Rape Case Political Football in Iraq
Iraq War has Caused Spike in Global terrorism
Iraqi security forces, Shiites, raided a house looking for a possible Sunni Arab insurgent named al-Janabi. They found only his wife at home. They took her into custody (probably as a hostage). They accused her of cooking for insurgents. Then the police gang-raped her. She went on Aljazeera and told her story. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite head of a Shiite government, at first said he would have a commission look into her charges. Then he reversed himself and accused the woman of lying and implying that she was put up to it by the Sunni insurgency. Marc Santora of the New York Times managed to interview the nurse who treated her, and found that Mrs. al-Janabi's story was corroborated.
In essence, the Shiite prime minister is shielding Shiite police commandos from being charged with a crime against a Sunni Arab woman. Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Ahmad Abdul Ghafur al-Samarra'i of the Sunni Pious Endowments Board was demanding that the victim be sent to Europe for treatment. Update: Al-Samarra'i has just been fired from the board by PM Nuri al-Maliki for making this comment!
Riverbend meditates on the meaning of the rape, and laments that the incident is being interpreted in the terms of religious ethnicity.
The US is considering attempting to go into Sadr City after the Mahdi Army and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute is now in favor. He says he over-estimated the Mahdi Army and under-estimated Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki earlier. Kagan doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about when it comes to Iraq, and he is advising Bush what to do, who knows even less. Sadr City is quiet because the Mahdi Army made a policy decision to cooperate with the security plan, and al-Maliki is in on this deal. The Mahdi Army is the street gangs of the Sadr Movement, to which millions of Iraqis have given their allegiance. You can't uproot a social movement with a few patrols and firefights. Sadrism will be there long after the US is forced to withdraw from Iraq.
Bush's Iraq War has driven a big increase in terrorist attacks in the world.
Iraq through an Iraqi's eyes. It doesn't sound like Cheney's description.
Blair may pull out thousands of British troops from the Basra area.
AP rounds up political violence in Iraq on Tuesday
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/21/2007 12:35:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Can you imagine what would hapen if the US troops move into Sadr City, Basra and Najaf in force, and then Bush bombed Iran...
Ultimately, the Bush regime has underestimated the Shiite grass roots organization and their actual political and military power and prowess, whether it is in Iraq, Lebanon or Iran...
Problem is, Bush's thinking is still dominated by the instinct that if he rams his head against the Iron wall enough times, the wall will turn into a door to the Middle East... And he is quite deliberately ignoring the many wooden appendages in the Iron wall, vowing he will never climb in through the window...
And it is giving the rest of the world a bloody headache watching him bang his head, and throw other people's kids into the fight...
Blair's Labor Party is in big trouble. Evidently, he is leaving the ship before it sinks. Not that I discourage it. He should never have got on board in the first place. Now that Prince Harry is being sent to Iraq, that may be the final push to disembark. Should HRH be killed or maimed, Mr. Blair would have Hell to pay for it. Her Majesty would not be amused. And, I do not blame her in the least. For Tony, being the lapdog of George W. Bush has got to be tedious over time. It doesnt rate much admiration from the rest of the world. Lust for oil no doubt fueled Mr. Blair's poor decision to align himself with the Dubious Dubya. Seeing as how the pipelines keep disintegrating, he would be wise to seek alternatives. Ah well,as for George W.,he will always have Laura and Barney.
Not a single hour passes without one hearing an explosion, a car bomb, or devastated women and children screaming for help. I saw people running from a suicide bomber and others trying to pull bodies from a fire. Sirens from ambulances and police cars and helicopters flying day and night all over the city all join in to create a constant roar of horrible noises.
And Cheney describes this as a success? What would he call failure? A city in flames?
How long will this "success" last?
Tony Blair gave a speech at the House of Commons this morning explaining his troop draw-down, emphasizing that the situation in Basra is different from that in Baghdad and that the multitude of attacks in that region are not from "Sunni on Shiite" violence but rather from attacks on British forces.
It was also said that 5,000 troops will remain there until "Iraqi forces are judged ready to assume more responsibility for security in southern Iraq" (says the AP).
Notwithstanding the fact that the presence of British troops might be inflaming much violence for that which it is resolving, why would the UK be withdrawing troops if their "help" is badly needed elsewhere? Blairs speech made mention of the violence in Baghdhad, wouldn't they be useful there?
I am admittedly a layman in this whole affair, so any clarification would help.
Charlie Victor: ou Appear to need glasses or literacy class. NOWHERE does any U.S. personnel confirm that there's no evidence of rape:
U.Ss military officials have neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the document. They added that they did not know how confidential medical records had ended up at the prime minister's offices."
That's all it says. An anonymous non-comment. As opposed to Juan's link to a reporter identified by name, as having spoken to one of the examing/treating practitioners.
Kindly cite and quote definitive sourced statements to the contrary.
Prof. Cole,
Hasn't the State Dept.'s index of major terror acts also shown a dramatic increase since 2003? These statistics put to lie the notion that the Iraq War has aided the "War on Terror" (whatever that is).
The Bush Administration seems to routinely "misunderestimate" Sadr and his movement. Surely the dynamics supporting Sadr's movement are so rooted in Shia experience, poverty, persecution in Iraq, as to be beyond the simply explanations of "Iranian influence." In any event, it is plain that Sadr would not follow us "Home" if we left. It may be that he and his thugs might be too busy killing Sunnis to do that or it may be that he'll turn himself into more of a political movement after we leave. In any event, he clearly is not threat either to our forces in Iraq (he clearly does not want conflict with us if it can be avoided) and surely is no threat to our homeland. If he and his followers keep the Salafists and Baathists occupied, then what's our worry?
Charlie Victor - your reason for believing the American investigators stems from what? Perhaps their investigation of Abu Graib? Or maybe it was the first rate investigation of Haditha that instilled such trust in their conclusions.
Mr. Victor,
Please get your facts straight when you forward information. A hat tip to you for at least quoting your source.
A good example of how information gets distorted on the second person in the whisper line. ;-)
Just for the record, the al-Janabi rape surfaced today on Danish radio in a sort of "he-said, she-said" news drop.
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