Iraqis Commandeer Women's Shelter co-founded by Nashville attorney

[NashVegas]

http://tennessean.com/local/archives/05/01/65416021.shtml?Element_ID=65416021

A safe house in Baghdad for abused and threatened women — a refuge that a Nashville Army Reserve major helped establish — has fallen.

But rebels didn't take it. Instead, with no advance warning, the interim Iraqi president ordered the eviction of the women and staff, according to a U.S. Embassy daily report.

(snip)

'The President's office also questioned why there was a women's refuge inside the Green Zone and complained that it could become a center for a 'homeless mafia.' ''

The green zone is an area in Baghdad that is heavily secured by the military. Three women and a 5-year-old child forced to leave the safe house were given temporary shelter by a U.S. Army civil affairs unit, the memo said.

....

Many officials had wanted the house, according to the embassy memo.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Or maybe worse.

[Spinzonner]

1. Let Feudalism Reign

[Redstone]

2. Battered women = "homeless mafia?"

It's a new low in cynical bullshit doublespeak.

Oh, I can just see it now; gangs of bruised women and little kids, roaming the streets of the city, breaking shopkeepers' kneecaps if they don't pay the "vig" on time.

Wow, good thing the president of Iraq is keeping his eyes open for such dangerous developments, isn't it?

What a guy.

Redstone

[TacticalPeek]

3. They are lucky Allawi did not execute them. He does that, you know.

Anderson writes: "The man ... described how Allawi had been taken to seven suspects, who were made to stand against a wall in a courtyard of the police station, their faces covered. After being told of their alleged crimes by a police official, Allawi had asked for a pistol, and then shot each prisoner in the head. Afterward, the witness said, Allawi had declared to those present, 'This is how we must deal with the terrorists.' The witness said he approved of Allawi's act, adding that, in any case, the terrorists were better off dead, for they had been tortured for days."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/US-official-confirms-Allawi-shot-six-dead/2005/01/18/1105810916006.html