Basra's militias murder 'un-Islamic' women

[sabra]

Source: Sunday Times

Tossed from a car and shot in cold blood
Marie Colvin in Basra

IT WAS just after 11pm and the shopkeeper was closing up for the night when a van screeched to a halt outside. The back doors flew open. “Someone inside threw a woman onto the street,” he said. “She was lying on the road but she was still alive. A man lent out and shot a machine-gun into her body.”

As the van raced away, the shopkeeper ran over to her. She was aged 25 to 30 with long dark hair and was lying face up. “There was so much blood,” he said. “The police just took a photograph and put her in the back of a van.”

There have been 48 women killed in six months for “un-Islamic behaviour”. The murders in the teeming southern port of Basra have highlighted the weakness of the security forces and the strength of Islamic militias as Britain prepares to hand over control to Iraqi officials today.

...

Gordon Brown told the Commons last week that Iraq was now a democracy, that violence in Basra had fallen by 90% and that the Iraqis were “taking control over their own security”.

However, Major-General Jalil Khalaf, the police chief, said the city’s 28 militias were better armed than his men. “They control the ports which earns them huge sums of money” he said.

...

During four days of reporting independently in Basra – the first western journalist to do so for a British newspaper in almost two years – I met a Baghdad official who had come to investigate the port. He was abducted, tortured and freed only after a “gift” was promised to the kidnappers.


Read more: http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3056693.ece

[951-Riverside]

1. Absoutely disgusting n/t

[Auntie Bush]

2. Another thing to thank bush for. Those poor women over there who

used to be free. Thanks George! Gee, we have so much to thank him for.
All that freedom is so overwhelming!

[MH1]

3. So, how's that go again...

"they're better off now that we brought them freedom and democracy"?

:sarcasm:

:banghead:

[theredpen]

4. Yay! We put these guys in power! Yay! Go "Freedom"! Bush is a genius!

[mainer]

5. So after they kill all the women, how're they going to procreate?

I don't understand these men. They have just made it all the harder to find wives. Too bad these poor women can't just flee and leave the men to die a lonely old age.

[eib1]

18. If the majority of them die,

it's lonely old age for the men any way.
They're stupid.
It's the only explanation.

[Triana]

6. If HUCKABEE is selected as American Taliban leader in the US...

...the same will be happening here.

[fujiyama]

10. No it won't. That's just nonsensical.

We have our problems with misogyny and Christian fundamentalists are bigoted ass holes that want to tear apart the Constitution and establish a theocracy...and Huckabee is certifiably insane and idiotic...

But, this country is unlikely to descend into an Iraq-style shit hole. And the fundamentalists here are not roving violent gangs killing minorities and engaging in ethnic cleansing as well as killing women for showing their hear or their ankles.

It's better to keep these situations on topic, focused on the hell we've made that country. There's no need for idiotic moral equivalences.

[Triana]

11. In regards to WOMEN ...

...YES, it will.

Better do some research about Huckabee's attitudes towards women.

[JBoy]

13. That's right, Huckabee wants to murder women in the streets

I'm pretty sure I heard him say that somewhere. :sarcasm:

Get real.

[BearSquirrel2]

15. No ...

No, but he does seem fond of personally commuting the sentences of serial rapists who then go and murder women in hotel rooms.

[pennylane100]

17. No he gets newly pardoned rapists to do it for him.

And his son would be in charge of animal control, hanging all the sick homeless pets.

[BearSquirrel2]

14. Taliban style rule is like 15th century

Islamic fundamentalist rule is like so 15th century. The American Taliban only wants to turn the clock back to the 17th century. Basically they want to turn America into a Thanksgiving pageant. Well, maybe a Thanksgiving pageant in COLOR. But but you get my point. Ladies all covered up with bonnets and the "dirty brown savages" bringing them their food.

However, you can't get back to the 17th century until you can't get us back to the 19th century and so on. This is a vicious pattern of incrementalism.

As far as Islamic gangs go ... What is so "Islamic" about machine gunning a woman in the street for not wearing a head scarf? If that's "Islamic", some of the choicer strategy options by the hardliners might seem appealing.

[treestar]

20. They would be if this country were in similar turmoil

We aren't inherently better, just richer and stronger and shielded from the turmoil. If this country were invaded by another, it could well descend into the same kind of anarchy.

And now, we are the ones that put that country into that mess.

[NoGodsNoMasters]

7. Theres' going to be more of this...

...until the US changes it's foreign policy. The US government has persued incredibly violent and shortsighted policies in the region over the last 50 years, toppling the secular Iranian democracy turning it into a brutal police state, making friends with Saddam hussein and aiding him in acquiring arms, unconditionally backing Israel even as they repeatedly commit human rights violations, arming and training the mujahideen (including one mr. osama bin laden, in retrospect a pretty fucking stupid idea), and maintaining a friendship with Saudi Arabia, and a troop presence there. All of these events have resulted in an exponentially multiplying militancy and religious mania. There is a direct correlation. Hopefully, the next administration will understand this, o0therwise, it's just gonna get worse.

[Hulk]

8. She probably got to vote though...according to ingram and the first dunce lady...

[fujiyama]

9. Where's Laura and the rest of the idiots

that thought that we were somehow liberating these people? And yes, many were so stupid they didn't know that Iraq was a secular society before.

Iraq sounds like absolute hell for EVERYONE, especially for women (all over) and the minorities (depending on whether you're a Shiite in a Sunni majority area or vice versa)...well, maybe Iraq's not so bad for the insane blackwater thugs who are cashing in on everyone else's misery...

[donsu]

12. religiously insane men are a danger for women the world over

why don't religiously sane men get rid of the nuts? are they afraid of them?

[BearSquirrel2]

16. Religiously sane men ...

Religiously sane men are not currently in power in the United States. Only right wing fundamentalist nut jobs. The fundamentalists seem to be gaining every day.

We don't invest time teaching kids reason so it is either rampant hedonism or religious fundamentalism.

[LeftyMom]

24. Because there's no such thing as the "religiously sane"

Once you convince yourself that believing impossible things is a sign of moral virtue you've opened the door to more and more crazy beliefs.

In a society in breakdown, surrounded by people who are competing to be the most virtuously disconnected from reality, things like this happen.

[Doctor_J]

19. Isn't this the region the Brits just handed over to the Iraqis?

because they're now capable of running it themselves?

Heckuva job, Smirky. :thumbsup:

[ohio2007]

21. Brits bug out - Basra is now "Survival of the fittest"

It'll be every man (and woman) for themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdVimQgHerE


Unless Iran is wanting to get their invasion on ;)

[Djinn]

22. but the difference is

now they're free to be murdered for not adhering to some ancient morality code.

Saddam never allowed the full expression of religious insanity - look at all the progress

[Javaman]

23. freedom is on the march...

:cry: