Iraqi reconstruction

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Iraqi reconstruction
45
Sat, 07-31-2004 - 11:14am
Given the gross mismanagement of the how US funds are rebuilding Iraq, I have to ask one question:

Why are Bush and Bush supporters against other EU nations getting contracts and rebuilding Iraq?

I thought we were there to make life better for the Iraqi people. It's as clear as glass, the current so-called plans aren't working and is not the ideal situation for the IRAQI people.

And even if we did allow these EU nations to assist in rebuilding, they probably wouldn't come anyway: Security is worse now than at any other time in 2004.

Iraq == a miserable failure even for a humanitarian mission. A failure because of pride and arrogance.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Tue, 08-03-2004 - 3:54pm
Thank you for quoting the entire sentence in its proper context :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Tue, 08-03-2004 - 3:57pm
--

I'm not so sure that all the insurgents are not terrorists. I have no doubt that a portion of them, what % I have no clue,

--

Insurgent: Attacks US military personel and positions, uses small arms consiting of AK47's, RPG's and Mortors. Highly motivated and well organized. The organization and resistance now is much higher than in the first days of the war.

Terrorists: Attacks soft targets with little regard to civilian life, uses suicide/car/truck bombs and rally around the perversion of Islam to call jihadists to their cause.

The Pentagon recently estimated that 2% of the people they've arrested are foreign fighters.

CNN recently detailed the footage of a freelance reporter who had access to the insrugency, it was very disturbing.

And thank you for listening to my entire gripe in its proper context. I will repeat, it's not an anti-bush message.


Edited 8/3/2004 3:59 pm ET ET by go_left

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Tue, 08-03-2004 - 9:30pm
Yes, I have heard all women were oppresed under Sadam, but just don't by into the fact that ALL women were. Furthermore, they are worse NOW than they were under Sadam.

http://www.acttogether.org/impactonwomen.html

Without doubt, Iraqi women lost some of the achievements gained in the previous decades. The 70s and early 80s were the years of general economic boom and the emergence and expansion of a broad middle-class. State-induced policies worked to eradicate illiteracy, educate women and incorporate them into the labour force. In the context of a rapid economic expansion after the so-called oil-crisis in 1973, the Iraqi government actively sought out women to incorporate them into the labour force. In 1974, a government decree stipulated that all university graduates - whether men or women – would be employed automatically. In certain professions, such as those related to health-care and teaching, education itself entailed a contract with the government, which obliged the students to take up a job in the respective profession. Subsequently, working outside the home did not only become acceptable for women but prestigious and the norm. Whatever the government’s motivations (it was obviously not acting on egalitarian principles), Iraqi women became among the most educated and professional in the whole region. The question in how far access to education and the labour market had resulted in an improved status for women is more complex. As in many other places, conservative and patriarchal values did not automatically change because women started working. And here there existed great differences between rural and urban women as well as women from different social class backgrounds.

Compared to earlier decades and to neighbouring countries, Iraqi women were amongst the most emancipated and educated on the one side, but at the same time amongst the most oppressed. No independent political activism has been tolerated under the regime of President Saddam Hussein, which has prevented any form of women’s movement or feminist organisations to emerge. The General Federation of Iraqi Women is part of the Baath regime and strictly follows its rulings and prescriptions. And these have changed drastically ever since the imposition of economic sanctions. In response to the ongoing economic crisis, widespread unemployment, lack of previously available public services (such as free transportation to work, school, childcare facilities etc.), the Iraqi regime has been actively promoting women’s return to the house. Many women simply can’t afford going to work anymore as the cost of transportation would exceed their monthly salaries. But others feel pushed back in the realm of domesticity by government rhetoric as well as a general turn towards greater conservatism what women and gender relations are concerned.


Women in Iraq are under siege. Hopes for a brighter future after the fall of Saddam Hussein have been rudely dashed and smothered by a climate of fear and repression. Far from the promised “liberation,” women in Iraq find themselves increasingly imprisoned by lawlessness and medieval attitudes, while recent events portend calamitous developments for women.

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http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/July/28o/Assault%20on%20Iraqi%20Women%20By%20Gregory%20Elich.htm

“Under Saddam, things were not good, but they were better than now,” explains a young Baghdad woman named Zubaida. "<-- Isn't this what I said?

Daily life in Iraq has become a grim ordeal for women. Rampant crime has become the order of the day since the fall from power of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. There are no reliable statistics, but kidnappings and rape are now so commonplace that many women have become virtual prisoners in their own homes. Women walking alone or in small groups have become easy targets for criminal gangs, compelling many to stay at home with the curtains drawn, never to venture outside. Abductions are so widespread as to become routine, yet few cases are reported to the police, for to do so would in many cases invite death. A victim “cannot say anything or come to tell us,” says Iraqi policeman Ahmad Assimil. “When they grab her, you know what they do with her. For the Iraqi people, it’s shameful, so she keeps silent.”1 “In some cases,” points out Layla Mohammed of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, the raped woman is “quietly killed by the family to ‘clear’ its sullied honor. We receive horrifying accounts. Some victims are left naked in the street after being held for several days. They no longer have any choice but to live as recluses, in shame and silence. A young woman was kidnapped at the hairdresser’s where she was preparing for her wedding. It is chaos here.”2

Not all victims are released after being raped or held for ransom. The less fortunate are sold as slaves into the booming prostitution trade. According to Iraqi police, the going price for an abducted woman is reported to be around $90.3



A young Baghdad resident named Najwa reports, “We can no longer walk about freely, or drive cars. Even going to the market has become dangerous.”4 Many professional women are no longer able to travel to their jobs, while others can safely do so only when accompanied by male relatives. “Many families are afraid to send their daughters to school because people will kidnap them,” said one father of four daughters. Shortly after the war, a Save the Children survey found that over half of the students no longer attended girls’ schools, fearing abduction.5 And the situation has only worsened since then. “Under Saddam, things were not good, but they were better than now,” explains a young Baghdad woman named Zubaida. “Under Saddam, we kept close to the walls, but now we do not go out at all. I want to live somewhere else. Anywhere. I think that anywhere else on the planet is better than Iraq.”6

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http://womenstrike8m.server101.com/English/iraqiwomenleagueopenletter.htm

Women in Post War Iraq

Women are living in a particularly dangerous environment. They cannot leave their homes even during daytime: women are not seen on the street unless accompanied by men. Mothers are fearful of leaving their daughters at school. Male US soldiers search women at checkpoints, which is itself a form of rape; and soldiers are sexually assaulting women in other circumstances. No soldiers have been disciplined for these grave offences. This behaviour is characteristic of occupying armies.

The first people to suffer economically are women and children. The message coming from Iraq is: We have no water, gas, electricity, food, and the invaders are humiliating us. People who are desperate from shortage of food and other essentials have been forced to steal. Nothing has been done to ensure that people have work and therefore an income to feed themselves and their families.

We in the IWL have opposed this barbaric war on the Iraqi people from the outset. Our people need peace and solidarity, not military bombardment. We have fought and died for liberation from dictatorial tyranny. But this noble aim could not be achieved through military aggression and colonial enslavement. This latest war has proved that the policies of the "War Coalition" have not made the world any safer, nor have they provided a better life for the Iraqi people. It was to achieve secret imperial ambitions that the Saddam regime was overthrown, and replaced with a foreign military rule. This intervention prevented the Iraqi people themselves from overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime and reclaiming their country, including the oil wealth. If the Saddam dictatorship had not been armed and supported by the US for years, we could have got rid of him much earlier.

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http://students.washington.edu/hiljoy/361/Government.html

"I would say that for the past 50 years, Iraqi women have been a very big component of the professional life of Iraq," said Francke. "They have been lawyers, doctors, professors, pharmacologists and so on and so forth. So they have contributed professionally, and there was a great deal of freedom for women to choose a profession, and acceptance of women in the professions of Iraq." "We do not want to see a regression in the status of women in a new Iraq, said Francke. After all, we are building a democratic Iraq, we're reconstructing for the future. What we don't want to do is to turn around and see that the status of women is far worse under a new non-Ba'ath, non-Saddam Iraq than it was in previous eras."

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http://www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDetails.do?itemID=385810&extID=10032&oliID=213

Now, of all times, Iraqi women fear losses

by Trudy Rubin

Here's another irony that has emerged from the aftermath of the Iraq war.

Iraqi women are fearful they may lose rights they acquired under Saddam Hussein.

Despite Hussein's despotism, Iraqi women were among the most advanced in the Arab world, studying at the university, holding professional jobs and professorships, even specializing in science and engineering. ......

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/24/MN135276.DTL

FREEDOMS UNDER HUSSEIN

Although Hussein's secular Baath Party created one of the world's most despotic regimes, it allowed Iraqi women personal rights and freedoms unparalleled in the Persian Gulf. Women could drive, travel abroad alone, study in universities, serve in the army and work side-by-side with men. Iraqi women, who make up at least 55 percent of the population and are among the most educated in the region, can become anything, from college professors to lawyers. They choose whom to marry and whether to marry at all.

In lawless Baghdad, however, safety is now more prized than freedom.

I am Shia, but I don't want to wear a scarf on my head," said al-Taee, dressed in bell-bottom jeans and a tight T-shirt. "And I want to be able to work and travel unrestrained. If I can't do it in post-Saddam Iraq, I will have to leave the country."

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http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1604991

Iraqi Women Protest Loss of Rights

Iraqi women activists are outraged over a decision by the U.S.-appointed governing council that cancels what were considered progressive personal-status laws that held sway under the regime of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. The council has placed "family issues" under the jurisdiction of sharia, or Islamic law. The activists call the move a step backwards. NPR's Anne Garrels reports.

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http://www.rense.com/general50/sdsdm.htm

Women in Iraq endured untold hardships and difficulties during the past three decades of the Ba'ath regime. Although some basic rights for women, such as the right to education, employment, divorce in civil courts and custody over kids, were endorsed in the Personal Status Code, some of these legal rights were routinely violated.



The Ba'ath regime's "faithfulness campaign", an act of terrorism against women that included the summary beheading of scores of those accused of prostitution, is just one example of its brutality against women.



However, it is now almost a year after the war, which was supposed to bring "liberation" to Iraqis. Rather than an improvement in the quality of women's lives, what we have seen is widespread violence, and an escalation of violence against women.

Like Iraqi men, many women have lost their jobs. Marooned at home and lacking independence, women are faced with new miseries. Islamist groups have imposed veiling, and have issued fatwas against prostitutes. Now "entertainment" marriages aretaking place. This is an Islamic version of prostitution, in which rich men marry women temporarily (often for only a few hours) in return for money.



The Iraqi Governing Council - an American creature - offers no hope for Iraqi women, consisting as it does of religious or tribal leaders and nationalists who rarely make any reference to women's rights. In fact, many IGC members have a history of violating women's rights.



For example, the Kurdish nationalist parties that have been running northern Iraq for more than 13 years have violated women's rights and tried to suppress progressive women's organisations. In July 2000, they attacked a women's shelter and the offices of an independent women's organisation. Both were saving the lives of Kurdish women fleeing "honour" killings and domestic violence. More than 8,000 women have died in "honour" killings since the nationalists have been in control.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-04-2004 - 9:37am

<<"Thank you for quoting the entire sentence in its proper context :)">>....Does this mean that I got the "proper context" right or wrong? Does this mean that you'll keep on assuming that I am happy with the "status quo"? Does this mean you are too lazy to check/read provided links as you already

Djie

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Wed, 08-04-2004 - 9:45am
It means, the question I asked was: Why not allow other countries to participate and it turned into a discussion on the validity of the so-called coalition and seemed to be heading in the direction of a discussion on the merits of the war itself.

So what's there to be gravely mistaken about? I don't agree with the diplomacy used and apprently you do. No sweat off my sack.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 08-04-2004 - 11:44pm
Gosh "go_left".... You míght have noticed that debate-threads on this iVillage board and those on other sites

Djie

Avatar for schifferle
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 9:43am
And no comment on this from my previous post about Christianity in Iraq? Are these people wrong? You stated: << It is not only about women either, it is about religion also. At least under Sadaam, Christians were able to go to church, and now they can not. Kind of surprising since, Bush has GOD on his side huh? >>

And who is causing the trouble in Iraq? http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

Monday, August 02, 2004The Ugly Barbarism

The news about Zarqawi was just rumours! Al Zarqawi thugs carried out one of the most barbaric ugly acts against the worship places in Iraq. After the attacks against the Shiaa holy places in which hundreds were massacred he and his thugs directed their devilish intention yesterday against the Iraqi Christians' holy and historical places (Churches) in Baghdad and Mosel.

The aim is not to try to knock the Iraqi unity only but to kill as many as they can among the Iraqis who are not belonging to their doctrine of Wahabism and Salafism. The last two of course are two faces for one coin monetized in Saudi Arabia.

We saw that ugly face not against the US targets alone but in Afghanistan where Talabans trying to convert the people there into monkeys living in a jungle. They not only hate the others who don't think like them but they hate the history which is not suiting their retarded mentality. They started destroying the historical places in Najad and Hijaz (Saudi Arabia now). They destroyed all the historic places belonged to the first Muslims and Arabs!

The Christians of Najran came to see Prophet Mohammad for a dialogue and it was a Sunday! They asked the Prophet that they would like to do their prayer and he offered them his Mosque to use it for their prayer! This is the real Islam not Islam of the Mohammad Bin Abd Al Wahab which gave birth to Bin Laden and Zarqawi thugs.

In Iraq we are one nation, Christians, Sabians, Muslims as Sunni & Shia, and other religions. The Churches which were hit by the barbaric thugs are not holy places for the Christians alone but they are holy places for all of the Iraqis irrespective of their religions. They are holy for being used by human being and by Iraqis our brothers and sisters. They are now holy places for every Iraqi!

Our brothers and sisters who have been killed in the attacks of the Iraqi Churches are not only Christians but Muslims as well. The Iraqi blood mixed together to tell the thugs that we are one body and the foreign bodies are them. Sooner the Iraqi body will expose and destroy them for ever.

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And under Saddam? http://www.falange.us/iraq5.htm

Christians Under Saddam Suffered Persecution

by Lorenzo Fazzini

An interview with Msgr. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Latin rite archbishop of Baghdad

Verona – Now that tyranny is under lock and key, Iraqi Christians are now open with about their tales of suffering and persecution during the Saddam Hussein era.

Msgr. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Latin rite archbishop of Baghdad said: “Even if in the West Saddam Hussein’s regime was referred to as a secular state, civil society was ruled by Islamic law, with serious consequences for non-Moslems.”

Tareq Aziz, Christian Vice Minister, was often referred to in the West as an example of a positive situation for Christians…. Is this true?

Tareq Aziz was not the Vice Minister because he was a Christian, but because he was a long and great childhood friend of Saddam Hussein, with whom he carried out some of his first massacres in their first years working together. Aziz rose in the Iraqi political arena only because he was a friend of Saddam Hussein. I must say, as part of the Christian minority community, we often obtained concessions not from Aziz, but from other Moslem ministers. I remember, for example, the case of a school book containing offensive statements about Christianity: Aziz did nothing in light of our protests. Finally a Muslim minister ordered the book removed from school shelves. Moreover, when Tarek Aziz met the pope just before the war, his haughty behavior scandalized Christians….

What consequences does the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime have on religion?

The era of horizontal co-existence is over between various religious groups, all crushed by the same power. But the step toward an inner acceptance of living together with different people still has not happened. A Moslem will never speak bad about a Christina in his presence; yet this doesn’t mean he’s convinced of living together with someone of a different faith. Provisional government authorities suppressed the Ministry of Religious Affairs; now there is a religious council for Shiites, one for Sunnites, and one for Christian minority communities. This change, however, is causing great difficulties for relationships between Christians: on the minority council, for example, there are three Chaldean representatives, but no Orthodox one. What’s more, their representation is often carried in terms of their ethnic as opposed to religious background, and this creates problems.

What mark did Saddam Hussein’s policies leave on religion?

No religious community in Iraq today knows what freedom means; to learn what freedom is, this is the great challenge to all faiths in Iraq today. For example, we compare ourselves with the great activism of the seven Evangelical Churches, which are politically well protected and have great economic resources: (yet) they proselytise, both bothering and irritating Moslems greatly, and thereby risking a reaction of fundamentalism.

Iraqi Islam risks being fundamentalist?

Fundamentalism is penetrating greatly into Iraqi society. I can give you an example from our schools: children are narrowly educated and often end up saying to their Christian classmates: “Your are Christian and will go to hell, because only us Moslems will go to paradise.”







iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 10:03am
Hmmm.. Wasn't it Bush the one that liberated Iraq and set loose all this chaos?
Avatar for schifferle
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 10:13am
<< Yes, I have heard all women were oppresed under Sadam, but just don't by into the fact that ALL women were. >> and prior to this you said: << I never said that all was PERFECT under Sadaam did I? I never said women were not in trouble. >>

<< “Under Saddam, things were not good, but they were better than now,” explains a young Baghdad woman named Zubaida. "<-- Isn't this what I said? >>


~What you originally stated was: <<"women(who were supposedly oppressed by Sadaam) were working more when he was there then they are now.">> You did not qualify that with some, most, many, or whatever. You implied ALL by your statement of "women who were SUPPOSEDLY oppressed by Sadaam".

Avatar for schifferle
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 08-09-2004 - 10:17am
<< An interview with Msgr. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Latin rite archbishop of Baghdad

Verona – Now that tyranny is under lock and key, Iraqi Christians are now open with about their tales of suffering and persecution during the Saddam Hussein era.

Msgr. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Latin rite archbishop of Baghdad said: “Even if in the West Saddam Hussein’s regime was referred to as a secular state, civil society was ruled by Islamic law, with serious consequences for non-Moslems.” >>