Tuesday, November 08, 2011

His river of no return

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O DOESN'T WANT TO BE A BRAINLESS AND BRALESS STARLET BUT "FACTS IS TOUGH," HE CONFESSED TO THESE REPORTERS.

THOUGH SOME DAYS HE DREAMS OF PLAYING GRUSHENKA MOST DAYS HE JUST BATHES HIMSELF IN CHANEL NO. 5 WITH A SPRITZ OF JOY AND CALLS FOR THE WHITE HOUSE TUTOR WHO WILL COACH HIM ON THE RECESSION AND WHETHER IT IS ONGOING OR OVER.

"IT'S A LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU MIGHT THINK," BARRY O ASSURED THESE REPORTERS.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

We'll start by dropping back to last Wednesday when the Senate's Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women's Issues held a joint-hearing with the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs. Senators Barbara Boxer and Bob Casey co-chaired the hearing. Senator Jim DeMint was the Ranking Member. What stood out the most?
How important Hillary Clinton's work on women's issue in the 90s was.
Dismissed, attacked and belittled in the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, even Barbara Boxer had to acknowledge the work when introducing witness Melanne Verveer who worked with Hillary on women's rights while Hillary was First Lady. So much heavy lifting did Hillary do during that period that even Republican Senator Jim DeMint had to acknowledge her and quote her ("Women's rights are human rights."). Hillary created a benchmark which can still be used as a benchmark.
Subcommittee Chair Barbara Boxer: But I want to talk about why we thought this was a very timely and important hearing and, from the attendance here, I think we were right. In December 2010, the world turned its attention to Tunisia after a young street vendor set himself on fire to protest the government's unjust treatment of the Tunisian people. His actions and his subsequent death sparked widespread protests and within weeks the government fell. Since then we have seen dictators toppled in Egypt and Libya and anti-government protests erupt from Syria to Yemen. And, in each of these countries, we've seen women fighting for change -- whether it was the young female students marching in Tahrir Square or the women in Yemen who took to the streets in their veils in a sign of defiance. These women have much at risk and their courage has inspired women around the world.
Ambassador Melanne Verver noted Mahnaz Afkhami "was the minister for women in Iran at the time of the revolution and as she was mentioning nobody thought that revolution was going to create the theocracy and the kind of Iran that exists today."
Appearing as witnesses at the hearing were five women. As already noted, Melanne Verveer was one. She's the US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issue. The State Dept's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and Deputy Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions, Dr. Tamara Wittes and Verveer made up the first panel. The second panel was Women's Learning Partnership's president Mahnaz Afkhami, Freedom's president and CEO Sandra Bunn-Livingstone and a name this community is already familiar with: Manal Omar. She is the United States Institute of Peace's Director of Iraq, Iran and North Africa Programs.
We know Manal Omar's work from interviews and speeches she's given and most of all from her book Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity -- My Own and What it Means to be a Woman in Chaos which we've noted here many times and which, at Third, we picked as one of the ten most important books of the last ten years. And since our Iraq is our focus, that's who we would emphasize, right?
Wrong. She had no interest in Iraq -- it rated a fleeting single sentence mention and that was when it was lumped in with other countries. Oh well, at least she got a book out of the country, right? In fairness to her, none of the senators demonstrated interest in Iraq either.
Considerable time was spent by Senator DeMint addressing religious freedom in the Middle East. He and Bunn-Livingstone were very interested, for example, in the targeting of Christians in Egypt. Apparently Iraqi Christians can just rot in the hell the US government has created for them?
Joining them in that US created hell will be not just Iraqi Christian women but all Iraqi women. I asked a senator (not named above) who briefly participated in the nonsense hearing how in the world this hearing takes place with no recognition or acknowledgement of Iraq and was told (this is a direct quote), "Come on, you know we don't want to face what we've done to that country." Exactly.
Another senator (who is named above) told me after the hearing that Iraq "isn't really part of the Arab spring." And Libya is? Seriously? That was civil protestors conducting aerial night bombings of Tripoli? As for Iraq and the Arab Spring, of course that got avoided. No way in the world is the US Senate ready to get honest about that.
Nouri ordered protesters attacked, you may remember. The US government looked the other way. February 25th, Nouri ordered the press assaulted. The US government looked the other way. Nouri spied on protesters via electronic devices that track cell phones and internet use. The US government didn't look the other way. No, the US government sold a would-be Saddam Hussein that equipment. Nouri demonized the protesters, in speech after speech, as "Ba'athists." The US government looked the other way. Hadi Mehdi -- journalist, activist and critic of Nouri -- is murdered in his own home and Nouri's security forces are the chief suspect. The US government looked the other way.
And it was cute to watch as the US Senate endorsed that response (looking the other way) by refusing to address Iraq in the hearing. I think Gore Vidal needs to change his United States of Amnesia which was always far too kind of a description of the government's actions and motives. We're living in the United States of Denial.
And in this land, according to the Department of Justice Statistics reported by Lynn Langton ("Women in Law Enforcement, 1987 - 2008"), women are a visible part of law enforcement:
By 2007, nearly 4,000 state police, 19,4000 sheriff's and 55,3000 local police officers were women. In 2008, across 62 reporting federal law enforcement agencies there were about 90,000 sworn officers, of whom approximately 18,200 (20%) were women. These 2007 and 2008 numbers suggest a combined total of almost 100,000 female sworn officers nationwide in federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
What's it like to be a police woman in Iraq? Kholoud Ramzi (niqash) answers that question in a lengthy report detailing how police women "cannot wear uniforms or badges of rank because male officers don't want to salute them." I'm remembering Barbara Boxer's encounter with the military in one hearing where she corrected the witness and informed him he could call her "Senator" because she'd earned that title. It's a shame her concern is only with what she earned and that she receives respect. Iraqi women will have to look elsewhere to find someone concerned about their right to respect and what they've earned. Ramzi reports:
Ministry of Interior official statistics indicate that there are around 600 women among the ranks of the country's police. There are also 4,150 plainclothes policewomen working in inspections -- that is, they man security checkpoints on roads and in places like offices, airports and other public areas where security is required.
Besides not being able to show their rank, most policewomen also are not allowed to wear their uniforms on the street. They arrive at work in civilian clothing, then change into uniform during the working day and then must change back into civilian clothing before leaving their place of work. This is ostensibly to keep the female officers safe. But questions arise as to whether this rule is in fact motivated by social opinions because male officers are not expected to do the same.
Sexism within the police force doesn't stop here. In Iraq, a policewoman's work is usually restricted to administrtaion or to working at a checkpoint. More physical or dangerous activity outside of the office is left to male officers and generally there is the perception that women cannot peform these more demanding tasks.
Ramzi notes that the situation is better in the Kurdistan Regional Government where "police women can work as investigators on criminal cases and they are able to wear uniforms as well as badges of rank." Michael M. Gunter (Foreign Policy) looks at Kurdish nationalism in the Middle East and this is from his section on the Middle East:

In Iraq, of course, autonomy had already been achieved with the creation of the KRG following the Gulf War in 1991 and the KRG's constitutional recognition in 2003. However, many wonder what will happen to the KRG once remaining U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011. Already the KRG and Baghdad have come perilously close to blows over Kirkuk and their disputed internal border, often referred to as "the trigger line."

Will the KRG and Baghdad begin fighting once the U.S. troops are no longer there to separate them? In addition, despite warming economic and even political relations between Turkey and the KRG, Turkey began bombing PKK militants in northern Iraq in August 2011 and then even sent troops over the border to pursue them in October. Turkey also asked the KRG for help in these efforts, even though it is clear that the KRG does not want to fight against fellow Kurds in the PKK. Iran, too, has been shelling the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) -- dissident Iranian Kurds -- entrenched just over the border in northern Iraq. How will all this play out once U.S. troops are withdrawn and both Turkey and Iran have a freer hand in intervening in northern Iraq? It remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Kurds have had their own "Kurdish Spring" of sorts. First, the anti-corruption Gorran (Change) Party split the long-entrenched Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the KRG elections held on July 25, 2009. Subsequently, violent demonstrations broke out in Sulaymaniya on February 17, 2011, the KRG's second largest city, and continued until they were forcibly curtailed by the KRG leadership on April 19.


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)