Sacrificed to the Surge
Tribal fighters have cut down Iraq's violence. But they're subjecting women to often-medieval mores.
The insurgents have been driven out of her southwest Baghdad neighborhood, but the 30-year-old shop assistant is still frightened. A year ago Al Qaeda in Iraq ruled the streets outside her home, and Mahdi Army militia units kept the area under relentless attack. Now the Iraqis who helped get rid of the killers are the ones who scare her. The Americans imposed order a few months ago by recruiting and paying local men to turn in the names of suspected jihadists. Similar armed groups have popped up all around the city. Each has its own bizarre rules; some threaten to kill women who don't wear veils in public. The shop assistant is in mourning for her brother, who was killed last May, but she's asking for trouble if she wears black more than three days running. According to the new enforcers in her neighborhood, anyone who dresses in mourning is committing blasphemy by questioning the will of God.
In the past year, militias like this one have transformed the war in Iraq. Americans call them Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs), or Sons of Iraq; Iraqis know them as Sahwa—Awakening—after the tribal council in Anbar province that launched a Sunni revolt against the tyranny of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The militias' vital role (and the uncomfortable fact that many members used to be insurgents themselves) will be a big part of the debate this week, as American lawmakers hear testimony on the war's progress from U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker. What's less likely to be discussed—and yet just as important in the long run—is the impact that tribal groups like the CLCs are having on Iraq's social fabric, and in particular on its women.
America's efforts to disengage from Iraq have led to some messy compromises. After years of trying without success to wrest Sunni areas from Qaeda control, U.S. ground commanders appear to have done it at last—but only by granting sweeping powers to sheiks and local leaders who can keep the peace. Now Iraq's Sunni areas have been chopped into fragments, each one run by a different tribal ruler with different views on law and society. In some parts of Baghdad the situation changes visibly from block to block. No one can say how many of these leaders abuse their powers, or if their little sectors can ever be put back under the purview of a centrally controlled government. "We are becoming like Afghanistan was in the '80s," says Zainab Salbi, the Iraq-born founder and CEO of the activist group Women for Women International.
Saddam's Iraq at least offered women the protection of enforced secularism; they were encouraged to study at universities and to pursue professional careers. That changed in the 1990s as the dictator began to rely on tribal sheiks to prop up his rule, while U.N. sanctions drove families into poverty and reduced opportunities for women. Americans arriving in 2003 hoped to make the new Iraq a showcase for gender equality. But women's advocates say that dream fell by the wayside as violence engulfed the country.
Some tribal leaders are more egalitarian than others. In Baghdad's Adhamiya district, the local women's college is bustling with students, even with the Sahwa in charge. Times are tougher in Anbar's provincial capital, Ramadi, where tribal troops allow women to work but not to go without headscarves, and polygamy is reportedly on the rise. Women rarely venture out of their homes now in rural Sahwa areas like Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad.
In Anbar, the Sahwa movement's birthplace, tribal leaders have taken full control. "They have their own personal fiefdoms, and they answer to no one," says Isobel Coleman, a women's rights specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations. "The tribal groups may not be directly affiliated with Al Qaeda, but they're no less conservative." That may be an exaggeration: the jihadists forced girls into marriages, closed schools and killed indiscriminately. But tribal values are more medieval than those enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution—and this time the gunmen have the backing of the U.S. military. Some fear that worse is coming. "I can see in the eyes of some of them that they have something to say to us unveiled women," says Samara Ali, 27, a library worker at Baghdad University. "I think that they are waiting for a proper time to speak out."
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Member Comments
Posted By: getzel @ 04/12/2008 9:44:11 AM
Comment: Islamic terrorist culture wants you at the gas pump/ copyright Getzel 2002. Hand delivered to every member of congress; 2002
We will have a nice LONG lasting WAR and sell lots of weapons/copyright Getzel 1989 referring to the Islamic terror war that they were waging against us for a long time already/ yes I hand delivered the message to every member of Congress in 1989. Yes World leaders adopted my 1989 phrase: LONG WAR/ just Google Long War.
Theoretical telephone conversation : Khomeini talking to President Bush in 1989: Your rules violate our rules, here we rush-to die to protect us from the satanic verses of the west/ no no your rules violate our rules, here sticks and stones may break our bones but words can never hurt us/ copyright Getzel 1989/ Yes I hand delivered that exact message to every member of Congress in 1989. Salmon Rushdie era..
1986 delivered to 50-100 members of Congress: A complete change in the government operating out of Moscow will occur...the change will occur similar to the way the government changed in the Philippines. copyright Getzel 1986.
June 2003 I wrote the exact outcome of the Iraq war...it was easy... President Bush chose the plans for the exact outcome we got...A nice LONG lasting WAR and sell lots of weapons.
I most humbly submit that those are not my best work.
Intelligence analyst: Getzel
War ends We win: when we pass a law that makes the minimum price of gasoline at the pumps: $1.75/gallon.
The ethanol investors do not build ethanol distilleries because monopoly OPEC would lower the price of crude/gasoline to rust out the billion dollar/million barrel a day ethanol stills.
Brazil is energy independent: ethanol; All their cars come built running on ethanol; The gas station fills the tanks with ethanol, no gasoline.
Archer Daniel Midland made millions in the USA selling $1.00 gallon ethanol in the 1990s;
That trumps any canard/invalid objection to ethanol. Use Cellulose ethanol, not corn ethanol.
Cellulose Ethanol energy independence in the USA, will balance the trade deficit, create full employment, bring down the price of fuel, break the monopoly on the pricing of fuel, balance the USA government budget, create less pollution, make the USA energy independent, and end the war because we will stop funding the bad guys everyday at the gas pumps.
With all the cars running on ethanol; the price of oil will collapse and the radical Moslem hordes will no longer have the funds we used to give them from gasoline sales to finance the war against us.
Yes, by 1982 I built a distillery and converted my GM car run to 160 proof ethanol; specifically to keep us out of this war; yes I delivered the message to every member of Congress.
President Bush and our Congress people would rather YOU fight than switch to ethanol. Copyright Getzel: 2005.
Posted By: eddiewhere @ 04/12/2008 5:06:18 AM
Comment: WE NEED TO MONITOR THE CyBER WAR CHINA HAS ALREADy LAUNCHED AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS project IS AT THE Top of CHINA"S MILITARy offense against US.
THIS IS A FACT. THE AMERICAN pEOpLE NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH. REMEMBER CLINTON SOLD THE LINCOLN BEDROOM TO THE CHINESE.
IN THE LONG RUN WE ALSO NEED TO MONITOR A pOSSIBLE MILITARy ALLIANCE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CHINA. NOW, if McCAIN SETs A ONE HUNDRED yEAR AGENA FOR pREVENTING AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CHINA, WELL THAT MAKES SENSE.
THE ONLy REASON THE REBpULBICANS SUppORT STAyING IN IRAQ IS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE REBpULBICAN POWER BASE and it's backers are making BILLIONS IN IRAQ. WHILE OUR TREASURy IS BEING DRAINED EVERy DAy at the tax Payers exPense.
MORE THAN HUNDRED THOUSHAND DOLLARS A DAy. THIS IS A MODEST ESTIMASTE.
WHY CAN'T WE SEE THAT THE PeoPle Profiting from the war are haPPy with the status quo. WHo are these PeoPle,
Private Contrators who lobbied the RePublican adminstration
Cheney/ Halliburton who Provided billion dollar contracts to selected firms.
These caPitalists decided to unite and Profit in Iraq, Build a new economy in Iraq where the oil comPainies, caPitalists that suPPort the Bush Administration, War Profiteers and other Private comPanies could all make Billions at the tax Payers exPense. HERE"S THE proof, keep in mind this is just the tip ot the ice berg
Cheney's stock options which were worth $241,498 a year ago, are now valued at more than $8 million-- for an increase of 3,281% . Cheney has pledged to give the proceeds to charity. Cheney continues to receive a deferred salary from the Halliburton. He was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and $194,852 in 2004.
Halliburton, has already raked in more than $10 billion for work in Iraq, and was handed some of the first Katrina contracts. The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of no-bid contacts in Iraq, and there have been numerous allegations of over charging for services. Auditors found the firm marked up meal prices for troops and inflated gas prices in a deal with a Kuwaiti supplier. The company also built the American prison at Guantanamo Bay. "It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. Lautenberg???
They even "pimped" our troops. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Do you think Bush and Cheney care that we are spending billions in IRAQ, NO. THis is why they hated the CLINTONS. THE CLINTON"S ACTUALLY USED TAX payer money to help the middle class and all AMERICANS.
LET US REMEMBER THE VICTIMS OF THE TINANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE, WHERE HUNDREDS WERE FLATTENED LIKE PANCAKES ON DIRECT ORDERS FROM THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT. LET US REMEMBER THE ONE MILLION CHINESE CITIZENS ROTTING IN JAIL FOR NO REASON.
Posted By: getzel @ 04/11/2008 11:10:38 PM
Comment: Islamic terrorist culture wants you at the gas pump/ copyright Getzel 2002. Hand delivered to every member of congress; 2002
We will have a nice LONG lasting WAR and sell lots of weapons/copyright Getzel 1989 referring to the Islamic terror war that they were waging against us for a long time already/ yes I hand delivered the message to every member of Congress in 1989. Yes World leaders adopted my 1989 phrase: LONG WAR/ just Google Long War.
Theoretical telephone conversation : Khomeini talking to President Bush in 1989: Your rules violate our rules, here we rush-to die to protect us from the satanic verses of the west/ no no your rules violate our rules, here sticks and stones may break our bones but words can never hurt us/ copyright Getzel 1989/ Yes I hand delivered that exact message to every member of Congress in 1989. Salmon Rushdie era..
1986 delivered to 50-100 members of Congress: A complete change in the government operating out of Moscow will occur...the change will occur similar to the way the government changed in the Philippines. copyright Getzel 1986.
June 2003 I wrote the exact outcome of the Iraq war...it was easy... President Bush chose the plans for the exact outcome we got...A nice LONG lasting WAR and sell lots of weapons.
I most humbly submit that those are not my best work.
Intelligence analyst: Getzel
War ends We win: when we pass a law that makes the minimum price of gasoline at the pumps: $1.75/gallon.
The ethanol investors do not build ethanol distilleries because monopoly OPEC would lower the price of crude/gasoline to rust out the billion dollar/million barrel a day ethanol stills.
Brazil is energy independent: ethanol; All their cars come built running on ethanol; The gas station fills the tanks with ethanol, no gasoline.
Archer Daniel Midland made millions in the USA selling $1.00 gallon ethanol in the 1990s;
That trumps any canard/invalid objection to ethanol. Use Cellulose ethanol, not corn ethanol.
Cellulose Ethanol energy independence in the USA, will balance the trade deficit, create full employment, bring down the price of fuel, break the monopoly on the pricing of fuel, balance the USA government budget, create less pollution, make the USA energy independent, and end the war because we will stop funding the bad guys everyday at the gas pumps.
With all the cars running on ethanol; the price of oil will collapse and the radical Moslem hordes will no longer have the funds we used to give them from gasoline sales to finance the war against us.
Yes, by 1982 I built a distillery and converted my GM car run to 160 proof ethanol; specifically to keep us out of this war; yes I delivered the message to every member of Congress.
President Bush and our Congress people would rather YOU fight than switch to ethanol. Copyright Getzel: 2005.