Recently in Iraq War Category
Yesterday the House held a hearing on sexual assault in the military, a topic we've written on repeatedly. Not just the insanely and disturbingly high rates of sexual assault, but the effect is has on female vets.
Rep. Louise Slaughter reintroduced the Military Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Act, which would establish an Office of Victims Advocate within the Department of Defense and hopefully improve efforts to respond to cases of sexual violence and harassment in the military.
At the hearing, sexual assault survivor Ingrid Torres testified. What an incredibly brave woman:
"The road after sexual assault is a long and challenging one. As is typical of violent crime, I suffer from PTSD, violent nightmares, and depression. I still wake in the night, he still comes after me in my dreams... Because of the impending courts martial, I was advised not to talk openly about the case, which caused rumors and misconceptions to run rampant. There was no escaping it and no making it better. The hostility grew with my silence...Ultimately, our society still publicly and privately tries the victims in sexual assault cases. Rape is the only crime where the victim has to prove their innocence."
RH Reality Check has more.
In other congressional news, yesterday the House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act. Bush has vowed to veto the legislation. Because he likes making $1 to your 76 cents, dammit.
Sexualized violence comes with the territory of war. It is an age old tactic and also a byproduct of the pressure of war and the insistence on overt misogyny. So it is no surprise that according to the AP 15 percent of women that have served have experienced some form of sexual trauma. That shouldn't make it any less revolting.
Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma, The Associated Press has learned. That means they indicated that while on active duty they were sexually assaulted, raped, or were sexually harassed, receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature.
Rape is clearly not only a weapon of war, but a byproduct of it creating an internal dysfunction within the military industrial complex.
via AP and ThinkProgess.
And sign this petition. Tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of LaVena Johnson's death (on July 19), which was ruled a suicide but was, in all likelihood, a rape and murder.
Phillip Barron has been working incredibly hard to bring attention to her case. And you may have read about LaVena recently on Feministing, or from Cara, Megan at Jezebel, Gina at What About Our Daughters, and Kate at Broadsheet,.
Retired Army Col. Ann Wright explains what we all want investigated:
From the day their daughter's body was returned to them, the parents had grave suspicions about the Army's investigation into Lavena's death and the characterization of her death as suicide. In charge of a communications facility, Lavena was able to call home daily. In those calls she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents, Lavena's commanding officer Captain David Woods wrote: "Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally."In viewing his daughter's body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena's head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena's hands hiding burns on one of her hands is what deepened Dr. Johnson's concerns that the Army's investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.
They glued the white gloves onto her hands to hide burns. A literal cover-up. It's so clear that this and other details of LaVena's case don't add up to suicide. And it's sadly not exactly far-fetched that she was sexually assaulted: A full one-third of women veterans report rape or attempted rape during their time in the military. So it's important to keep the pressure on Congress and the military to open an investigation into her death. For LaVena, yes. Absolutely. But also for other military women whose rapes and murders have been covered up. Wright writes,
The military has characterized each of the deaths of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "non-combat related injuries," and then added "suicide." Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide, strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of "non-combat related injuries," with several identified as "suicides."
Please sign that petition today. There may also be a legal fund established in the near future. We'll keep you posted.
Is this some kind of comic book? A woman in Iraq protested by holding up a naked picture of a woman in front of her while dressed in hijab. She was making a statement against the US soldier use of x-ray machines to look under female clothing to ensure they are not strapped with explosives.
Jaberi explained that she was protesting her treatment while going through the various security checkpoints on the way to her job at the Iraqi parliament building. It was the scan that Jaberi particularly objected to, because, she said, guards are essentially able to see a woman naked as she stands in the scanning booth. The picture she displayed actually looks like a naked female alien, blue-tinted and bald, because the scanner doesn't see hair or clothing. What it sees is the body itself, plus the dark outline of any jewelry or, presumably, any concealed weapon.
Hmm, sounds a little creepy right?
Last month the NY Times reported that the Defense Department fed talking points to former generals who appeared on cable news. Now the DoD has released a lot of those talking points to the public. Alyssa Rosenberg went through the documents, and found that a number of them instruct the generals to trumpet all the awesome stuff the U.S. military is doing for women in Iraq and Afghanistan -- painting people like Donald Rumsfeld as some sort of savior for downtrodden women all over the world, and conveniently downplaying things like sexual assault by U.S. soldiers.
The talking points actually included this awful story:
Except for this one, from September 23, 2004: "Sally's children were taken away from her more than six months ago. Her husband beat her. Her brother threatened her life while holding a gun to her head. Her own father contracted her deal with a $5,000 reward. Sally, an Iraqi translator, lost everything by working to help Americans rebuild Iraq. Still, she feels her service with Americans is the right thing for her country. ‘I lost everything I have, but I have gained so much,' Sally said. ‘If I had to do it over again I would. I help the Americans help my people.'"
Rosenberg writes,
The anecdote is meant to be an illustration of how much Iraqis love their American liberators; but given how Iraqi translators have been abandoned by the Americans they helped, it's a grotesquely ironic PR ploy.Almost five years after the Defense Department promoted Sally's story, domestic violence in Iraq is skyrocketing, female illiteracy rates are 10 times higher than they were in the 1980s, and in the past few months more than 40 women--and in two cases their children--have been murdered for defying dress codes. I wonder if Sally still feels like working for Americans was worth it.
After it became clear there were no WMD in Iraq, the Bush administration began using things like women's rights as a reason for its violent occupation of another country. And now that this war has dragged on for five years -- and women's rights in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly deteriorated, not improved -- it's all the more infuriating to look back and see how military spokespeople (even though they weren't identified as such) used women to justify the war.
For more on the state of women's rights in Iraq -- not filtered through DoD talking points -- check out Women for Women's 2008 Iraq report (PDF). (via)
From a recent performance at The Whitney Biennial. Photo by Eduardo Aparicio.
Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is the author of English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas, and editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (with Brian Wallis). Her work on military interrogation was selected for the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
"In the guise of a CIA manual, Coco Fusco's provocative A Field Guide for Female Interrogators offers an unflinching look at women's role in the military and at America's use of torture in the War on Terror"-- (from the book's back cover copy).
Here's Coco...
Last week the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted to to rename Squaw Peak in Arizona for Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who was killed in combat in Iraq in March 2003. Cecelia notes that because the word "squaw" has long been used to denigrate Native women, the name change to honor Piestewa is especially welcome.
From a Rolling Stone profile of Piestewa:
The attack made Jessica Lynch famous. U.S. Special Forces later plucked her from an Iraqi hospital and rushed her to safety, and the media seized on the daring rescue to create a tale of American heroism and valor. But the real story of what happened in Nasiriyah that day -- and the clear warning it offered of things to come -- involves a different soldier, one who gave her life to protect her friends. Lori Piestewa, born and raised a Hopi on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, became the first American woman to die in the war, and the first Native American woman ever to die in combat on foreign soil. Only twenty-three years old, Piestewa saw herself as a Hopi warrior, part of a centuries-old tradition developed by a people who once resisted an invasion and occupation by the U.S. military -- much as the Iraqis are doing today. She went to war, but she believed above all in peace, in doing no harm to others. "I'm not trying to be a hero," she told a friend just before the invasion. "I just want to get through this crap and go home."
Karen Houppert reports for The Nation about the rape of a paramedic working for defense contractor KBR in Iraq. The details of both the incident and the response are truly nauseating. This is shameful stuff. (Trigger warning -- more below the jump.)
Allison Kilkenny describes herself as "a political humorist, a fancy way of saying writer, who makes shitty world news funny." She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, The Beast, Alternet.org's Wiretap Magazine, and Timothy McSweeney's. Her work has appeared on The Nation and SIRIUS radio.
Here's Allison Kilkenny...
Please, if you have a chance check out the Youth Blog-a-thon hosted by YO! and Wiretap Magazine. It is some of the dopest, fiercest youth writing and the topic this month is violence, both in Iraq and in our everyday lives. Support youth voices and go give them some Feministing style love!
The fabulous organization MADRE has released a statement on women and violence in Iraq. It's really a must-read. MADRE also lists resources for perspectives of Iraqi women, so get on over there.
The LA Times had an great opinion piece on Wednesday with the following headline, "Does a rapist deserve a military burial?"
Hmmm, let me think about it a minute...No.
James Allen Selby was a rapist. He raped and assaulted at least 12 women (not including a 9-year old girl). In October 2004, he was convicted on 27 counts, which included armed robbery, rape, kidnapping and attempted murder (for slitting the throat of one of the women). Hours before his sentencing, he hung himself in a Tuscan, AZ jail.
James Allen Selby was also a Persian Gulf War veteran. So in respect to Pentagon policy, he was buried with full military honors. Anne K. Ream, author of the opinion piece, wrote:
The military policy of allowing honors burials for veterans convicted of rape sends a chilling message to victims: Even the most heinous sexual violence does not trump prior military service. It is a position that is as ethically indefensible as it is inconsistent. In 1997, after Army veteran Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for his role in the Oklahoma City bombings, Congress barred veterans convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death or life in prison from being buried with full military honors. Veterans convicted of rape or any other violent crime, however, encounter no such restrictions.'By honoring those that do not deserve it, we dishonor those who do,' Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said during 1997 hearings on the policy. McVeigh, he said, 'was worthy of honor at one time, but he is no longer worthy of honor.' Surely the same can be said of Selby. [Emphasis mine]
Just like the KBR cover-up rape case, this is showing not only the pardoning of military and government-related rape crimes, but also how these crimes are simply not dealt with and swept under the rug. Ream ends the piece:
In the wake of mass violation of women and girls during the conflicts in Kosovo and Rwanda, rape and sexual violence were for the first time codified as distinct crimes under international law. How telling then, and how troubling, that our country's policy on military burials is at odds with international standards the United States worked to establish.
But should we really be surprised?
The front page article of the Sunday times delved into a multi-part series about veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq and the violent crimes they have committed since their return. According to the Times, 121 returned veterans have committed a killing since their return. Most of the victims have been their spouses or their children.
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.
About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.
If we haven't already exhausted the reasons for why we should not be at war right now, let this be one of the issues that comes to the forefront of national attention. It is clear that the costs of war are more than the massive debt we have incurred or the horrendous damage we have done overseas, but also includes the use, abuse and disposal of young men and women, turning them into killing machines, that have little chance for normalcy afterwards. There is a line I always remember from Fahrenheit 9/11 where Michael Moore talks about how the first ones to go to war are usually the last ones to benefit from its outcomes. Young, working class men and women, young people of color, are being dragged to war, as pawns in our bizarrely maniacal, illegal attempt at imperialistic domination, while their communities continue to suffer even greater consequences.
Shortly after a Texas woman came forward stating that she was gang raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Baghdad, we find that (shockingly) she may not be alone.
Three other women have come forward with testimonies of sexual harassment and rape by co-workers, including one who was fired shortly after making it clear she felt uncomfortable that her rapist was still able to work alongside her.
While Jamie Leigh Jones, the first woman to come forward, and others are suing the company, they have to comply with a statement they signed at hiring that forces them to settle disputes through private arbitration. Jones stated:
"What is to stop these companies from victimizing women in the future? . . . The U.S. government has to provide people with their day in court when they have been raped and assaulted by other American citizens. Otherwise we are not only deprived of our justice in the criminal courts but in the civil courts as well. The laws have left us nowhere to turn."
Check out TortDeform's Kia Franklin's take on this bullshit and the legal ramifications for women of mandatory binding arbitration.
The lack of security in Iraq continues to astound as does the subsequent rise of woman hate that has been inspired due to the upsurge of Shiite vigilantes. You know, using Islam as a cover up for generic woman hate.
Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.
"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Our fight against the war in Iraq is a feminist issue, you already know that, but this is why. It is an especially disgusting form of woman hate that unleashes itself under dire circumstances, oppressive conditions and in war torn regions of the world.
Prepare to seethe.
Amidst the sexual harassment, the rape, the murder, and the the homelessness, feminism, out of all things, has resulted in the demoralization of the military.
According to this gem, sexual harassment charges are used as a "tool of some women to promote their own agendas," women are also apparently getting pregnant left and right (if that were true, that'd change if they had access to EC) so they can become reckless single mothers, or because their primary purpose of joining the military and potentially risking their lives in Iraq is to find a hubby. That one is my favorite.
So does anyone want to enlist with me after work today? My "visceral drive to capture a lifemate" is kicking in.
From NPR:
Sixty-one women in the U.S. military have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq — more than twice as many female casualties suffered since women were allowed to join the military after World War II. The number indicates that women are playing new roles in combat zones.
Listen to the segment here.
This is a case that I just haven't been able to stop thinking about.
LaVena Johnson died in Iraq on July 19, 2005. The seemingly happy and healthy 19-year old Private First Class soldier was found dead by a gunshot wound with bruising, a dislocated shoulder, an indication that someone tried to set her body on fire, and a number of other signs including a blood trail outside of the tent she was found in. But despite all of these factors, the U.S. Army declared that her death was caused by suicide and shut the case quietly.
Although the Johnson family have been desperately trying to get her case reopened, the Army has refused. Shocking, I know.
LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson, believes that his daughter was murdered, and that the murder was connected to sexual assault. Check out his speech talking about LaVena's case:
Sign the petition and/or contact your representative to get LaVena's case reopened. Now.
You can also find out more at Shakes and Reclusive Leftist.
Good stuff. This has apparently been an ongoing story in Trudeau's most recent strips.
Big ups to Sarah D.
Seriously, read it and then you totally have the right to go throw up.
My favorite excuse for why suicide bombers do what they do is to have an orgy. I mean, I am sure commitment to their cause (problematic as it may be) or defying Western imperialism, has nothing to do with it. It is all the sex they will have in heaven.
Thanks to Angela for the link.
This is pretty sweet. Concerned Women for America lashes out at Code Pink for not being demure and ladylike enough. How dare they wear pink, the color of quiet femininity, while aggressively demanding an end to the war?!
[Crouse] said Code Pink members "talk out of both sides of their mouths.""They emphasize their femininity but advocate policies that are very aggressive and more often associated with men," she said.
Does CWA really think pro-peace positions have been historically associated with masculinity? Did I miss the part of the recent Republican debates when all the manly-man candidates were clamoring to assert their commitment to peace? I mean, sure, I'd love to see conservatives (and everyone, really) saying the peace is a strong and masculine goal to work towards. Don't see that happening any time soon, though.
"They cloak it all in a soft pink covering, when underneath they are hard as nails," [Crouse] said. "They advocate for the most radical of leftist positions," such as impeachment of the president.
Sounds like an awesome compliment.
via RightWingWatch, which notes that "Back in 1998, of course, Concerned Women for America called for the impeachment of President Clinton." Who's talking out of both sides of their mouth?
One of the less talked about side effects of the unjust and continued US led military campaign in Iraq is the subsequent displacement of people, mostly women and children, that are forced to flee from persecution and become refugees in neighboring countries. According to a study produced by the United Nations, the current number of refugees world-wide has risen for the first time in 5 years.
The total number of refugees rose by more than 14% last year to nearly 10 million, the UN refugee agency says. The number of internally displaced people also reached a record high of almost 13 million, the report says. Besides Iraq, conflicts in Lebanon, East Timor, Sudan and Sri Lanka were blamed for the rise in refugee numbers.
Furthermore, this doesn't include the 4.3million Palestinians currently displaced as well.
The report said the conflict in Iraq was largely responsible for the rise. Some 1.5m Iraqis are now estimated to be living as refugees in other countries, mostly neighbouring Syria and Jordan.
Considering that the next largest group of refugees are from Afghanistan, I think it is pretty safe to say that US military campaigns, not only kill people, but also displace them. But the bigger question for me is, what are the consequences of this displacement? What happens to people when they are forced to leave the place they know as home, go homeless, run in fear and look for protection from neighboring states, where the economy can rarely sustain them?
While our "leaders" sit pretty with greedy fists full of food.
“U.S. Presence in Iraq Promotes Muslim Feminism.�
That was the title of this FOX news piece by former Lt. Oliver North (conservative crook turned conservative rock star) for Mother’s Day yesterday, whose interpretation of “Muslim Feminism� is (shocker) the protection of Iraqi women by U.S. occupancy:
“Mother's Day. It’s a wonderful occasion for Ms. Pelosi and her comrades in Congress to reflect on what will happen to millions of Muslim women if Congress pulls the plug on their protectors.�
Because if anyone knows what’s best for Iraqi women, it’s someone who puts the term women’s rights in quotes.
Now, let’s look at a real feminist presence in Iraq.
The fabulous Guernica magazine has an interview up with Iraqi feminist Yanar Mohammed, founder of the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI): "First Victims of Freedom." Read it. Trust me.
Shorter Kathleen Parker: Women in the military are raped because they're stupid enough to be around men.
Oh, and the ladies are probably exaggerating anyway. No, seriously. Check out these gems:
No serious person doubts that sexual harassment and even rape occur in a war zone. But the degree to which sex is consensual or forced -- often a question of he-said-she-said -- is further complicated by military hierarchy and the extenuating circumstances (and passions) of war....Clearly, some of what is considered sexual harassment falls into the category of harmless sport -- the usual towel-snapping that is, in fact, a way to neutralize sex.
This one is my all-time fave though:
But more overt sexual aggression may be the product of something few will acknowledge, at least on the record: resentment.Off the record, in dozens of interviews over a period of years, male soldiers and officers have confided that many men resent women because they've been forced to pretend that women are equals, and men know they're not.
And clearly, the best way to put us bitches back in our place is with a good raping, huh?
Contributed by Courtney Martin
"The Women’s War," Sara Corbett’s heartbreaking and exhaustively researched account of the psychological fallout for female soldiers in the Iraq War is filled with the kind of revelations that make you first go, “holy shit� and then, immediately “well, of course.�
Holy shit, one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Well, of course rape is rampant in a war zone based on humiliation, sexism, and blind submission to authority. (Hell, rape is rampant everywhere.)
Holy shit, female soldiers are more likely to be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, sometimes at twice the rate of male soldiers. Well, of course women exposed to the “double whammy,� as Patricia Resick calls it, of sexual trauma and exposure to combat are coming home with some serious mental health issues. Though the 160,000 female soldiers that have been deployed in Iraq often are in roles technically classified as “combat-support,� the violence of this war is ubiquitous. (There were just 7,500 females who served in Vietnam and 41,000 who served in the gulf war.)
Holy shit, the Department of Defense isn’t doing anything to support these women: of the 3,038 investigations of military sexual assault charges in 2004 and 2005, only 329 have resulted in a court-martial of the perpetrator.� Well, of course the government isn’t taking responsibility. Just like they’re not taking responsibility for the rampant brain injuries resulting from this new kind of warfare or the civilian casualties or the lies that got us into this war in the first place or the…you get the point. Kudos to Corbett on this incredibly important story.
Picture via Reuters.
As we’re approaching the fourth anniversary since we invaded Iraq, thousands marched in D.C. on Saturday to protest the war.
Other protests were held in San Francisco, San Diego and Hartford, Connecticut, where more than a thousand people gathered, while tens of thousands gathered in Madrid to protest as well as call for the closing of the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Let’s hope this coming anniversary will be the last.
My colleague Kay has a post up over at TAPPED about the guilty pleas from the two U.S. soldiers who raped and killed 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. Their truly disturbing testimony comes at a time when Iraqi politicians are rushing to politicize the allegations by 20-year-old Sabrine al-Janabi that she was sexually assaulted by Iraqi security forces.
See also: Robin Morgan's Rape, Murder and the American G.I.
Laura Hershey’s parents didn’t listen to her doctors’ assumptions that spinal muscular atrophy would end her life when she was a child. Forty-four years later, Laura is still here, and isn’t planning on going anywhere.
Laura Hershey is a consultant, published writer/researcher, and committed advocate who has 20+ years experience as an activist for disability rights. You can read Laura’s writing at Crip Commentary, a web site she runs that discusses various aspects of disability rights. She’s currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing.
I spoke with Laura from her home in California. Here’s Laura…
Yesterday when Condoleezza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask for money to fund the escalation in Iraq, Senator Barbara Boxer asked her,
Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families. And I just want to bring us back to that fact.�
Rice (and the White House) claim Boxer was saying Rice wasn't personally affected by the war because she's a single, childless woman:
“I thought it was O.K. to be single,� Ms. Rice said. “I thought it was O.K. to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children.�
You're right, Condi! It is! But if you really think it's okay not to have or want children, you shouldn't be working for an administration that wants to deny women at home and abroad access to family planning. Of course conservatives, who have been enacting anti-woman policies for years, are quick to seize the opportunity to call Boxer an anti-feminist:
“I don’t know if she was intentionally tacky,� Mr. Snow said in an interview on Fox News. “It’s a great leap backward for feminism.�
Thanks for the head's up! Glad he's letting us know who's good for feminism and who isn't. After all, he and his bosses have been nothing short of fanatical in their pursuit of women's rights, and we should value their opinion on this matter. Rush Limbaugh managed to have an even crazier interpretation, deftly making this a nuanced discussion of race and gender:
"Here you have a rich white chick with a huge, big mouth, trying to lynch this, an African-American woman, right before Martin Luther King Day, hitting below the ovaries here,� Mr. Limbaugh said on his radio show.
Ha. Last time I checked, Condi Rice was a pretty rich chick herself. Boxer's comments had nothing to do with race. And when did conservatives like Limbaugh become such ardent defenders of Martin Luther King Day?
They're doing what they always accuse liberals of: making an unrelated story all about gender and race. Thing is, when we get upset about this stuff, the quotes are offensive -- just ask Tony "Tar Baby" Snow. (See for yourself how Fox News is spinning Boxer's comments. Completely ridiculous.)
Isn't it obvious that conservatives are using a nonexistant confrontation between childless women and mothers to distract from the serious opposition Rice faced at the hearing -- and from Bush's flailing failings in Iraq?
As your typical defender of women who choose to be childless, I diligently searched Boxer's comments for something that might piss me off. But I couldn't see it. Maybe she could have said in a more straightforward manner, "Neither of us have immediate family members in Iraq," without mentioning her kids. But really Boxer was just making a classic anti-war argument -- one that chickenhawks have a hard time responding to -- that the people who make the wars are totally out of touch with the people who pay the price.
I resent the fact that conservatives are playing feminist police as a way to distract us from the fact that they've killed a whole lot of people in Iraq and want the authorization to kill even more.
Our girl Celina has a must-read up at Alternet today, For Female Soldiers, Sexual Assault Remains a Danger.
Check it out.
The number of deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has hit (and passed) the 3,000 mark.
I wonder what our nation's resolution should be this year...
Retired teacher, Helen Nichols from Nebraska, decided recently to let out all of her frustrations against George W. Bush in a book. It’s titled, Open Letter to George W. Bush: Including a Great Number of Select Quotations.
She’s onto her second book as we speak. Here’s Helen…
There was an AP piece yesterday that discussed the post-traumatic stress that many women soldiers experience after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. While we’re all too aware of the disturbing patterns of sexism, discrimination and assault that occur within the military, what comes afterwards is a whole other story.
Much of the article -- not surprisingly -- focuses on the pressures of returning to role of caretaker of the family (while not recognizing that not all women soldiers are mothers and/or wives), but it was interesting to see the ways in which women with families cope with their emotional distress when back to the reality of their lives back home.
To start, sexual assault is a large factor in women’s emotional stress post-service:
Mental health experts say one of the biggest contributors to psychological problems for women in uniform is military sexual trauma - a term that covers verbal harassment and physical assault, which is a strong risk factor for PTSD.Studies conducted by the VA health system vary, but generally about 20 percent of women report a physical assault during their service, Westrup says. ‘Unfortunately, a huge aspect of that experience is guilt and self-blame and shame on top of stress,’ she adds.
Another apparent trend is that women tend to focus on their families after returning as a kind of therapy, which (shocker) doesn’t seem to work.
Some are so determined to re-establish that bond with their children that they'll ignore their own problems, says Katherine Dong, women veterans program manager at the North Chicago VA Medical Center.‘They want to make it up to their family for being gone, yet they have all these symptoms and all these thoughts that are still haunting them,’ she says. ‘Women tend to put their families' needs above their own. They're trying to push their bad stuff aside and focus on their families and unfortunately, it's not always successful.’
What’s angering about this piece is that there is a theme of these conflicting feelings of domestic duty vs. patriotic duty which is supposedly the main components of their post-traumatic stress. Between “having a hard time negotiating their domestic life� like having (god forbid) their husbands join their daughter’s Brownie troop and feeling the need to return to Iraq and be a good American, their ability to serve as both proves difficult.
The effects of returning to work, school or any other aspect of having a public, social or professional life is barely mentioned.
Expectations are a bitch.
Former U.S. Congresswoman and member of the Nixon Impeachment Panel, Elizabeth Holtzman, joined forces with journalist Cynthia L. Cooper to publish, The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.
Elizabeth is the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress and won national attention for her role on the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate. Reflecting on her past experiences, and the present actions of the current administration, Elizabeth states there are many similarities between the impeachable offenses of President Nixon and President Bush.
Here’s Elizabeth…
The four soldiers that raped an Iraqi girl and then killed her whole family, are going to face court martial, two may even face death penalty. Will this actually stop the systematic use of violence against women as a weapon of war? Probably not. If anything the soldiers are probably surprised anything is happening to them at all. This type of behavior is common in a militaristic environment and considered just a nasty side effect of war.
The New York Times had a piece yesterday about the sixty-five women who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, “Jane, Ye Hardly Knew You Died.�
The article also discusses the debate on women in combat as well as the number of physical and mental effects on women who survived the war. My favorite sentence on this:
“A whole crop of veterans are suffering from post-traumatic stress and lost limbs, circumstances that sometimes prove more difficult for women who often fill the role of nurturers to their families.�
Forget about working women, who will take care of the babies??
As far as women not being allowed in combat, check out Jill's post on how they essentially are in combat, just not getting the credit for it.
This is disturbing. In light of increased security to get on airplanes one woman, a breast cancer survivor, was told she could not fly with her gel filled bra on.
Humiliated cancer survivor Jean Hand claims a travel company told her she could not fly wearing her fake breast – because it posed a security risk.Mrs Hand was close to cancelling a flight to Majorca after she was told by First Choice holidays that her gel-filled breast would need to be checked in with baggage.
The matter was resolved by airport officials, but the 57-yearold was left feeling 'horrified and humiliated'.
'The thought of having to go for hours looking like a lopsided freak filled me with horror,' she said.
As we have discussed before, these security measures are very uncomfortable and offensive for people with disabilities.
I mean at a certain point, enough is enough. Perhaps instead of being so focused on increased security (like asking people with prosthetic limbs and gel bras to take them off) we can start to look at what is causing all of this *terror*. Oh wait, then we have to figure out how the US and Britain are implicated. Well that would be a crappy hero story. *sigh*