ON THE THOUGHT OF GOD AND THE AFTERTHOUGHT OF WOMEN

BUSH WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE GOD TALKS TO HIM REGULARLY. When the President Talks to God, The Heretik is curious who does most of the talking.  Somewhere in one such conversation we are told we should believe God told Bush FREEDOM IS A GIFT FROM THE ALMIGHTY. We must be the fingers of the hands of the almighty. While we have poked a few people’s eyes as part of the almighty hands doing SOME GOD'S WORK, something must have gotten LOST in translation.  While  weapons of mass destruction will never be found, unless you count DEPLETED URANIUM or the FIREBOMBING of FALLUJAH, we still have Iraq as the PLACE where we are going to vanquish all terrorists, all evil and turn the Middle East into an oasis of democracy. 

The funny thing about the waters of an oasis or the liberties of a democracy is that all the goodness of them wells up from below.  You cannot bring flowing water to an oasis nor can you force democracy on anyone. The Iraqis have a different idea about democracy. While Bush would like to see a more of a THEOCRATIC influence HERE in the government of the United States, in IRAQ which was once the most modern of Middle Eastern societies we see the return of SHARIAH  with a vengeance far more strong than in the days of secular misrule by Saddam.  Some god may speak to Bush here, but another one speaks to the Iraqi men in power now.

Soon it will be official. In another year women in Iraq will have far fewer rights than they did three years ago.  So much for progress in the era of MONSTER POLICY. Condoleezza Rice spent a lot of time last month declaring how Iraq would be the center of democratic freedom around which the rest of the region would spin.  For women that idea in reality is spinning out of sight.

MUST READ
[NYTIMES]A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance.
The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament.
The draft of a chapter of the new constitution obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday guarantees equal rights for women as long as those rights do not "violate Shariah," or Koranic law.

RELATED HERETIK POSTS
[MONSTER POLICY] [MUKHTARAN MAI:SHADOW AND LIGHT]

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING
[ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES] Nobody really cares about women's rights in Iraq, certainly not within the U.S. government. Bush wouldn't have attacked the country if he had cared about the rights of women. Iraq used to have one of the most egalitarian legal systems for women, and look what we have wrought! Oh, I forgot, no more rape rooms. Though, they don't matter much as many women don't dare to go out in any case, fearing kidnapping and rape.

[PAM'S HOUSE BLEND] This is unbelievable. Billions of dollars, thousands of bombs, who knows how many deaths, and this is what it come to for to the women of Iraq. Have they not suffered enough?

[AMANDA MARCOTTE/PANDAGON] Sad, if unsurprising news. The new Iraqi constitution is all god all the time. And just like the "Christianity" espoused by our right wing nuts, the number one thing that god wants is women's necks under the boots of men.

[BITCH PH.D] “Compared to what some of the conservative Shiites were pushing, the glass is half full."  Compared, however, to the rights that women had before the war, the glass is half empty. It's necessary to say--it shouldn't be, but it is--that obviously the repression under Saddam Hussein affected men as well as women, and like every other person on the planet, I'm glad he's gone; but inasmuch as our current argument is that we deposed him not because of WMD or any kind of imminent threat to us, but out of humanitarian concern for the Iraqi people, it's worth pointing out that the results of that decision seem to be making things worse, rather than better, for the women who are more than half the Iraqi population.


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Comments

[Kate]

It makes sense, really, that Bush would care so little about the rights of Iraqi women. He doesn't care about the rights of American women. He thinks we're worthless. He doesn't think we're capable of making our own choices about our own health care, our own bodies. Even our own deaths! He cares about fetuses. He does not care about people.

great post, Heretik.

[Ol Cranky]

the Bushies don't give a fiddler's fart about women's rights in the US, why the heck would we expect them to care about rights for that kind of chattle outside the US?

[Lauren]

Democracy! Yeah!

[Angie]

(grumbles) I keep thinking if I have enough peach martinis then the pain of his term will not hurt so much, but it's not working!

You would think, with him being married, and having two daughters, he would be more concerned about what concerns women. Wouldn't you??

[Ol Cranky]

Angie:

you're speaking to people with a conscience and without a silver foot in our mouths. His people are taken care of regardless of law of the land, they have the money and the means to protect their own.

[Kate]

Hey Heretik, I think the NY Times is reading your blog:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/opinion/21thu1.html?

Pretty good editorial.

Take care --

[Words Have Power]

So....we started a war that will result in the subjugation of Iraq women and the alliance of Iraq and Iran. Did I miss the memo that mentioned those goals?