ba'ath party were committing no small numbers of rapes. Uday Hussein was known to have a prediliction for young girls, which is only one of many reasons I cheered when the Americans cornered and killed the son of a bitch.

Let's hope that somehow we and the Iraqis are able to do the same to these vermin.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

My understanding is that whenever you have a breakdown in law and order, the incidence of rape goes up. Also other crimes. It's also true that in dictatorships, certain types of crimes are underreported, and although Iraq is one of the most cosmopolitan nations in the Middle East, there is still a strong tradition there of women being both controlled by and protected by their immediate male relatives, whether by birth or by marriage. The fact that the story as reported here does not mention the girls' father or uncles, etc., makes me wonder if this family was targeted by the rapists because its males were either absent or dead.

It's hard to say without more information, but my guess is that the circumstances of this atrocity are more the result of the breakdown of law and order in Iraq during and after the war. Of course, before the war, I have no doubt that powerful members of the Ba'ath party were committing no small numbers of rapes. Uday Hussein was known to have a prediliction for young girls, which is only one of many reasons I cheered when the Americans cornered and killed the son of a bitch.

Let's hope that somehow we and the Iraqis are able to do the same to these vermin.

The United States of America CAN force a country to stop treating women like chatterel. We did after World War II force Japan to do just that.

It does however require a force of will on our part, A willingness to make it a priority and a willingness to enforce it with troops, military tribunals and if need be public executions.

A second option would be to round up the various shia holy men and tell them, when one of these crimes occur, if you have been telling your congregations that it's all right, we are holding you responsible. That is to say, you will do the jail time right along with the killer or rapist or what have you. Basically, you can consider yourself RICOed. You preach it, one of your followers does it we will hold you criminally liable for a conspiracy to commit rape, murder etc.

That would require a stong comitment of troops, cause when you drag the local imam off in chains, sentence him for conspiracy and lock his ass away in the same cell as the rapist he encouraged your gonna have a lot of mad people on your hands. But, if you did it and were even handed with it and these holy men saw that preaching that particular group of tenents in Islamic law meant spending a lot of time in jail, espeically if you gave them multiple convicictions, I believe the more intelligent of them would scale back their seromons on the place of women in society.

If you set up a military investigative unit, one that promised women protection not only for the victim, but for those reporting it and you let this division investigate, arrest, detain and prosecute men charged with crimes against women and the population came to see that in cases such as this, the leanings of their fellow countryment provided no leagal hiding place it would slow down drastically.

It's easy for a man to commit a rape, if he knows his victim will have to go to the local police precinct and Abdul the chief of police will accuse her of being a liar when she does. It's a whole differnt story if you know she, or witnesses will run to the US investigative unit and the guys who come looking for you are American MP's armed with assault weapons and the fact that it's a woman you abused isn't a mitigating circumstance, it makes you look like more of a criminal in their eyes.

Quick sure arrest, coniction and jail time. That's what it takes to deter crime. A certainty that punishment is a real possibility and it helps if the punishment is harsh. When you know the cops won't investigate and the victim has no where to turn then the only deterrent to crime is the individual morality of the man who is in a position to commit a crime. When the crime is against a woman, in a society that teaches women are less than nothing, that is a mighty thin moral stricture you are relying on to keep a crime from happening.

-Colly

 

[KarenAM]

I pretty much agree. I would add, though, that we can use Islam to help deter rape by encoraging those same Imams to preach on the Islamic doctrine of protecting women and children, not merely those in your own family but women and children in general. This is not a society that believes that women are less than nothing, but it is a society that has fairly rigid gender roles, and that's not something we can change overnight. It's also true that feminism in the Islamic world is young and still trying to define itself; Muslim women have been quick to point out that while they respect many things about the western model of feminism, they generally don't agree with everything about it, particularly its frequent rejection of religion. Any solution to sexual violence in Iraq that we attempt to implement (and as the de facto rulers there we are the ones who have to do it) must keep these issues in mind and if possible put them to use.

Most Iraqi men, like most men anywhere, are not rapists and abhor rape. If their Imam preaches that rape is a crime in the eyes of Allah (which it is), the next step is to address the issue of male responsibility for helping to prevent it, which could take the form of arguing that it is a man's religious duty to protect all vulnerable people, not merely those in his family or clan. I wonder if we might get American Muslim leaders to sit down with their Iraqi counterparts and discuss how this sort of education might be done.

All of this, of course, should be done along with the suggestions Colly has made. Most criminals are opportunists, and lawlwssness creates opportunity. Although her suggestions would be expensive and difficult to implement, we have a responsibility to do so.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I pretty much agree. I would add, though, that we can use Islam to help deter rape by encoraging those same Imams to preach on the Islamic doctrine of protecting women and children, not merely those in your own family but women and children in general. This is not a society that believes that women are less than nothing, but it is a society that has fairly rigid gender roles, and that's not something we can change overnight. It's also true that feminism in the Islamic world is young and still trying to define itself; Muslim women have been quick to point out that while they respect many things about the western model of feminism, they generally don't agree with everything about it, particularly its frequent rejection of religion. Any solution to sexual violence in Iraq that we attempt to implement (and as the de facto rulers there we are the ones who have to do it) must keep these issues in mind and if possible put them to use.

Most Iraqi men, like most men anywhere, are not rapists and abhor rape. If their Imam preaches that rape is a crime in the eyes of Allah (which it is), the next step is to address the issue of male responsibility for helping to prevent it, which could take the form of arguing that it is a man's religious duty to protect all vulnerable people, not merely those in his family or clan. I wonder if we might get American Muslim leaders to sit down with their Iraqi counterparts and discuss how this sort of education might be done.

All of this, of course, should be done along with the suggestions Colly has made. Most criminals are opportunists, and lawlwssness creates opportunity. Although her suggestions would be expensive and difficult to implement, we have a responsibility to do so.

Sadly, while the responisbility is there, the force of will isn't. Our own leaders seem more intent on putting us back into the role of secnd class citizens than they are with expanding freedom and liberty to those in a far away land.

-Colly

 

[KarenAM]

Sadly, while the responisbility is there, the force of will isn't. Our own leaders seem more intent on putting us back into the role of secnd class citizens than they are with expanding freedom and liberty to those in a far away land.

-Colly

This is both depressing and true.

 

[Somme]

This is both depressing and true.

The light at the end of this particular tunnel is that the USA has a heap of folk like you lot.

I didn't want this to sound like a compliment but rather as a matter of fact.

 

[Somme]

Death of a patriot: No more
March 17, 2004

The subject line on yesterday’s email read: “Another mysterious accident solves a Bush problem. Athan Gibbs dead, Diebold lives.” The attached news story briefly described the untimely Friday, March 12th death of perhaps America’s most influential advocate of a verified voting paper trail in the era of touch screen computer voting. Gibbs, an accountant for more than 30 years and the inventor of the TruVote system, died when his vehicle collided with an 18-wheeled truck which rolled his Chevy Blazer several times and forced it over the highway retaining wall where it came to rest on its roof.

Coincidence theorists will simply dismiss the death of Gibbs as a tragic accident – the same conclusion these coincidence theorists came to when anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood died in November 1974 when her car struck a concrete embankment en route to a meeting with New York Times reporter David Burnham. Prominent independent investigators concluded that Silkwood’s car was hit from behind and forced off the road. Silkwood was reportedly carrying documents that would expose illegal activities at the Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plant. The FBI report found that she fell asleep at the wheel after overdosing on Quaaludes and that there never were any such files. A journalist secretly employed by the FBI, and a veteran of the Bureau’s COINTELPRO operation against political activists, provided testimony for the FBI report.

Gibbs’ death bears heightened scrutiny because of the way he lived his life after the 2000 Florida election debacle. I interviewed Athan Gibbs in January of this year. “I’ve been an accountant, an auditor, for more than thirty years. Electronic voting machines that don’t supply a paper trail go against every principle of accounting and auditing that’s being taught in American business schools,” he insisted.

“These machines are set up to provide paper trails. No business in America would buy a machine that didn’t provide a paper trail to audit and verify its transaction. Now, they want the people to purchase machines that you can’t audit? It’s absurd.”

Gibbs was in Columbus, Ohio proudly displaying his TruVote machine that offered a “VVPAT, that’s a voter verified paper audit trail” he noted.

Gibbs also suggested that I look into the “people behind the other machines.” He offered that “Diebold and ES&S are real interesting and all Republicans. If you’re an investigative reporter go ahead and investigate. You’ll find some interesting material.”

Gibbs’ TruVote machine is a marvel. After voters touch the screen, a paper ballot prints out under plexiglass and once the voter compares it to his actual vote and approves it, the ballot drops into a lockbox and is issued a numbered receipt. The voter’s receipt allows the track his particular vote to make sure that it was transferred from the polling place to the election tabulation center.

My encounter with Gibbs led to a cover story in the Columbus Free Press March-April issue, entitled, “Diebold, electronic voting and the vast right-wing conspiracy.” The thesis I advanced in the Free Press article (www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/834) is that some of the same right-wing individuals who backed the CIA’s covert actions and overthrowing of democratic elections in the Third World in the 1980s are now involved in privatized touch screen voting. Additionally I co-wrote an article with Harvey Wasserman that was posted at MotherJones.com (www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html) on March 5, 2004. Both articles outlined ties between far right elements of the Republican Party and Diebold and ES&S, which count the majority of the nation’s electronic votes.

As I wrote in the Free Press article, “Proponents of a paper trail were emboldened when Athan Gibbs, President and CEO of TruVote International, demonstrated a voting machine at a vendor’s fair in Columbus that provides two separate voting receipts.”

In an interview on WVKO radio, Gibbs calmly and methodically explained the dangers of “black box” touch screen voting. “It absolutely makes no sense to buy electronic voting machines that can’t produce a paper trail. Inevitably, computers mess up. How are you going to have a recount, or correct malfunctions without a paper trail?

Now, the man asking the obvious question, and demonstrating an obvious tangible solution is dead in another tragic accident, a week after both articles were in circulation.

When I called TruVote International to verify Gibbs’ death, I reached Chief Financial Officer Adrenne Brandon who assured me “We’re going on in his memory. We’re going to make this happen.”

Every American concerned with democracy should pledge to make this happen. To beat back the rush for state governments to purchase privatized, partisan and unreliable electronic voting machines without verified paper trails.

Gibbs’ last words to me were “How do you explain what happened to Senator Max Cleland in Georgia. How do you explain that? The Maryland study and the Johns Hopkins scientists have warned us against ‘blind faith voting.’ These systems can be hacked into. They found patches in Georgia and the people servicing the machine had entered the machines during the voting process. How can we the people accept this? No more blind faith voting.”

Dr. Bob Fitrakis is Senior Editor of The Free Press (http://freepress.org), a political science professor, and author of numerous articles and books.

 

[Somme]

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

 

[bg23]

Somme, you're an AHer? Well, who'da thunk?

 

[cantdog]

Re: re. Gamer of Baghdad

Thanks, ella. I doubt there's a gamer in the states with the nick of Coriolanus <sigh>

Perdita

I tried, at AOL. It was taken, but I could be Coriolanus4563!

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: re. Gamer of Baghdad

I tried, at AOL. It was taken, but I could be Coriolanus4563!

Perdita

 

[Somme]

Somme, you're an AHer? Well, who'da thunk?

May be.............(if I only knew what an AHer was,...........?)

 

[minsue]

May be.............(if I only knew what an AHer was,...........?)

You might want to have it checked out, whatever it is

 

[bg23]

May be.............(if I only knew what an AHer was,...........?)

Tis a rare and fatal disease. *nods*

 

[Somme]

You might want to have it checked out, whatever it is

well I would, Sue, if I knew......which I don't.....an' baddy isn't telling....

 

[sweetnpetite]

well I would, Sue, if I knew......which I don't.....an' baddy isn't telling....

A hanger outer at the AH (author's hangout, ie-here!)

 

[bg23]

A hanger outer at the AH (author's hangout, ie-here!)

Aw, you gave it away! I wanted him to labour under the impression that he was carrying a rare and mysteriously fatal disease for just a little longer...

 

[Somme]

Then.....<sobs>.......it must be uncurable.

T'was my finest hour........

 

[bg23]

Then.....<sobs>.......it must be uncurable.

T'was my finest hour........

Incurable, even.

(Sorry. You're in the AH. 'Tis the land of pedants.)

I'm so sorry, my dear. Is there anything, anything I can do to ease your pain?