Protecting the Women who Run for Office in Iraq

As Iraq begins to draw toward its long-delayed elections, many women running for office say they feel unsafe when listing their name on the ballot. So what to do to protect these women? Apparently the answer might be as simple as keeping their names secret on a ballot. This seems weird to many Americans -- much of campaigns are based on a candidate's personality, but in Iraq the revelation of a woman's name on a ballot can be deadly:

"I feel that I am unprotected," said the teacher, speaking by telephone on condition of anonymity because of her fears. "I am not going to run in the elections because I fear for the safety of members of my family who might be targeted."

In other countries that elect representatives on a proportional representation system, voters select a political party they feel best represents them, then however many seats the party wins determines how many people on the party's list will serve in office. This is the case in Iraq, with 25 percent of seats designated to women.

But the women in Iraq are fearful of running for office. They fear not only for their own lives, but for the lives of their families. In the instance of protecting women's right to run for office, it may be prudent to allow them to remain anonymous on the ballot. But my question becomes, what happens after these women are elected? They may be just as threatened after election as they are during the electoral process.

Iraq Rejects Christianity

Think Progress reports that a Marine got suspended for distributing Christianity materials to Sunni Muslims in Fallujah.

The incident has “enraged Iraqis who view it as the latest example of American disrespect for Islam.”

Apparently Bible-thumpers are even more annoying in Iraq than they are here.

Haifa Zangana on Iraq at WAM!

Haifa Zangana was the keynote speaker this morning at WAM! She talked of how women are targeted for rape in today's Iraq. The surge was designed, she said to bring in more troops to "clean" out terrorists. The label of terrorist, sadly is easily applied to anyone.

One of the real tragedies, she says, is the Iraqi refugees that have been displaced by the war. Refugees are dealing with poverty and forced prostitution. Unemployment in Iraq is as high as 60-70 percent among men and 90 percent among women, despite the fact that there are 1 million widows in Iraq today, Zangana said. Women have suffered greatly because of the Iraq war. Before the 2003 invasion, women had a lot of legal protections including equal employment laws, required maternity leave, and nurseries attached to factories. Zangana said she would have never believed that things could be worse for women than under Saddam's regime, but they are.

Sectarian violence has been inflamed by the Iraq invasion. What they are creating in Iraq, she says, is armed terrorist groups. Politically we have a "puppet government." Outside the Green Zone, she says, the government doesn't have much respect or power. On the streets, democracy is a joke. Mothers will say, '"Shut up, or I'll call democracy.' That's all that's left of democracy."

One particular story Zangana told was of a hospital -- desperately needed in Iraq -- has gone unfinished for years. Finally, last year, the American contractors called work on the hospital finished, despite the fact that the building is nowhere near complete. This is eerily representative of the state of Iraq today. There seems to be no clear way to "complete" the work that Bush started on Iraq. If we cannot even successfully build hospitals for the people of Iraq, how can we possibly hope to build a functioning democracy?

Death on the Home Front

The NYTimes this weekend had a long report on soldiers who have returned to the United States and committed a killing:

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and then killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.

The thing about this is that the DoD isn't inclined to take ownership of the killings, especially since a good chunk of them were committed after the soldiers become veterans and therefore beyond the DoD's jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the DoD's "no comment" stance on this issue is worse than if they addressed it head on.

The bad news is that when we train people to kill people sometimes it's really hard to turn that switch off, especially given the extreme and prolonged stress that these soldiers undergo in combat situations. We can't say that in every instance these killings can be chalked up to PTSD, but it's hard to ignore that combat stress has lasting effects. What I found saddest and most disturbing was that in a third of the circumstances, the victim was a family member. These wives, children, or close relatives are happy to see their soldiers return home, but they aren't the same. In many cases, these former soldiers also took their own lives.

It's becoming a more common story as troops return from the combat arena. The thing is, PTSD is treatable, and we should be pushing to make sure these kinds of incidents don't happen because the veteran gets treatment before he or she causes destruction. As the death toll is starting to subside in Iraq, it's important that we monitor it here as well.

Cross-posted on campusprogress.org/blog.

Iraq Is the New Black

The NYTimes finally did a story over the weekend about how visiting Iraq is the new black.

For members of Congress, visiting Iraq is a badge of honor, a license to stand on the House or Senate floor and begin a speech by saying, “When I was in Iraq ... .” Some keep going back; Representative Christopher Shays, the Connecticut Republican, just ended his 18th visit.

It's bizarre that lawmakers are fetishizing the war zone, especially when we know that when they visit, they're surrounded by Marines and armored vehicles. It's the ultimate example that some people are worth more.

Data Says the Surge Doesn't Work

Kevin Drumm put up some numbers from the Brookings Institution comparing this year and last year to see if the surge is working. Unsurprisingly, in almost every objective, measurable way, things are worse now than they were in the summer of 2006.

Still, when Petraeus (who the washingtonpost.com calls "overrated") delivers his report on September 11, it seems likely that it will be tailored to say that we're making progress that isn't necessarily political or security-based. What's infuriating is that conservatives will just try to convince the moderates that we just need more time to allow the surge to "work."

If this is the rate that the surge is going at, things could be even worse next year.

Cross-posted at campusprogress.org/blog.

Closed Borders for Women

As a feminist, this infuriates me. I try to be tolerant of religions, but this antiquated law that doesn't allow a woman to travel without permission from her father or husband. The problem with this is that it treats women as property. It's so infuriating, especially when it is a mandate of the state as a whole. The state is overwhelmingly Muslim, but still, there are many who don't subscribe to this overly patriarchal interpretation of the Koran. To impose such a belief on everyone is a huge injustice.

The real question is what to do about it. Well, nothing. Since there are so many other problems in Iraq right now, real human rights work is falling at the wayside. The only valid reason left for interfering in Iraq's internal politics, human rights, is a complete myth. So many people are suffering and fearing for their lives that in this state, women have trouble escaping to places where they can live freely.

The Case for Not Occupying Iraq, circa 1994

Thanks to Thomas for the link!

Admitting Defeat

It's hard. I know it's hard. No one likes to lose, especially Americans. But in a recent WSJ column, I was reminded of the ever-so-popular argument against any kind of funding reduction or timetable for troop withdrawal.

There is no precedent in American history for succeeding in a war when the commanders were taking battlefield direction from members of the House and Senate.

It sounds like someone is in denial. What the right still maintains is that somehow, this war is still "winnable," even if they're not really sure how to define a win. What I would like to hear from the right, like I'm starting to hear on the left, is what would be considered an end point. Right now, conservatives seem to be advocating a vague and indeterminate time in the future when the war will have been won, and peace and democracy reign in a free Iraq. In that case, we'd be there for not only months, not only years, but decades.

What much of the American public is starting to catch on to, along with what the left has known for a long time: that the war is hopeless, there's nothing more we can do, and the violence will only continue, no matter how many troops we may have on the ground.

Although the argument that Congress cannot manage a war is somewhat arguable, but I would say it holds little water. The people are using democracy to stop a government from doing something that they disapprove of -- using the good old checks and balances. Besides, saying that Congress is passing legislation that is unconstitutional is a bit in poor taste, when the Bush administration has taken to slashing up the constitution in any number of ways.

Guns and Girls

This AP photo that the WaPo had on its homepage tonight shows the reality that Iraqis are living with. Whose fault is it again? Oh yeah.

Female PTSD and Rape

The NYT magazine story about women in the military has some startling quotes from women:

''You're one of three things in the military - a bitch, a whore or a dyke,'' says Abbie Pickett, who is 24 and a combat-support specialist with the Wisconsin Army National Guard. ''As a female, you get classified pretty quickly.''

'They basically assume that because you're a girl in the Army, you're obligated to have sex with them,'' Suzanne Swift told me at one point.

Not so surprisingly, when approached for sex by their commanders, women feel coerced into saying yes, since the demand comes from a position of authority. The worst part is, these kinds of assaults seem to be on the rise in wartime. Although the VA has made progress in making it easier for women to report the assaults, it seems that women report that the overarching patriarchal culture discourages them from even reporting the assaults. There's a sense that women must fight the stereotype and be just as "tough" as the men.

I have problems with this attitude. Many women who work in extremely male-dominated fields seem to adopt attitudes about higher standards and an acceptance of harassment. By adhering to the standards, accepting the attitude, these women are in a way saying it's "okay" to treat women this way. It's true that the personal cost for reporting harassment is often discouraging enough, but I think we should reward the women that are willing to come forward and take a stance against such patriarchal dominance. No woman should have to choose among three choices: bitch, whore, or dyke.

They'll Spin You Right 'Round

The latest Republican fallacy that's circulating, and amplified by our trusty GOP frontrunner candidate, Rudy Giuliani, is that the mistake Bush was making is that we just didn't send enough troops in the first place. In an interview with Larry King yesterday, he said:

... the United States, which has had 120,000 to 160,000 troops at a time in Iraq, should have gone in with “maybe 100,000 to 130,000 more.”

I'm shocked at how Republicans are pretending this sounds logical. It's as if they are saying to themselves, Well, clearly the American military can never, ever lose at anything, so therefore we must not have blasted them with enough firepower in the first place. Sadly, they seem to forget that the international animosity toward Americans is actually fueled by our troop presence. The fact that we keep slowly filtering in or retaining more troops and it only seems to coincide with bloodier violence should signal that this theory doesn't work.

Furthermore, having 100,000 to 130,000 more troops would have meant a police state for the Iraqis. It seems that we just thought by sending in troops and overthrowing the government, we thought a functioning democracy would magically appear. An important question to ask GOP candidates who claim we came in with too few troops, is what kind of presence they envision for those thousands of troops.

My guess is, an alternative scenario with more troops would look just as ugly.