Bogus Solidarity (FINAL UPDATE – I’VE HAD IT)
by matttbastard
The inimitable Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings has been guest-blogging over at Andrew Sullivan’s place all week (congrats on the nuptials, Sully!) and has, IMO, been doing a bang up job. Big surprise, considering she’s one of the best writers in the blogosphere, hands down. Unfortunately, she (along with her fellow superlative guest-bloggers Steve Clemons of The Washington Note and Gregory Djerejian of The Belgravia Dispatch) have been forced to share the fill-in gig with one Jamie Kirchick, aka Marty Peretz’s Mini-Me assistant. Kirchick’s latest lazily sketched, Euston-shilling ‘woe is teh contemporary Left’ twaddle is ably destroyed by Hilzoy here. But in honour of Labour Day, I wanted to highlight a brief aside Jamie made that Hil didn’t explore in depth.
Sez Jamie:
Whereas once the AFL-CIO had a large and effective international office, you’d be hard-pressed to hear, for instance, what they’re doing for Iraqi trade-unionists.
Apparently Jamie hasn’t figured out that newfangled ‘Google‘ thingy. ‘Tis a pity, since it would probably have helped him discover this ongoing solidarity campaign, or maybe even brought him to the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center (which ineffectively “assists workers around the world who are struggling to build democratic and independent trade unions.”).
BTW, those woefully forsaken Iraqi trade unionists Jamie uses as a rhetorical cudgel to bash the AFL-CIO (and liberals/the Left in general) with? They aren’t too keen on one of Bush’s key benchmarks. Gee, imagine that – trade unionists fighting to prevent foreign-imposed privatization of a vital national industry. Oh, and they also aren’t exactly thrilled with the ongoing US-led occupation, either.
Neocon concern trolling about ‘solidarity’ with Iraqi unions is akin to movement wingers suddenly discovering women’s subjugation in the Middle East (‘Oh where oh where has teh feckless, vagina-monologuing Western feminazis been all these years?!’ Katha Pollitt pwns that bogus truism here.)
Have a great holiday weekend, folks.
Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers
(Increasingly shrill updates below the fold)
Alvaro Orozco Update: Pre-Removal Risk Assessment Results
by matttbastard
From Alvaro’s website:
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The Latest Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRAA) decision was released verbally yesterday to MP Olivia Chow’s office. the decision was negative, and Alvaro is now at risk of being deported more than ever.
It is now more imperative than ever that you contact Immigration Minister Diane Finley and request that she allow Alvaro to remain in Canada on compassionate and humanitarian grounds, because at this point a last-minute reprieve directly from the Immigration Minister is pretty much his only hope. As Mark @ Slap Upside The Head says:
I’m not sure what the Immigration Refugee Board is thinking, considering that Alvaro’s story has been published in the Nicaraguan media. Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether or not he can prove he’s gay at this point; his safety is threatened.
Parliament Hill Office:
Fax:(613) 996-9749
E-mail: finley.d@parl.gc.ca
Simcoe Riding Office:
Fx:(519) 426-0003
E-mail: finled1@parl.gc.ca
Dunville Riding Office:
Fx:(905) 774-9281
E-mail: finled1@parl.gc.ca
Funny Business.
by Isabel
Knoxville has an interesting way of dealing with KKK rallies.
Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes.
Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.
Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheered and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.
At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”
The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”
Normally I’m not really down with clowns (reading Stephen King’s ‘It’ at age 11 may leave you slightly scarred in that respect), but I would definitely let any one of those clowns shock me with their hand buzzer.
Edit: Fixed the links
Can We Cut the ‘Honourable’ Bullsh*t Now?
by matttbastard
Judging by Gen. Petraeus latest ’teh surge is too working’ interview, I don’t think the White House is going to be editing the Petraeus report that heavily. Not that this should come as a surprise.
“Start Angry, End Mad”
by matttbastard
There isn’t a brazen, two-bit, purse-snatching money caper you can think of that didn’t happen at least 10,000 times with your tax dollars in Iraq.
Was all prepared to highlight Matt Taibbi’s bile-inducing round-up of perpetual corporate malfeasance in Iraq (pigs gorging at the trough, US gov’t offering taxpayer-subsidized pearls before swine, [insert your own pork barrel metaphor here]) but can’t seem to muster the energy. Outrage fatigue? Hardly. More like ‘not enough epithets in the English language to properly encompass my disgust’.
Thankfully, the following tune by Brampton post-hardcore heroes Moneen says it better than I ever could (and with far less profanity):
“You’re nothing, you’re worthless, except for these verses.“
Update: Maybe American-style democracy is working in Iraq. They’ve certainly got the corruption down pat.
Recommend this post to Progressive Bloggers
At Least He Didn’t Make the Introduction in a Wet Suit
by matttbastard
Sure, they’re dancing to the beat of a different drummer (and the tune is apropos), but dude, come on – WTH does a world music dance party have to do with energy policy? Oh, and somebody should tell Jack Layton to work on his Michael Buffer impression. Kee-hrist.
Via Uncorrected Proofs.
Related: SES/Sun Media poll indicates NDP may hold balance of power in minority Liberal government. Haven’t we heard this song before?
Cooking the Books
by matttbastard
So how long before the GAO joins the CIA as a fixture in the rightie pantheon of bureaucratic liberal conspiracies? This is likely why the White House is handling the scripting for the Petraeus report:
The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version — as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Congress requested the GAO report, along with an assessment of the Iraqi security forces by an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, to provide a basis for comparison with the administration’s scorecard. The Jones report is also scheduled for delivery next week.
Also, that ‘astonishing Anbar success’ meme? Cernig sticks a pin in the inflated claims.
Update: And so it begins…
Carlson Doth Protest WAY Too Much
by matttbastard
Yep – nothing says ‘teh funny’ (and ‘teh masculine’) like bashing a fag’s skull against a bathroom stall. Alright, we get the point Tucker. You’re so not gay; you’re apparently an unindicted (and unrepentant) violent hate criminal.
(Also, take your long-past-the-best-before-date Clenis™ non-sequiturs and shove ‘em right up your oh-so-hetero ass, you ex-bow-tie-wearing fuckwad.)
Via TAPPED (with LOTS more @ Memeorandum).
Update: Pam Spaulding points to the following asscovering clarification statement Carlson’s camp sent to Media Matters today:
Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived. Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.
Once again:
“I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and … hit him against the stall with his head, actually.“
We report, you decide (yeah, yeah it was on MSNBC – same difference, lately.)
Update 2 (related): ‘GOP’ is to ‘hypocrisy’ as ‘Pope’ is to ‘Catholic’.
Update 08.30 (related): David Ehrenstein on ‘I’m-not-gays’ and the ‘Tearoom Trade’.
Recommend this post to Progressive Bloggers
Smoking Guns & Mushroom Clouds, Take Two
by matttbastard
US President George W. Bush branded the Islamic Republic “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” citing its backing of Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Shiite fighters killing US troops in Iraq.
“And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” he told the American Legion veterans group.
Larisa nails it: “Welcome to the next new war.”
More from Kyle, Larry Johnson and Shakes.
Related – Study: US preparing ‘massive’ military attack against Iran; Will Bunch says the foundation for an attack has been laid and Congress is preemptively marginalized.
PSA: Solidarity with Unison
by matttbastard
via Eric Lee @ LabourStart:
This week’s message is going to be very brief and to the point.
Workers employed in care homes in north London (UK) have been told by their employer — a private company called Fremantle — that their wages are being cut by 30%, their hours are being increased, their sick pay will be a thing of the past, and their pensions are being reduced.
Their union, Unison, is calling for an international campaign of support for those workers.
I actually live in north London, so this campaign is taking place in my own neighborhood.
If you live in the UK, you should be concerned that privatized care homes are treating their workers this way. If you live anywhere in the world and work in the public sector, you should be concerned because this could happen to you next.
It will take you only a few seconds to fill in your name and email address and to send a strong message to the chief executive of Fremantle. If we all take the time to do this, we can flood her inbox today with thousands of messages from all over the world — and we can turn this around.I know that I can count on you.
Please visit our campaign page now. And please do pass this message on. Thanks.
Eric Lee
PSA: Vote for MMP Online drive launched
by matttbastard
Vote for MMP today announced the launch of an online pledge and donation drive to reach millions of Ontario voters between now and the historic October 10 electoral reform referendum. On October 10, Ontarians will vote on whether to adopt the mixed member proportional (MMP) voting system recommended by the independent Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.
This morning the first wave of emails went out to tens of thousands of Ontario voters directing them to www.VoteforMMP.ca. On the campaign site, visitors are invited to sign the “MMP for Me!” pledge indicating their intention to vote for the mixed member proportional voting system.
In addition, visitors will be asked to donate just $10.10 – a figure reflecting the October 10 (or 10/10) referendum date.
“A single donation of $10.10 will not change the world,” said online campaign co-director Jim Harris. “But if thousands and then tens of thousands of ordinary voters see that together we can make history and build a stronger democracy – then all of those small donations will make a big difference.”
The MMP system was recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly after eight months of intensive study, consultation and deliberation. The Assembly included supporters of all parties and points on the political spectrum, as well as one voter from each riding in the province and reached a near unanimous conclusion to recommend MMP over the current first-past-the-post system. First-past-the-post voting was scrapped by most major democracies last century because it routinely distorts results, creates a huge portion of votes that elects no one, and usually hands majority control to a single party
without majority support.Vote for MMP is a citizens’ campaign organized to support the recommendation of the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. The campaign is building a multi-partisan network of grassroots supporters, as well as a growing list of prominent Ontarians, who support the move to MMP in the coming referendum.
12,500 Martyrs
by matttbastard
Via Feminist Peace Network, AFP has more details on the so-called ‘stable‘ part of Iraq:
Heshw Mohammed tried to kill herself three times when her father would not let her marry the man she loved, swallowing tablets and surviving only because her stomach was pumped.
Beautiful, timid and abused, she exemplifies what campaigners and medics warn is a disturbing increase in women killing themselves — largely by self-immolation — in northern Iraq’s relatively peaceful Kurdish provinces.
“My father forced me to marry someone else. We were engaged just 15 days, during which I tried three times to commit suicide,” says Heshw, her eyes cast down, her fingers clenching and unclenching.
[...]
“My father would kill me if I went home. He killed my boyfriend. I don’t have any hope for the future. I’m just sitting here, waiting,” she says, refusing refreshment, her expressionless voice barely more than a whisper.
Women’s campaigners say Heshw’s story is all too common. What is unusual is that she took pills. Most Iraqi Kurdish women drench their bodies in cooking fuel from head to toe and set fire to themselves.
[...]
“Every year there has been an increase in killing. Saying it’s a cooking accident is just a lie. We must put pressure on the government to change the law,” says Aso Kamal, a 42-year-old British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner.
He quotes from newspaper reports that from 1991 to 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of “honour” or committed suicide in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq; 350 in the first seven months of this year.
“We want to speak out about this. There is silence in Kurdistan. People say it’s a family matter. We want to change the patriarchal system in Kurdistan. Honour killing is against the law but the law is not being enforced,” he says.
As FPN notes, “women trying to flee the region are, in a word, screwed”, thanks to a national passport law that, as journalist Koral Tofiq reports, forces women to “first obtain the consent of their husband, father, uncle or brother” before they can get a passport.
Keep all this (and more) in mind the next time someone (especially the KRG and their PR reps) offers the Kurdish-controlled regions of Iraq as an example of a rare post-war ‘success story’.
Quickies
by Isabel
An interesting comparison between Dubya and Napoleon
French Egypt and American Iraq can be considered bookends on the history of modern imperialism in the Middle East. The Bush administration’s already failed version of the conquest of Iraq is, of course, on everyone’s mind; while the French conquest of Egypt, now more than two centuries past, is all too little remembered, despite having been led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career has otherwise hardly languished in obscurity. There are many eerily familiar resonances between the two misadventures, not least among them that both began with supreme arrogance and ended as fiascoes. Above all, the leaders of both occupations employed the same basic political vocabulary and rhetorical flimflammery, invoking the spirit of liberty, security, and democracy while largely ignoring the substance of these concepts.
Pentagon decides not to send US soldiers “Freedom Packages” (additional information about Left Behind: Eternal Forces)
Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that’s the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.
Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering “freedom packages” to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.
What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which “soldiers for Christ” hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.
NDP Fumbles on MMP
by matttbastard
This is (one of the reasons) why I don’t regret letting my party membership lapse. More from Uncorrected Proofs here. Money quote:
…[T]he Daily Dissidence and Jan From the Bruce hit the nail on the head when they point out that the NDP’s failure to campaign on MMP will further alienate the party in a campaign that will likely be dominated by the issues of education reform and electoral reform. The NDP’s weak position on both issues, which very much mirror the Liberal positions, will surely push the party to the sidelines. [...] Many progressive voters who care dearly about education reform and electoral reform may just drift to the Greens, who seem to have adopted solid and clear positions on what are sure to be important wedge issues.
Wake the fuck up and smell the frappuccino, Howard; MMP is the only thing that will save the Ontario NDP from succumbing to total irrelevance.
The Other Shoe (Finally) Drops
by matttbastard
Good riddance, about goddamn time, etc. Too bad the rumoured alternative [edit: or not, depending on whose unnamed sources you believe] isn’t much of an improvement.
Kyle has more, to which I’ll add this near-hysterical April 2007 WaPo op-ed (which clearly shows where that queasy feeling in Chertoff’s gut comes from) and this Nov 2006 speech Chertoff gave at the annual Federalist Society lawyers convention, in which the [edit: possibly] soon-to-be former DHS director (and Federalist Society alum) makes all too plain his far-right ideological pedigree.
Meet the new boss, etc…?
Related: Spackerman profiles the (soon to be) acting AG Paul Clement; Chertoffs likely possible replacement? You gotta be shitting me -Clay Johnson III sounds like Harriet Miers in BVDs.
Update: Always bet on black?
Global Women’s Rights Office? Yes, Please!
by Isabel
In honor of Women’s Equality Day (August 26), Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has announced that when the House reconvenes this fall, she will introduce a bill to equip the US government to advocate for global women’s rights. The legislation would establish a Commission on International Women’s Rights and a special State Department office to advise the president and secretary of state on international women’s issues. It would also give the president power to block US aid to governments found to be engaged in gross violations of women’s rights.
“In many countries, women are still being subjected to brutal honor killings, forced to obey repressive social norms, and rendered invisible in the eyes of the law,” said Maloney, a longtime women’s rights advocate in Congress. “My [law] recognizes that while we continue to wage the fight for true equality at home, we also have an obligation to help women everywhere break the binds of gender oppression.”
If this ends up happening (and the President actually ends up blocking aid to countries that encourage or turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of women), it will be a very good thing. Especially in light of things like this.
Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is…
by matttbastard
Conservatives represent the interests of “hard-working people who didn’t have the time to stage protests or the money to hire lobbyists.“
“Dear friends”, blah blah blah, “Conservative values”, blah blah blah, “Conservative accomplishments”, blah blah blah, Conservatives “work for the well-being of…people that work hard, and have no time to protest, and who don’t have the time to protest, or have the money to hire protesters.“
Stephen Harper: consistently full of it.
George Carlin FTW
But Can They Find the Map of Tassie?
by matttbastard
They will be asked questions about history, institutions and culture – as well as committing to Australian social values focusing on “mateship”.
The aim of the test was to get “that balance between diversity and integration correct in future”, said Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.
Critics believe the requirement of an English language exam discriminates against non-English speakers.
[...]
The prospective citizen will have to give a correct answer to 12 out of 20 questions – drawn from a total of about 200.
Some elements will almost certainly be beyond the knowledge of many ordinary Australians, says the BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney.
They include knowing the country’s first prime minister or when European settlers arrived in Australia – or what the opening line of the national anthem is. Another one could be related to the nation’s most important horse race.
Yeah, being aware that life Down Under comes to a grinding halt ’round Melbourne Cup time is certainly what I’d label essential knowledge if teh swarthy brown folks are to fully integrate into Australian society.
On a more serious note, despite the fervent denials of PM John Howard and other pols, there is a longstanding tradition of racism/nativism in Australian culture, and a majority of Australian citizens are all too aware of it. Therefore, this proposed citizenship test can’t be seen in a vacuum, and is almost certainly related to post-9/11 hysteria and resulting Australian anti-terror laws.
Beyond Australian borders, however, the test is just the latest example of what seems to be a growing permeation of xenophobia and nativism infecting much of the so-called ‘free world’ (a sentiment some have dismissed as universal and inevitable) in which a perceived influx of (non-white) immigrants are believed to be putting core Western values at risk (eg, the ‘Eurabia‘ theory). It reminds me of other recent similar loyalty citizenship tests containing sample questions that native-born citizens would be hard-pressed to answer, such as the proposed Hesse citizenship test in Germany (sample question: “Certain sports and athletes belong to the social and cultural image of the Federal Republic of Germany. Name three well-known German sporting personalities.”) or former UK PM Tony Blair’s call for ‘religious’ (read: Muslim) organizations to ‘prove’ their commitment to integration (especially the section pertaining to ‘mateship’, a concept which has in the past been associated with nativistic sentiment that has sometimes resulted in violent expression).
Once again I quote Gary Farber:
Schools need to thoroughly teach what freedom is actually made of, that it requires the rule of law, and how our laws have evolved, and why, and what injustices they’ve helped prevent, and why if America is to mean anything, it has to value these values.
And, of course, politicians also have to teach it. But that requires more bravery, and eloquence, than most possess.
Though in this instance Gary is referring specifically to the US, I believe his point holds true in a more universal sense for all so-called ‘free nations’, and highlights a broader issue: we have no right to expect those trying to take advantage of the freedoms supposedly offered by liberal democracies to know more about the minutia of a nation (let alone our essential values) than native-born citizens do. Nor should we allow an irrational fear of the other (or catastrophic events, such as the 7/7 bombings) to provoke a reactionary wholesale rejection of multiculturalism and its virtues.
Related: Voluntary homework for (native-born) Canadians: see if you could pass our citizenship test (no Googling allowed). Post your scores in comments.
Corporate Exploitation.
by Isabel
The sexualization of children (specifically young girls) is everywhere these days. Bratz Dolls are the new Barbie. You can’t walk into a children’s clothing store these days without seeing tiny mini skirts and skimpy or just plain inappropriate tops, it seems. Even then-12-year-old Dakota Fanning, most recently the star of Charlotte’s Web, had a stint shilling for Marc Jacobs.
Melinda Tankard Reist is the founding director of Women’s Forum Australia and editor of its new report on women’s magazines, Faking It. In an interview with MercatorNet, she discusses the widespread treatment of young girls as sexual objects for the purposes of marketing, and about the necessity of creating a global movement of women and girl advocacy.
A few highlights:
MercatorNet: Most of us have seen the little girls in miniskirts, platforms and boob tubes; we have heard about the bralettes and g-strings designed for them, and the sexy Bratz Babyz dolls. But tell us about the magazines for young girls — are they really so bad?
Melinda Tankard Reist: An analysis of the three most popular magazines for young girls — Barbie Magazine, Total Girl and Disney Girl — showed that about 50 per cent of the content of the last two was sexualising material. For Barbie it was no less than 75 per cent. This is really bad because these magazines are aimed at girls from five or six years old and up. Around a third of girls aged six to 12 read one or more of them. The pages are full of advice on fashion, beauty and products. Lip gloss, perfumes, deoderants and hair styling products are promoted as must-haves for primary school girls. Along with this they can get “hot gossip”. Little girls are shown how to look and behave like pop stars, including how to do “sexy” dance moves.
One Barbie Magazine issue was touted as a “cute crush issue”, with images of teenage boys and men up to 30 years of age and comments such as “who’s your celeb dream date”. This can lead to girls being prepped for sexual advances from men. We know that this is happening to some girls who use social networking sites on the internet. Popular culture, including magazines, prepare them to be approached by men sexually and the internet provides the opportunity. An Australian, Jim Bell, who served time for child pornography offences, wrote an article justifying himself on precisely this ground. He said society allowed sexualised images of children in television, pop music and fashion, and the world of internet child porn merely completes the process. He had a point.
PSA: Justice for Sara Jaffar Nimat!
by matttbastard
Update 08/26: Based on the information contained in Azadiya Welat’s comment, I have sent the following email to OWFI: After drafting a blog post on honor killings in Kurdish Iraq, a commenter brought to my attention the fact that Khanaqin, the city where the vicious stoning of Sara Jaffar Nimat occurred, is actually still under the control of the Diyala governorate, not the autonomous Kurdish region, although last year the town council voted to be separated from control of the Diyala governorate and be allowed to join the Autonomous Kurdistan region, with a referendum scheduled for December 2007.
At this time, what effect if any will petitioning representatives of the KRG have with regards to bringing ‘immediate justice’ to Sara Jaffar Nimat? Should I not be directing my readers to petition the Diyala governorate/central Iraqi government with regards to this specific incident?
Further clarification on this apparent discrepancy would be greatly appreciated.
Will update further once I have received a response.
Via OWFI:
Condemn another hideous stoning of an 11 years old girl inKurdistan
Sara Jaffar Nimat is an 11-year-old girl from the town of Khanaqin in Iraqi Kurdistan. She was murdered on the 3rd August.
The painful, degrading and horrific killing of Sara is another outrageous crime against young girls and women in Kurdistan. Sara was only in fifth grade at school. Loved by her friends, they played together on the night she was killed.
Sara’s body was found in a nearby empty building. It had been hit by bricks, stones, and then burnt. There is not much information yet about who committed such a barbaric crime against an innocent young girl.
Killings of young girls and women in Kurdistan are rapidly rising and such killings occur even more openly than before. After the murder of Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl stoned to death in public, at least another 40 women have been killed – among them Amina, a 12 year old girl killed by her father, under the pretext that she was “in love with a neighbor”, and Sara an 11-year-old.
We have consistently demanded that the government in Kurdistan must bring to justice those responsible for these terrible murders, but it seems that compromising with tribes and war lords, and neglecting women’s rights are more high up on the agenda of the parties in power than protecting women at risk. Therefore violence against women is now targeting females who are as young as 11 years old.
This is a dangerous situation; our society is not safe for its women. Our streets, homes, and buildings, are all places which murder takes place in them. Women can no longer trust their male relatives; they fear their own fathers, brothers, and husbands. What kind of society is this if women don’t feel safe at any time or place?
We strongly condemn this horrific killings and demand immediate justice for Sara.
We call upon all of you to write letters of protest to the Kurdistan Regional Government demanding:
-Justice for Sara, Amina, Du’a and many more women and girls who have been killed.
-end to all kinds of violence against women and so called honour killings.
-recognizing women as a human being and consider equal rights for them by law.
Houzan Mahmoud
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq- Representative Abroad
houzan73@yahoo.co.uk www.equalityiniraq.com
09/08/2007
After the cut, contact information for the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Everywoman on honour killings.
Alas, Poor IraqSlogger, I Knew It Well
by matttbastard
Is Eason Jordan on crack?!?! $80 (US) a month?! ($60 if one subscribes before October 1st. Yeah, I’ll be getting right on that post fucking haste.)
Quote of the Day: Michael Vick Edition
by matttbastard
Americans pay devoted, emotional and hypocritical lip service to their love of animals. I say hypocritical because many of the individuals that work themselves into a lather at the hint of a cross word or look at an animal won’t utter a peep in protest to stop the killing and maiming of old men, women, and children in Iraq. They won’t send a letter, fax or email to protest the genocide in Darfur and the Congo, or that occurred in Rwanda. They were stone-silent on the hundreds of men that rotted on America’s death row for years and came within a hairs breath of having their lives snuffed out but were later exonerated. But animals are different the animal rights defenders say. They can’t defend themselves. The inference is that humans can. Try selling that tired, self-serving line to the victims of war, genocide and the injustices in the criminal justice system. They are dead, precisely because they were defenseless.
- Earl Ofari Hutchison, America’s Wildly Overblown Vick Hysteria, Alternet
Strange Bedfellows
by matttbastard
This is interesting – Bloomberg reports that former Carter admin National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has endorsed Barack Obama:
Obama “recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world,” Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”
[...]
“There is a need for a fundamental rethinking of how we conduct world affairs,” he added. “And Obama seems to me to have both the guts and the intelligence to address that issue and to change the nature of America’s relationship with the world.”
Strangely enough, despite the ringing endorsement from “America’s most notable foreign policy realist“, Obama is being advised on foreign policy by unrepentant liberal interventionist Ivo “Concert of Democracies” Daalder of the Brookings Institution. That, coupled with Obama’s now-infamous close relationship with Joe Lieberman, has me reconsidering my somewhat reflexive antipathy towards Senator Clinton (and questioning Brzezinski’s judgment).
Update: Hilzoy’s take on the Brzezinski endorsement.
Signs of the End (and a Reminder That All is Still Right With The World)
by matttbastard
File under: blind squirrel finds nut – Jim Hoagland gets it; Josh Marshall is stunned. Oh, and ‘Republican rebellion’ my dirty hippy ass. John Warner is still a two-faced sack of opportunistic shit:
The senator, after a meeting with White House aides, told reporters: “We simply cannot as a nation stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action.”
But he did not go as far as saying that he would support Democratic members of Congress who are likely to renew their attempts to pass legislation to set a timetable. So far only a handful of Republicans have joined them.
For christ’s sake, until you’re willing to put a vote on the table, STFU.
Northern Kabuki
by matttbastard
Sure, it’s obviously an opportunistic desperation ploy on the part of an increasingly irrelevant party. But damn if Duceppe doesn’t have my vote – were it not for the niggling matter of separatism, the lack of available candidates west of Hull, and the fact that, like Stephane Dion (who ‘doesn’t like to make threats‘) he’s totally full of shit with his half-assed MOR ‘wait till 2009′ cop-out. Who wants to bet that, come September, Duceppe and Dion, eyes firmly fixed on the tea leaves, quietly back down from their courageously vague insinuations?
Look, Stephane – you and Gilles need to get together, stop the egotistical bullshit, and come up with a plan to get Canadian troops out of there. Period. The sooner they come home, the better. If you guys actually had any cajones, you’d start calling for a troop withdrawal now – not in 2009. How many more soldiers will have to die while you wait this out? That’s the bottom line.
Sounds to me like LC has been spending too much time listening to those dirty fucking hippies in the NDP. Pshhh – as if we should expect Serious™ elected officials to actually entertain wacky proposals like immediate withdrawal. Why, what would the neighbours say?
PSA: Justice for Osvaldo Lorenzo
by matttbastard
Via Eric Lee @ LabourStart
Solidarity Campaign Panama: Worker shot dead and two seriously wounded in the conflict involving Norberto Odebrecht. ACT NOW!
On 14 August 2007, the confrontations between representatives of Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Construcción Perforaciones de Panamá (SINDICOPP, company union) and members of SUNTRACS in Panama led to the murder of SUNTRACS’ activist Osvaldo Lorenzo in Chilibre. Two other workers, Carlos Colindres and José Castillo, were seriously wounded. The company involved is Norberto Odebrecht which is building the highway Panama-Colón.
According to the latest information, Panama’s Fourth Superior Prosecutor has charged two workers of the Odebrecht construction company. For some time now, the company union has been preventing workers from becoming members of SUNTRACS.
The BWI has extended its solidarity to the union and has launched an online campaign. In a protest message to the Labour Minister of Panama, BWI General Secretary requests a thorough investigation into the facts put forward by SUNTRACS. For several years now, the BWI and its affiliates have been accusing the company of violating workers’ rights in various countries.
BWI has a protest message here (in Spanish) requesting a ‘thorough investigation’ of this incident that can be signed and forwarded to Reynaldo Rivera, Labour Minister of Panama.
Deliberate Provocation @ Montebello? (Updated)
by matttbastard
Oh, those violent anti-SPP protesters. *cluck cluck, tut tut, etc*
Update: File under ‘teh shocking!’ CBC News: “Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.“
Related: Naomi Klein has more on the ‘security state as infotainment‘:
Yes, it’s true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to “protest-trons” inside the summit enclave.
[...]
The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. “Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be.”
It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit – the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read? According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders’ commitment to direct, unmediated consultation. Elections are a crude tool for taking the public temperature – these methods allow constant, exact monitoring of our beliefs. Think of surveillance as the new participatory democracy; of wiretapping as the political equivalent of MTV’s Total Request Live.
Update 08/24: Harper might want to put a muzzle on his yappy Public Safety Minister before Stockboy completely buries what little credibility he has left. Greg Weston asked a pertinent question several months ago that bears repeating: “Why is Stockwell Day still in charge of the Mounties?”
More from Adam Radwonksi on the apparent inability of the Surete du Quebec (and Stockwell Day) to get that newfangled YouTube thingy to work (see video above – again).
Hump Day Music Spotlight: Wild Kingdom
by matttbastard
Animal Collective – Peacebone (Domino)
Eugene McGuinness – Monsters Under The Bed (Domino)
Califone - 3 Legged Animals (Thrill Jockey)
You Knew This Was Coming
by matttbastard
With a tough battle with Congress over the future of the war expected to come in September, President Bush offered a rousing defense of his Iraq policy today, declaring that he envisions an American victory there and asserting that a hasty withdrawal by the United States would unleash a bloodbath reminiscent of the Vietnam War era.
Mr. Bush accused the Congress of planning to “pull the rug out from under” American troops. He said the American pullout from Vietnam more than 32 years ago was to blame for millions of deaths in Cambodia and Vietnam, and for putting a dent in American credibility that lasts to this day.
[...]
“The question now before us comes down to this,” he said. “Will today’s generation of Americans resist the deceptive allure of retreat, and do in the Middle East what veterans in this room did in Asia?”
With his comments, Mr. Bush tried something that few leading politicians of either party have tried in a generation: Reopening the national argument over the Vietnam War, a conflict that ended more than three decades ago but has remained an emotional national touchstone. [full text of speech available here - mb]
You know what? He’s right. If the US leaves Iraq, there will be carnage. But there already has been and will continue to be carnage, regardless. Iraq is a failed state, and there is nothing that anyone–least of all the Bush admin–can do about that at this point. Fluff your base with revisionist Vietnam fantasies and misguided South Korean analogies all you want. Sharpen the knives for us and we’ll thrust to the hilt; as Atrios likes to say, you can’t fucking unshit the bed. Arthur Silber points to an Amy Goodman interview with Nir Rosen:
Iraq has been changed irrevocably, I think. I don’t think Iraq even — you can say it exists anymore. There has been a very effective, systematic ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad, of Shias –from areas that are now mostly Shia. But the Sunnis especially have been a target, as have mixed families like the one we just saw. With a name like Omar, he’s distinctly Sunni — it’s a very Sunni name. You can be executed for having the name Omar alone. And Baghdad is now firmly in the hands of sectarian Shiite militias, and they’re never going to let it go.
[...]
It’s too late for anything good to happen in Iraq, unfortunately. If the Americans stay, we’ll see a continuation of this civil war, of ethnic cleansing, until all of Iraq is sort of ethnically — or sectarian, homogenous zones, which is basically what’s already happened. If the Americans leave, then you’ll see greater intervention of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, supporting their own militias in Iraq and being drawn into battle.
But no matter what, Iraq doesn’t exist anymore. Baghdad will never be in the hands of Sunnis again. Baghdad will be controlled by Shia militias. They’ve been cleansing all the Sunnis from Baghdad. So Sunnis are basically being pushed out of Iraq, period. They can go to the Anbar Province, which isn’t a very friendly place. I think you’ll see that there won’t be any more elections in Iraq. Maliki is the last prime minister Iraq will have for a long time. There is neither the infrastructure for elections anymore, nor the desire to have them, nor the ability of Iraqi groups to cooperate anymore. So what you’ll see is basically Mogadishu in Iraq: various warlords controlling small neighborhoods. And those who are by major resources, such as oil installations, obviously will be foreign-sponsored warlords who will be able to cut deals with us, the Chinese. But Iraq is destroyed, and I think we’ll see that this will spread throughout the region, and this will destabilize Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, as well.
Once more, with feeling: You can’t fucking unshit the bed.
Related: via Think Progress, historian Richard Dallek is baffled by Bush’s “distortion” of Vietnam:
“It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president,” he said in a telephone interview.
“We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,” he said.
“What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,” he continued. “We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.”
I’m sure this has already been noted elsewhere, but it seems clear to me that Bush [edit: or, rather, Bush's speech writers] cribbed much of the ‘boggling’ theme of today’s speech from this 2005 Foreign Affairs essay by former Nixon Defense Secretary Melvin Laird:
The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we withdrew in 1973. In fact, we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory two years later when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. Over the four years of Nixon’s first term, I had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of the majority of our forces while building up South Vietnam’s ability to defend itself. My colleague and friend Henry Kissinger, meanwhile, had negotiated a viable agreement between North and South Vietnam, which was signed in January 1973. It allowed for the United States to withdraw completely its few remaining troops and for the United States and the Soviet Union to continue funding their respective allies in the war at a specified level. Each superpower was permitted to pay for replacement arms and equipment. Documents released from North Vietnamese historical files in recent years have proved that the Soviets violated the treaty from the moment the ink was dry, continuing to send more than $1 billion a year to Hanoi. The United States barely stuck to the allowed amount of military aid for two years, and that was a mere fraction of the Soviet contribution.
Yet during those two years, South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy. Peace talks continued between the North and the South until the day in 1975 when Congress cut off U.S. funding. The Communists walked out of the talks and never returned. Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun. We saved a mere $297 million a year and in the process doomed South Vietnam, which had been ably fighting the war without our troops since 1973.
I believed then and still believe today that given enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending itself, just as I believe Iraq can do the same now. From the Tet offensive in 1968 up to the fall of Saigon in 1975, South Vietnam never lost a major battle. The Tet offensive itself was a victory for South Vietnam and devastated the North Vietnamese army, which lost 289,000 men in 1968 alone. Yet the overriding media portrayal of the Tet offensive and the war thereafter was that of defeat for the United States and the Saigon government. Just so, the overriding media portrayal of the Iraq war is one of failure and futility.
Vietnam gave the United States the reputation for not supporting its allies. The shame of Vietnam is not that we were there in the first place, but that we betrayed our ally in the end.
[...]
The president must articulate a simple message and mission. Just as the spread of communism was very real in the 1960s, so the spread of radical fundamentalist Islam is very real today. It was a creeping fear until September 11, 2001, when it showed itself capable of threatening us. Iraq was a logical place to fight back, with its secular government and modern infrastructure and a populace that was ready to overthrow its dictator. Our troops are not fighting there only to preserve the right of Iraqis to vote. They are fighting to preserve modern culture, Western democracy, the global economy, and all else that is threatened by the spread of barbarism in the name of religion. That is the message and the mission. It is not politically correct, nor is it comforting. But it is the truth, and sometimes the truth needs good marketing.
[...]
As it did in Vietnam, in Iraq the enemy has sought to weaken the United States’ will by dragging out the hostilities. In Vietnam, that strategy was reflected in a bottomless well of men, sophisticated arms, and energy the enemy threw into the fight. Similarly in Iraq, the insurgents have pinpointed the weakness of the American public’s will and hope to exploit it on a much smaller scale, with the weapon of choice being the improvised explosive device, strapped to one person, loaded into a car or hidden at a curb, and with the resulting carnage then played over and over again on the satellite feed. But one lesson learned from Vietnam that is not widely recognized is that fear of casualties is not the prime motivator of the American people during a war. American soldiers will step up to the plate, and the American public will tolerate loss of life, if the conflict has worthy, achievable goals that are clearly espoused by the administration and if their leadership deals honestly with them.
[...]
President Bush does not have the luxury of waiting for the international community to validate his policies in Iraq. But we do have the lessons of Vietnam. In Vietnam, the voices of the “cut-and-run” crowd ultimately prevailed, and our allies were betrayed after all of our work to set them on their feet. Those same voices would now have us cut and run from Iraq, assuring the failure of the fledgling democracy there and damning the rest of the Islamic world to chaos fomented by extremists. Those who look only at the rosy side of what defeat did to help South Vietnam get to where it is today see a growing economy there and a warming of relations with the West. They forget the immediate costs of the United States’ betrayal.
Update 08/23: Oh for fuck’s sake. Remember when Bush tried to claim he had graduated from My Pet Goat to Camus’ The Stranger? Obviously comprehension is still a work in progress (that apparently goes double for his speechwriters). Digby gives the hapless latter-day Bibliophile-in-Chief a D minus.
Haleh Esfandiari Update
by matttbastard
BBC News reports that jailed Iranian-American academic Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been released from Evin Prison after being arrested on May 8th. According to the Wilson Center, after being held for 21 days, Dr. Esfandiari was “formally charged with espionage and “endangering national security through propaganda against the system.”” (The Wilson Center has published a timeline of events [current as of July 26] relating to the arrest and detention of Dr Esfandiari, available in .doc format here.)
Despite her release, it is still unclear whether Dr. Esandiari will be allowed to return home to the US. And she’s not alone. Other Iranian-American nationals accused of “acting against national security by engaging in propaganda against the Islamic republic by the method of spying on behalf of foreigners” still being held in Iran (either imprisoned or as so-called ‘soft hostages’ not allowed to leave the country) include academic Kian Tajbakhsh, RFE-RL journalist Parnaz Azima and peace activist Ali Shakeri (more from IFEX).
And don’t think these detentions are unrelated to the $75 million destabilization ‘democracy promotion’ program undertaken by the Bush administration earlier this year (I’m sure the recent designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a ‘terrorist’ organization is also paying measurable dividends for reformers and dissidents, too). Ezra Klein and Brad Plumer have more on how US efforts at destabilization ‘democracy promotion’ in Iran have predictably resulted in crackdowns by Tehran on internal dissent (heck’uva job, etc).
Related: Akbar Ganji, labeled “Iran’s leading political dissident” by The Boston Review, gives his prescription for effectively fostering change in Iran.
Flashback: ‘An Inappropriate Endorsement’ (or, the enemy of my enemy is not my ally).
Breaking News: Double Standards Still Suck
by Isabel
The following lists have been posted by PC Bloggs, a British police officer, who also just happens to be a blogger. These are real supervisor notes, taken after rapes have been reported to the police.
1. Incident:
Caller reporting her 17-year-old daughter was raped last night by two named offenders after going out drinking at her local pub. Daughter is very distressed and sore.
Update from supervisor:
Officers to attend and establish the following:
1. Is the daughter making an allegation?
2. Names and descriptions of alleged offenders.
3. How much alcohol was consumed?
4. If allegation is being made, locate scene.
5. Will the victim attend court?
6. If allegation could be true, will she consent to a medical?2. Incident:
Caller reporting her 18-year-old son was raped last night by a male known to him, following a party at his house. Son is in pain and upset.
Update from supervisor:
Officers to attend and establish the following:
1. Locate the crime scene.
2. Arrange medical examination and take victim to rape suite.
3. Name/description of offender.
4. Preserve forensic evidence, seize clothing.
You may notice some discrepencies:
- at no point is the word “alleged” used in the male notes
- the amount of alcohol consumed by the male is not an issue, but the amount consumed by the female is
The male is seen as a victim, no questions asked. The female may be complicit in her own rape by being so slutty as to get drunk in public, and besides, she might be lying anyway.
Yeah, we don’t really need feminism anymore. Obviously, men and women are receiving equal treatment.
#rebelleft
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