THE WOMEN THE HARMFUL IDIOTS HARMED.

Second rough draft.

U P D A T E D


No, I don’t mean their Israel-anchored mostly Anglo women who hoorayed them for invading and occupying. I mean Iraqi women. A long time ago, this newsletter had concluded that the chief losers of the invasion of Iraq would be--

(1) Israel -- balance of power.

Never mind that it, the American Jewish Right, and a wide array of Jewish liberals had gambled on George Bush and the invasion and dismantling of the Arab country to assure supremacy (“security”) for their dear Israel. And

(2) Iraqi women -- raw, barbaric repression.

AL-HAYAT

Yasin Muhammad Sidqi on January 10 in the Saudi-owned and funded al-Hayat (Daralhayat.com) portrays a bleak and depressing picture of the state of women in Basra in his “The Militias of Basra Don’t Hesitate at Killing Women and [They Dare Paint] Their Threatening Slogans [Against Women] on the Walls of Police Stations.”

(A note of caution:

al-Hayat, while probably the most intellectually-motivated daily in the Arab World, is used periodically by Saudi intelligence who, in practical effect, own it and all other Saudi papers. This practical ownership is due to the fact that most of Saudi media is owned by members of the ruling extended family, whose wealth comes from the government on a rather continuous basis. These members are by definition open to instructions from their country's intelligence serive.

It never ceases to amaze me how similar the condition of the press is in the US and in places like Saudi Arabia. In the US, without any direct ownership by the government, media outlets go to war -- unjust, nakedly aggressive, barbaric war -- along with their government (e.g., The Wahington Post, The New York Times) even though no one's putting the gun to their head. In a place like Saudi Arabia, the influence of government is direct, via ownership and/or censorship. But the results in a so-called democracy (that's us) and in an autocratic kingdom (Saudi Arabia), in crucial instances, turn out to be quite similar.

At any rate, Saudi intelligence plants articles in newspapers such as al-Hayat meant to achieve this or that end of the shadow and true government of the Kingdom. (Does this remind you of Judith Miller and of our shadow government under the Bush regime?) Accordingly, the focus on the plight of Iraqi women could be a reflection of the genuine concern of the editors of that paper or of good reporting. Al-Hayat , after all, has done some of the best reporting from Iraq and recently from Pakistan. But it could also be a part of a new Saudi propaganda war against he Maliki government which the Saudis despise, with good reason, for its sectarian pettiness.)

HELP!

Still, there’s no question that the women of Iraq are in trouble. And there’s no question -- in my mind -- that yet more harm would be visited on these women should “help” come from narcissistic Iraqi women in the US who had worked with the harmful idiots or had hoorayed the invasion by the Israel-anchored crusades of the Christian Right, under the terrifically perceptive theorizing of the Jewish Right's luminaries and the hooraying by the Jewish liberals. These camera-loving narcissistic Iraqi expatriates are so beloved by the Israel-anchored mostly Anglo women -- Anglo but for Soaprah and the national security genius at State, who aren't Anglo, but who adore these women.

Accordingly, any “help” the Iraqi expats and their Israel-anchored hosts should extend from their organizations, which are funded by the harmful idiots' Israel-anchored Arab and Palestinian-despising institutions, should backfire and hurt the Iraqi women in Iraq.

Help for Iraqi women both in the south and the Sunni middle should only be effective if it came from the Islamic and Arab World.

THE IRAQI WOMEN OF THE SOUTH

In October alone of last year, one Iraqi women’s organization logged more than 30 murders of women in Basra.

Here’s an excerpt from Sidqi’s article:

“Ms. Meysoon [an activist defending women] wonders how one can explain [but for conscious abetting by the authorities] the murder of an attorney [a woman] . . . in the middle of the largest market in the city, at high noon? A student at the University of Basra said, ‘I had to stay home after a letter threatening to kill me (if I didn’t wear a veil) from students at the university. . .who [because I’d refused to wear a veil] would shout dirty words at me, would curse me, and would spit on my dresses, and would call me pig.”

(My translation.)

UPDATE

Kudos to al-Hayat for doing it yet again: Yesterday (1/25/08) that Arab newspaper included an investigative article about the state of women in Iraqi Kurdistan, the harmful idiots' nouveau Israel, which they had showered with billions upon billions of dollars, making Masoud Barazani a billionaire, to help out in the dismantling of Arab Iraq.

Well, it turns out that the women of the harmful idiots' beloved -- the Kurds --aren't faring much better than the women of the Shia south and Sunni middle.

The question for al-Hayat: when will it turn its attention to the state of women in the Kingdom, its home country? (No, you can't convince me that al-Hayat 's home country is Lebanon. It's Saudi Arabia, and it's published in London.) Or will it ever? My money is on . . . never.