I told you so update. Note that Sharia is being presented as an improvement for women upon their situation in Saddam's relatively secular Iraq. From the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to all who sent this in:
BAGHDAD – Covered in layers of flowing black fabric that extend to the tips of her gloved hands, Jenan al-Ubaedy knows her first priority as one of some 90 women who will sit in the national assembly: implementing Islamic law.She is quick to tick off what sharia will mean for married women. "[The husband] can beat his wife but not in a forceful way, leaving no mark. If he should leave a mark, he will pay," she says of a system she supports. "He can beat her when she is not obeying him in his rights. We want her to be educated enough that she will not force him to beat her, and if he beats her with no right, we want her to be strong enough to go to the police."
Broadening support for sharia may not have been the anticipated outcome of the US mandate that women make up one third of the national assembly. But Dr. Ubaedy's vision is shared by many members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a list of religious Shiite candidates that won a majority of seats. She says the women on the UIA list are meeting now to coordinate their agendas and reach out to women from other parties.
How their presence translates into action not only will shape women's rights in Iraq but goes to the heart of how much religion will dictate law.
"When you have a fairly large number of women [in a legislature], it brings women's issues to the forefront," says Marina Ottaway, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "On the other hand, [in Iraq] you have a majority of women elected from religious political parties, and this process will take place in the midst of discussions of the constitution and role of Islam in the constitution."
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.
The mentality for these ladie's has been burned in them from birth,they know no other way as they have always been treated with this kindness.
If this is what they choose we should count our days as numbered there.
Unfortunately articles like the one on the link below from the Moslem Public Affairs Committee
http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/220/
will reinforce the general ignorance and slave mentality of Moslem women. To precis quickly, Iran is a wonderful place for women where there are more women MPs than in Britain and women have the right to wear hijab (click here for the Hijab Shop).
English readers may find the whole site interesting as inside background of what certain Moslem youth think. I found them through the article on "Winter Jihad in Ilford". The one good thing about that was this young chap (the sort who in my politically incorrect youth would have been described as a "young turk" - how astute that older generation really were) ranting at the apathy of his fellows, who were not good Moslems at all in his opinion, for refusing to take his leaflets damning the local MP.
The only guilt of Muslim brothers and sisters is that they are living on a land that contains a magical element called 'oil'. That is why we are under attack of George Bush and his ilk in the last 30 years. So is this our fault that you can not find another element to drive your capitalist tyranny? Go and find something else. Start using alternative resources and recycling and there is always a possibility to find things on Mars so leave Muslim brothers and sister alone with your nonsense anti-Islam propaganda. It's you that are in sleep and don't see the reality. I wonder how long you will stay in your ignorance.
OK, Jenan. We get the picture. You want to be covered from head and toe and, if your husband beats you, you don't him to leave you with a black eye. But, don't make your view of women the law of the land. Christian, Mandaean, Zorastorian and secular Muslim woman don't share your love of a veil and your "go ahead and kick me" attitude. I support the efforts in Iraq to bring a democracy to that tortured country. But, I will never support a government that brings Jim Crow laws to the people. That will make all the blood spilled there in the last two years meaningless.
Mahmoud;
Please stick to the thread topic.
i.e: could you enlighten us here with your views on the Qur'ans endorsement of Muslim men being able to beat their wives?
Thankyou.
Regards,
KC
اليسوع; الطريق الحقيقة و الحياة
Mahmoud,
Don't you worry, the world is pushing ahead with technology that will dramatically reduce everyone's requirement for oil.
Moose
It's high time we stopped feeling sorry for muslim women. They're the ones who perform female genital mutilation against their female children. They're the ones who rat out other women who've had sex outside of marriage, setting the latter up for "honor" killings. Then you have the Jenans of the islamic world who actively support women's second class citizenship.
The only (ex)muslim women I'm supporting are the ones who are brave enough to defect from islam and all of its trappings.
It all goes back to fear of hell after they die. The way the koran reads most women will go to hell anyway, so why not live a little? Muslims have no guarantee of heaven, it is a system of weighing good against evil. The only way to be "good" enough is to die as a martyr. The question therefore is: what kind of religion causes people to think that murder, mutilation, lying, theft, etc., is a good thing?
Found this on that MPAC website. Glad we are pissing them off!
UK ZIonist youth movement :
http://www.betar.co.uk/index.php
http://www.fzy.org.uk/
http://www.habodror.org.uk/
list of other organisations: http://www.yehud.com/Youth/Organizations/
FRANKLY MUSLIMS ARE EITHER STUPID OR INCOMPETENT!!!
There's a lot to be learnd from the zionist .. they may be a tenth of the muslim population but hundred times better !
Another to look at is : http://jihadwatch.org/ (constant islam defamation)
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Mahmoud;
You probably won't believe this, but a lot of us in the US were cheering the fall of Saddam Hussein just because he was an extremely bad guy.
We hoped that the Iraqis would have a future that was free of religious extremism (but not necessarily free of religion), prosperous, and peaceful.
We'd much prefer our sons, daughters, husbands, brothers, sisters were safely in the US, and the billions of dollars spent in Iraq be kept here at home! It's sad to see that our soldiers lives may have been wasted. I don't understand why some women choose to cover themselves in self-imposed chains instead of throwing them off. This woman appears to be educated, which makes it even more disheartening.
On the other hand, she is only one voice of many. I saw a picture of a memorial to US soliders that was built by the Iraqi people. It showed a soldier kneeling in front of a row of rifles with helmets on them, for his fallen comrades. A small Iraqi girl was putting her hand on the soldiers arm in sympathy. So I will continue to hope.
I agree about the oil. I look forward to the day when we are energy import free. The US needs to be self sufficient in all essentials so our dollars don't flow into the pockets of the corrupt, and we are free of foreign entanglements. We should also be VERY selective about the people we import, lest they become a potential fifth column in our country. Treehugger
Relax folks. Even though the danger is real. Even though the story might be true. Like the NY Times, the Christian Science Monitor is little more than a dhimmi rag. They will publish anything to undermine the administration that has done more than any other to fight Islamofascism. If this new government wants to keep Kurdistan, they are going to have to lighten up on the Sharia part. I do not think that this is the whole story. I do not think this is the only political trend. It is also possible that like the Communist Chinese, many of these polititians are Islamist in name only.
Some will always say that the elections were premature, but make no mistake; had the elections not taken place, the Iraqi forces would never have seriously defended any strongman that was chosen by the U.S., nor would the Iraqi people be so supportive of their missions. In effect, these elections were central to America's exit strategy, even if the cabinet did not end up looking like the Swiss parliament.
Remember how the media excoriated the U.S. for doing Afghanistan "on the cheap" and cutting all these deals with war lords? Last I heard, Karzai's popularity and influence througout Afghanistan has only been growing.
Give it time. It's all about risk management.
Tks for the perspective rublev. Sometimes these dhimmi rags and their spin can almost get to you. But there's nos smoke w/o fire. How do we know whether or not to take this ominous portend seriously?
Mahmoud,
I'm all for the exploration of alternative fuels and energy! And when all that money for oil is cut off, all of you can simply sit in your desert and wonder where your money and power has gone. Oil has made your countries leaders corrupt and rich - too bad the money isn't being used for helping th common man in these countries.
Amazing blinders you have on there.
Voletti,
Don't get me wrong, I am seeing this through rosy lens, but the news sources are so politicized when it comes to this issue I would sooner wait until the dust settles to get the real story.
We might have to accept that Basra and some other Shiite cities will go Islamist, but what matters most is the federal law, and there is NO WAY that the Kurds will accept the imposition of Sharia law. They had a good experience with American-sponsored autonomy (under the no-fly-zone policy) to want this crap.
If the Shiite areas go Islamist, we cannot rule out that the brain drain of thinking citizens away from Shiite areas may cause them to lighten up some more (Then again, the idiots that are left behind might vote in for some more Islam!).
Now more than ever, we must pray for a quick end to the Iranian mullahcracy because this is no doubt having a big influence on Shiite Iraq.
I wish we could edit these posts!
Correction:
I am NOT seeing this through rosey lens.
It's my guess that not one in a thousand Western military people has the faintest idea of what the Koran is actually about. I'm guessing that most of our people in Iraq have a good empirical sense and some intuitive sense of Islam but that that's where it stops. If all they know about the finer details of Islam is what they get in one hour seminars by chaplains quoting Esposito and Armstrong then they won't have the foggiest idea of who the enemy really is or why they do what they do.
If Western soldiers had some inkling of the culture of Islam regarding women they might react differently in the field, not tolerating the crap that goes on there because they don't know that it's not going to stop when Westerners leave but that it will only get worse. Western military people, I'm suggesting, might well demand that the efforts they're expending be worth something in terms of the after-effects, that if ours are going to risk their lives then it had better be for something more than sharia in Iraq. Why would Westerners risk life and limb for sharia? But do they truly understand that's what's happening in Iraq and what sharia means?
If we can send our military people in the Middle East details of what the enemy believes then they might just decide to change tactics somewhat and put a stop to some of the cultural abuse that will grow like weeds if nothing is done to stop it now.
At the least, if our people come home with some detailed knowledge of Islam they might make a stand against it here. We could assist them by sending them leaflets over the internet so they can print them and pass them around. If our people are fighting only men and not Islam itself, then we're not really going to make much difference at all.
If you'd like to organize some letter writing to military people in the Middle East so they have some better idea of what the enemy is about go to our readers' web-site and discuss your plans and make some kind of arrangements there to do something real and effective.
Our soldiers might like to know that those of us on the side-lines are doing something to further the war effort.
Drop in at the blog at http://www.co-jet.org.
I hope that Rublev is right about the Kurds resisting the Shiites and their desire for Sharia laws. I have my doubts. The Assyrians continue to have major trouble with the Kurds. Part of the problem is land, but a big part of the problem appears to be religion. The Assyrians have had to endure threats (veil your women or else)detentions, rapes and murders, all in the name of Islam/Kurds. The Kurds are Sunnis and, although the media likes to paint them as "moderate," they have many fanatics in their ranks too. By reliable accounts, the Kurds cheated the Assyrians out of at least 100,000 votes in the recent election. A dhimmi is a dhimmi is a dhimmi, living with the Kurds or the Shiites. That seems to be one of the few common traits of these two groups.
Just Linda:
That was a great contribution re the Palies, showing Terror-indoctrinated children: Why isn't THAT all over the media? Why isn't that taken into the living rooms of the "West'- or are we already resigned to the Moslem takeover of everything we hold dear?
What is the BBC, CNN and all our 'news services' if not Arab influenced 20 second sound blips, computer graphics, drumbeats and the wheather? What we see on TV these days stinks to high heaven. Reading up on Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and what motivates these Turkeys is definately an eyeopener, but it doesn't help to sleep better at night. We are being under-wandered, bought and sold!
Mahmud: Here is one for you to sing along:
http://www.terrorists-suck.org/fight/winds_of_jihad.html
THE WHITE MAN STOLE ALL THE RICHES FROM AFRICA AND LEFT HER NAKES IN THE COLD. .
Thanks Terminator,
You made my day!
Maryrose,
I agree that the news from about the Kurds preventing Christians from voting was pretty disappointing. We can only hope this is just tribal behaviour and/or not part of a wide pattern.
Anyway, here is a different take on the elections by Amir Taheri:
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/12513
Oh, Mahmoud, I dream of the day when,through our technology, we will be free of our dependence upon oil. I dream of Muslim states begging us to buy oil, and we will smile, and say, thanks...but no thanks, we don't need it any more. And then your nations will revert back to doing whatever they were doing before...rug-weaving, date-plucking, camel-riding. And then your ways and our ways will part, never the twain to meet again. I dream and pray. As they say, if we can put a man on the moon...
The aspect of Sharia law in Iraq is disconcerting,but it is refreshing to hear a woman like Jenan who doesn't hide or make excuses for the oppression of women under islam.
All to often we hear that wife beating in Islam is "uter non-sense" from the apologists.
Rather,she freely admits to the beatings.Even if her idea of "guidelines for beating your wife" is laughable.
I'm not sure how old Mahmoud is,but if he were old enough to have ever attended a Viet-Nam war protest I'm sure he would have looked quite odd being the only one holding a sign that said "No blood for rice".
JLP
FREEDOM'S ON THE MARCH!!!
FREEDOM'S ON THE MARCH!!!
FREEDOM'S ON THE MARCH!!!
LOL... maybe the women that are serving as legislaters are going to help vote in Sharia because they want to stay alive.
How about that situation in Lebanon, kj! And they are giving Bush the credit. You just can't win for losing, eh?