No, I'm not going to talk about the odd female suicide bomber. I'm going to talk about the women and female children being used as tools in war. Yesterday, another Sunni woman came forward, and charged Iraqi Security Forces with rape.
An Iraqi police official in the northwestern city of Tall Afar said Thursday that a military officer and three soldiers had admitted to raping a Sunni woman and recording the act with a cellphone camera.
The four soldiers told an investigative committee convened by the Iraqi army that they sexually assaulted the woman nearly two weeks ago, according to Gen. Najem Abdullah, a police spokesman in Tall Afar.
I happened to have been at a friends house working on her computer, when the blond blobble-head on the TV (I have no idea which chanel) said that the US is basically trying to stay out of this. And yeah, I can agree with that. If we side with Maliki -- which wold be the most probable scenario, the anger of Sunni's will b inflammed further. But, then the blonde bobblehead head said, something to the effect of "leave it to the police." And I was thinking to myself, WTF? How is this going to help stem what could be conceivably the beginnings of (return of) cultural genocide? Yeah, I know that is on the "alarmist" side, think about it.
The case has caused a political uproar -- with Sunnis demanding justice and Shiites defending the officers -- in a society where public discussion of rape is rare.
"In this country, [rape] is more serious than any other crime," said Wamid Nadhme, a political scientist at Baghdad University. "The religious values and the honor values say that one should not violate a woman. This will have very serious implications in coming days if neither side is able to prove that they are right and the other side is wrong."
The culure in Iraq is important to this, a culture where women are regarded as the problem if they are raped. they are the cause, they somehow deserved it, they brought dishonor to the family by being raped. And, for the Shiite's in control, why shouldn't they "dilute" the Sunni populaton? Ultimately, what Maliki has done is to condone state-sponsored terrorism on women.
But, there is more. There is another facet in the military using women. Control. And Rage. Which brings me to the young girl that was raped, killed and set on fire, and her family killed, by American troops. One of the 5 upstanding young men in our military was sentenced yesterday to 100 years for his hand in the deed.
A U.S. soldier sentenced to 100 years in prison for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and killing of her family said he was sorry but that he couldn't explain why he did it.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, wept as he apologized at his sentencing hearing Thursday for raping 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and taking part in killing her and her family.
Except, I really can't take his apology. He and his cohorts tried covering the horrible event up. It outraged insurgents to retaliate on American troops. It outraged women and men around the world. How the hell could these 5 men do this heinous crime and then try to cover it up. The chances of this crime not getting attention at all, was pretty high. But, that changed...the event was found out, as well as the cover up. And beause it was so public, the army had no choice but to follow up. I have no sympathy for this man. I can't. These men took a young woman's life, and the lives of her family, for what, to show the village that they were in control. The brutality of their actions are in direct contradiction of our supposed mission in Iraq (yeah, I know that keeps changing). Ultimately, their actions poke loud and clear to th rest of the village. US forces were in control, and they will do as they please.
100 years in jail might just give Cortez the time to mull this over.
Both of these events, targeted women in the most horrible way. Both of these events are loud, screaming, reminders that women are a huge causualty of war in many ways, all starting with the ability to control.
I'm now running late, and if I have time later today, I may expand on this.
Comments