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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
 Posted - 08/13/2005 : 11:54:08
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The Rape of Iraq
by Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
The supreme victory for the rapist is proof that his victim "enjoyed" it. Though he may force his way into her property, demolish her home, murder her loved ones, pillage her belongings, though he may terrify and humiliate her, beat and batter her, break her bones and tear her flesh, spill her blood, wound her organs and lay waste to her very soul, if, in the midst of the rape, between tears and shrieks of agony, if his victim should, for a moment, for some reason, any reason, if she should smile, or, better yet, orgasm, the rapist is redeemed; he is even (in his mind) heroic.
This is why, when the Anglo-American rape of Iraq began, we so desperately searched the Iraqi faces on our televisions for a smile. And that is why, when after three weeks of horrendous carnage, we finally got more than three Iraqis in one place to smile at our handsome invading army and help them to topple a statue of our mutual accursed enemy, we declared the war to be, virtually, over.
Of course, it's not really over. The bombing and shooting continue, and then there's the looting. But those smiles make everything all right. All the murder and mayhem continue. But hey--a dazed teenager grins at an expensive American camera, and hoots "Thank you Boosh!" and we're ready to forget children with their arms blown off and too many corpses on the highway to count, let alone identify. We feel good about our war now, at least some of us do. As the rapist would say, "I gave her what she really wanted." She needed to be raped. She wanted to be violated.
As psych-buffs know, sometimes a rape victim does smile, and even orgasm, in the midst of a horrible, excruciating assault. Perhaps it is a life-saving attempt at ingratiation or the body's way of defending against the onslaught, a variation on the Stockholm Syndrome, but it is a natural, albeit humiliating response. Of course, the rapist cares little about the "psychology" of his victim. That smile is his triumph, his war medal of honor.
This is why we feel so good, and so guilty for feeling good (and in this case, the guilt is good), about seeing those smiling Iraqis and watching that big ugly statue come down over and over again (even if it was a staged media set-up with fewer than 100 people, including press, marines and folks from Ahmed Chalabi's entourage, which long-shots and comparison photos of the event reveal).
We're looting you of your oil, so you might as well loot yourselves. Have at it!
The toppling of the statue has other patriotic erotic connotations. It is the cutting down of our enemy. The orgasmic, victorious crescendo of the Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral. The castration of Saddam. The decapitation of Saddam. Well, not exactly Saddam the man (though according to the Bushies, he's gone from being the evilest human since Hitler to being not worth bothering to find). Not the actual Saddam. Just a statue (though a larger than life statue that plays really well on TV!). Kind of like a dildo versus the actual cock. A surrogate Saddam. Saddam in effigy. The toppling of the evil Saddam statue is an image of glorious, righteous castration for the history books and a wet dream for the apocalypse-seekers. For the "patriotic" American, it avenges the awful images of our Twin Towers of corporate strength and potency--Dick One and Dick Two--going down in flames, themselves castrated by the fiery sword of the terrorist. Even though it was a different terrorist.
But oh, how can we be so picky about whether or not Saddam or any Iraqis actually had anything to do with 9/11--when we're experiencing such deep, heroic, patriotic, erotic feelings? Not only does our victim enjoy being raped, she's glad we murdered her horrible old husband! Who cares about proof of responsibility for 9/11, or the fact that the U.S. politically and economically supported Saddam during the period of his worst offences? Who cares about those tedious old Weapons of Mass Destruction when our hearts are swelling with pride over our role as rapist-rescuers?
And now the looting. As one Iraqi shopkeeper who was having his store cleaned out by looters, as the American troops stood by doing nothing, remarked, "before there was one Saddam Hussein. Now there are thousands of Saddam Husseins." And why not? Seeing the looters smile and flash victory signs at American soldiers as the Americans smile and flash back, the message is clear: We're looting you of your oil, so you might as well loot yourselves. Have at it! And keep smiling. Just don't come near us with those grenades." The result: Everything is being looted. Not just Saddam's palaces. Everything. At the moment, there is not a functioning hospital in Baghdad. The Iraqi Antiquities Museum has been cleaned out of 5000-year-old priceless antiquities, most stolen, some smashed to pieces in the fury of "liberation.". This is not just Iraq's heritage that the illegal Anglo-American rape of Iraq has destroyed; this is the heritage of the Western world, the archeological legacy of the Cradle of Civilization, the land of Abraham and Sarah, the ancient Sumerians and the legendary Garden of Eden. Marines guard the oil fields and even, brazenly, the Oil Ministry, leaving the hospitals, museums and the shops of hard-working Iraqis to the looters.
And still the cozily embedded mainstream media keep playing the image of the toppling statue and the smiling Iraqis. CNN might as well be anchored by Ari Fleischer. The jacked-up newscasters revel in the soft-core porn of war, "tastefully" showing very little of the rampant hardcore death and dismemberment, just lots of handsome, stalwart troops and beguiling, brown-faced grins that communicate: Freedom! Liberation! Smiles! They love us! We may have brutally, systematically raped their country (and the rape continues), but they want it! They really want us to bomb the shit out of them. They like that...
Who are all these looters anyway? Rummy says they're "ordinary Iraqis" though a bit "untidy." I don't know about that. I remember a little Iraqi factoid from months back when the Statue Toppling was just a gleam in Boy King Bush's eye: Saddam let all the prisoners out of his prisons. Tens of thousands of them. He let the criminal element back on the street, and now here they are, ruling Iraq, the interim government of crime preceding occupation. Is this the Baathists' "unconventional weapon" that that crazy old Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf kept threatening to unleash?
Chimpanzees spread their lips into what looks like a smile when they're scared. It is the smile of submission and ingratiation, not pleasure, and it often masks deceitful scheming against the powerful alpha male recipient of the smile. Considering what we have put them through, who knows what lurks behind that beautiful Iraqi smile?
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
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Les cacahuetes c'est le mouvement perpétuel à la portée de l'homme . |
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starmekitten
-= Forum Pistolera =-
United Kingdom
6370 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:14:09
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You know, I didn't agree with the war and I still don't, but I find that article to be one of the sickest, fucked up things I have read in a while.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:25:26
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Perhaps if you were over there watching neighbours pull their relatives out of rubble and your country's entire history and identity stolen the analogy might not be so repugnant.
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Les cacahuetes c'est le mouvement perpétuel à la portée de l'homme . |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:30:06
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quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
You know, I didn't agree with the war and I still don't, but I find that article to be one of the sickest, fucked up things I have read in a while.
Agreed.
quote:
Originally posted by Newo
Perhaps if you were over there watching neighbours pull their relatives out of rubble and your country's entire history and identity stolen the analogy might not be so repugnant.
I dunno, Owen. I grew up in Cyprus during some difficult times for that nation. There's a vast difference between war and making one's point in an unnecessarily visceral if not irreverent manner.
Our little forum may be back in Gender Differences Territory here.
You can't be a woman and read that piece and not wince.
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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Edited by - kathryn on 08/13/2005 12:35:05 |
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starmekitten
-= Forum Pistolera =-
United Kingdom
6370 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:34:45
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This isn't a clever piece of writing, it's not a witty analogy or comparison it's standard controversial tactics, take something people already talk about as a big issue and tie into it a brutal metaphor which will make everyone look long and hard at what the war was really like and I'll look dead smart in the process. It's no different from a child or a moron saying cunt to "shock and awe". This is twisted, smile and enjoy it? do you realise how offensive that is? Women like this fuck me off because they make the rest of us look bad. It's not enough for a woman to have a clever opinion on something nowadays, we have to be noticed, we have to stand out. This oh so clever madam seems to think tying war with rape is going to have that controversial affect and is going to get her noticed. I looked at her website, and it's this very attitude that grates with me. Sex, something 90% of the populous like and enjoy but some seem to think that to be totally open you have to share it with everyone else. I don't care who is screwing who or how, I don't care how other women achieve their own ejaculations or orgasms or how many people they have fucked. I find that people who are so pushy about their sex-routines tend to think those who either don't fuck around or don't so much want to share every single wank they have are oh so terribly repressed, not generally realising that those who decide not to read about it, talk about it and make it such an aspect of their everyday revolving insular little worlds are figuring out for themselves how they like it and having a damned site more fun than reading about it in a fucking magazine. This woman, for her to describe a rape which is such a brutal occurance, I mean do you really think about it? as a man do you ever consider how sex for women works how intimate it is, how we are letting you INSIDE ourselves, into what we are? and to have someone inside you that is not invited, pushing his way in, inside you. Now some may consider that ho ho that describes war, uninvited guest blahblahblah, fuck off does it. Inside YOU, not your country your identity, inside YOU. Right inside that personal little space that makes me a woman. A war in my country would scare me, losing loved ones would hurt me, watching people die and be hurt would be horrific. A war is a terrible thing in itself, this pathetic little piece tying the brutally personal with the nationally horrendous offends me.
Their is nothing in this article redeeming, it's snide and self congratulating, and I come from her side of the political fence. Except I doubt I would ever stoop to saying cunt just to impress the grown ups.
Did you really think this was a clever article?
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
Edited by - starmekitten on 08/13/2005 12:49:42 |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:51:22
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I'm not sure how much it comes down to gender differences, first of all being raped is hardly a singularly female experience. I too found the article tough to read, that is why I posted it. Here's an excerpt of an article the Daily Mirror ran by Anton Antonowicz on 5 April 2003:
Both women were still in their nightclothes, dressing gowns loose around them. They said they had risen late because of all the shelling overnight. Like everyone else, they were talking about the electricity being cut off on Thursday night.
Nadia was joking about going for a shower. Alia told her she'd probably be away for three hours... just waiting for some water.
They were laughing. "I didn't hear any sound," Alia says, "Suddenly a shell or bomb or something came through the room. I fell to the floor. My mouth was full of dust. I was swallowing dust. Then I looked at her.
"The missile, something big and unexploded, had come through her chest and her heart. She was covered in blood, unconscious. I ran down to the street, Daddy and Mummy behind me, screaming for an ambulance. There wasn't any. A neighbour said he would drive us here to the hospital."
I would imagine that woman felt pretty violated, wouldn't you?
quote:
as a man do you ever consider how sex for women works how intimate it is, how we are letting you INSIDE ourselves, into what we are?
All I can say to that is my girlfriend on occasion reaches inside me and it feels quite intimate.
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Les cacahuetes c'est le mouvement perpétuel à la portée de l'homme . |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 12:55:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Newo
I'm not sure how much it comes down to gender differences, first of all being raped is hardly a singularly female experience.
Owen, most people who are raped are female. The way this piece reads, it's about women being raped, not men.
quote:
Originally posted by Newo
I too found the article tough to read, that is why I posted it. Here's an excerpt of an article the Daily Mirror ran by Anton Antonowicz on 5 April 2003:
Both women were still in their nightclothes, dressing gowns loose around them. They said they had risen late because of all the shelling overnight. Like everyone else, they were talking about the electricity being cut off on Thursday night.
Nadia was joking about going for a shower. Alia told her she'd probably be away for three hours... just waiting for some water.
They were laughing. "I didn't hear any sound," Alia says, "Suddenly a shell or bomb or something came through the room. I fell to the floor. My mouth was full of dust. I was swallowing dust. Then I looked at her.
"The missile, something big and unexploded, had come through her chest and her heart. She was covered in blood, unconscious. I ran down to the street, Daddy and Mummy behind me, screaming for an ambulance. There wasn't any. A neighbour said he would drive us here to the hospital."
I would imagine that woman felt pretty violated, wouldn't you?
Yes, still it was not a rape.
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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starmekitten
-= Forum Pistolera =-
United Kingdom
6370 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 13:00:59
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What is particularly galling is the way this 'writer' and I do use the word lightly, presents it.
quote:
Though he may force his way into her property, demolish her home, murder her loved ones, pillage her belongings, though he may terrify and humiliate her, beat and batter her, break her bones and tear her flesh, spill her blood, wound her organs and lay waste to her very soul, if, in the midst of the rape, between tears and shrieks of agony, if his victim should, for a moment, for some reason, any reason, if she should smile, or, better yet, orgasm, the rapist is redeemed; he is even (in his mind) heroic.
First of all patronising us by considering that we may have not drawn our own conclusions as to how much of the happy face of post war Iraq is bullshit, and then not imagining we have an imagination of our owns and describing a rape. Oh it's ok! she understands, she's a sex doctor. Last time I checked, a good many people didn't need anyone to tell them how to make themselves feel good. And last time I checked, many of us knew how nasty a rape is. Do you think putting it in these terms benefits anyone? gives us clearer understanding? Do you think we are that stupid?
No it may not be exclusivley female but the female, the weaker sex fits her analogy does it not? weaker Iraq by big bad USA, little woman, big strong man....
I gather you don't understand what I mean by the allowing someone inside thing, which is a shame.
Yes, the girl that excert is from would feel violated, yes it is horrendous. I have heard accounts from many people with similar stories who have struggled in Iraq pre and post the war. Do you not think the plight of these people is bad enough without cheapening it further with some dodgy rape-comparison?
Owen, though, do you not see how the thread title is offensive? did you not consider that there would be women (and yes maybe men, heaven forbid we leave you out) reading this who have gone through that very ordeal? This is one of the most blatant and crass pieces I think I have ever read.
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
Edited by - starmekitten on 08/13/2005 13:09:36 |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 13:07:22
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she is not the first person to compare war to rape. i think the metaphor makes perfect sense
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 13:16:44
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quote:
Originally posted by floop
she is not the first person to compare war to rape.
True, but she does it in a particularly obnoxious way.
Anybody else find ridiculous her silly comparison of the Twin Towers to penises?
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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starmekitten
-= Forum Pistolera =-
United Kingdom
6370 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 14:22:00
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Floop, do you think this is a good and well presented article?
You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 14:26:26
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Tre, that was the title on the website I found it on, I should have said that. I do understand very much what it means to let someone inside you, as well as loving women I slept with quite a few men when I was younger and it has been no more or less special with them than it was with a different sex (though I can see how you arrived at the conclusion from my flip tone, so sorry about that). Let me show you how i think the analogy fits: the war is shown on television in a grotesquely sanitised form with commercial breaks (if the news channels actually showed what happens when each mortar or missile lands the war would be over in a week), treated as entertainment. Even the guy who designed the backdrop for Centcom, George Allison, is one of Hollywoods leading art directors (also worked with David Blaine, appropriately enough) It is portrayed as such a mindless-Westernmovie entertainment, and this is why I compare it to a rape: people are dying so that people in front of their teevees can get pleasure from or get off on this kind of warnography.
P.S. I posted a while back about Dyncorp, the private security firm who have been given the contract to run the Iraqi police. They are infamous this side of the pond for staff members orchestrating child prostitution rings in Kosovo. The only staffmember fired - apart from the whistleblowers - was a man who'd incriminated himself so hopelessly by videotaping a rape, and what with reports of Iraqi prisoners eing sexually abused, there's plenty of the nonmetaphorical kind going on there too.
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Les cacahuetes c'est le mouvement perpétuel à la portée de l'homme . |
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Daisy Girl
~ Abstract Brain ~
Belize
5305 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 14:30:09
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I definately see both points of view on this one.
Reading the article, I thought it was a good article.
But I do see the point of view that it can be seen as insensitive. "Smile and enjoy it" that comment usually makes most women's arm hairs stand on end when you hear it. I saw this title an the first thing that came to mind was general bobby knight's gaffe when he said that's what women should do when they're raped.
well with 1/4 of all women who go to college that are raped. and untoled men that are raped as well... yes maybe this isn't the most sensitive arument.
however, ms. block does seem very impassioned about the anti war cause and sometimes that means ruffling feathers so the more power to her.
ahhh so many matters that are not clean cut... so many matters that are not ideally resolved around internet chat rooms... we could be here all century just on this one thread.
"I ain't goin to be what I ain't" |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 14:58:49
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quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
Floop, do you think this is a good and well presented article?
i don't think it's very well presented, but i think there is truth to a large part of what she is saying. the fundamental comparison of war being like rape does not seem absurd to me. (other parts of the article are reaching too far with the metaphor)
i can understand how the way she's presented it here is offensive (obviously her intention) but i guess if her intention was to ruffle feathers and get people to think about it, she succeeded. |
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zub_the_goat
= Cult of Ray =
United Kingdom
639 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 15:11:25
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| fair enough to the article it gets its point across in a pretty shocking comparison, and in all fairness i agree with its basic point, a hell of a lot of people do, but i cant imagine this article changing anybodies viewpoint....but it does seem a bit sensationalist, as if they've gone through a list of what people dont like, picked rape from the list and built the article around it |
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Broken Face
-= Forum Pistolero =-
USA
5155 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 18:33:39
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i have read this article but have no idea how to reply. its a poorly conceptualized article and i think it trivializes both rape and war by comparing them. a person who has been raped and a person who has lost a loved one in war both experience seperate, and uncomparable pain. i don't see how comparing them does anything.
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 18:38:47
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With due respect for the complaints voiced above regarding the analogy, the premise does not otherwise stand. Anglo-America can hardly be described as "raping" Iraq, especially considering the reign of Saddam and that of Arab despots generally. Despite the challenges of present and future, the average Iraqi must regard recent changes as improvement. Surely that is obvious even to the most self-loathing citizens of the west. Of course productive talk is preferable to violence but talking to Saddam had long been a sham condoned only by the benighted and those in bed with him, to include the UN by virtue of its corrupt oil dealings. Please, enough of this hypercriticism of ourselves and more focus on the pathology of the middle east. All can be blamed but only the deluded can believe that the situation prior to the war could have been allowed to stand. I remain convinced that good will come from the war, and so much sooner if we could somehow refrain from encouraging al-Qaeda by our constant public self-loathing. I know it’s too much to expect, but really, must we daily appear to be our own worst enemy? Some here might benefit from sustained attention to http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/2005/01/about_friends_o.html
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2005 : 19:28:01
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For those who don’t know, Cindy Sheehan is the grieving American soldier’s mother who has been protesting outside Bush’s home at Crawford, Texas. Much has been made of her by both pro- and anti-Bush forces. Here is a post from Mohammed.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/08/message-to-cindy-sheehan.html
Friday, August 12, 2005
A message to Cindy Sheehan
I realize how tragic your loss is and I know how much pain there is crushing your heart and I know the darkness that suddenly came to wrap your life and wipe away your dreams and I do feel the heat of your tears that won't dry until you find the answers to your question; why you lost your loved one?
I have heard your story and I understand that you have the full right to ask people to stand by your side and support your cause. At the beginning I told myself, this is yet another woman who lost a piece of her heart and the questions of war, peace and why are killing her everyday. To be frank to you the first thing I thought of was like "why should I listen or care to answer when there are thousands of other women in America, Iraq and Afghanistan who lost a son or a husband or a brother…”
But today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?
I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.
Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.
Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.
We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.
We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.
The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.
I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.
Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".
Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?
We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.
You are free to go and leave us alone but what am I going to tell your million sisters in Iraq? Should I ask them to leave Iraq too? Should I leave too? And what about the eight millions who walked through bombs to practice their freedom and vote? Should they leave this land too?
Is it a cursed land that no one should live in? Why is it that we were chosen to live in all this pain, why me, why my people, why you?
But I am not leaving this land because the bad guys are not going to leave us or you to live in peace. They are the same ones who flew the planes to kill your people in New York.
I ask you in the name of God or whatever you believe in; do not waste your son's blood.
We here have decided to avenge humanity, you and all the women who lost their loved ones.
Take a look at our enemy Cindy, look closely at the hooded man holding the sword and if you think he's right then I will back off and support your call.
We live in pain and grief everyday, every hour, every minute; all the horrors of the powers of darkness have been directed at us and I don't know exactly when am I going to feel safe again, maybe in a year, maybe two or even ten; I frankly don't know but I don't want to lose hope and faith.
We are in need for every hand that can offer some help. Please pray for us, I know that God listens to mothers' prayers and I call all the women on earth to pray with you for peace in this world.
Your son sacrificed his life for a very noble cause…No, he sacrificed himself for the most precious value in this existence; that is freedom.
His blood didn't go in vain; your son and our brethren are drawing a great example of selflessness.
God bless his free soul and God bless the souls of his comrades who are fighting evil.
God bless the souls of Iraqis who suffered and died for the sake of freedom.
God bless all the freedom lovers on earth.
- posted by Mohammed @ 23:24
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 04:59:55
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The women of Wajir in Kenya eliminated clan warfare from their region by a simple method, one question was asked of everyone wanting to be part of the tribe: If my clan were to kill your relatives, would you still work with me for peace? and if you can't answer Yes don't join the tribe now.
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
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Daisy Girl
~ Abstract Brain ~
Belize
5305 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 11:09:52
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Erebus,
Interesting post of Mohamed's b log. Yes until we all realize that we are all in this together and a loss of life is as weighty no matter what side of the war it occurs, we are not going to find peace and understanding.
I do so appricaite the efforts of Ms. Sheehan. She's done a lot to bring national attention to the cause of peace. Yes, I do agree with Mohamed that her loss is no greater than those in Iraq, but we must agree that she has been able to help disucssions of peace which benefit both sides of this war.
Has anyone heard about the concert I believe in Oct in DC to promote peace? I heard about it and it sounds like a great idea.
"I ain't goin to be what I ain't" |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 13:16:39
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Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 14:36:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Broken Face
i have read this article but have no idea how to reply. its a poorly conceptualized article and i think it trivializes both rape and war by comparing them. a person who has been raped and a person who has lost a loved one in war both experience seperate, and uncomparable pain. i don't see how comparing them does anything.
it's a literary device to get you to see something in a different way. do you really think they are so uncomparable? a group of people invading another group of people by force, murdering and pillaging.. or an individual perpetrating an act of rape on another individual.
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 14:37:54
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quote:
Originally posted by floop
[quote]
it's a literary device to get you to see something in a different way. do you really think they are so uncomparable?
I think it's a lousy literary device. That's my whole point. My other point being that, yes, I do think they are incomprable.
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 14:47:05
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wow. that's incredible to me.
so what about when poets compare their love to "a rose". isn't that silly because a human being is nothing like a flower, right? one of them is a mammal with two arms and two legs, and the other lives in the ground and can't talk |
Edited by - floop on 08/14/2005 15:04:42 |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2005 : 15:02:53
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I need to read more feminist theory. I don't mean that sarcastically. Maybe I am missing something.
A poet's comparison to roses is not meant to shock, as is this woman's graphic description of rape.
Look, I found her piece to be offensive and attention-seeking (the latter being a quality I deem unforgivable in a writer). I agree with her about what I believe to be the US invasion of Iraq using my tax dollars. I just don't like that kind of approach to making one's point.
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
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Smile and enjoy it
