Nearly three out of four Americans think Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion, a survey shows.
Iraqi blogger Riverbend might beg to differ. She describes how Baghdad’s middle class is being expelled by Mahdist goons:
Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words “Leave your area or else.” The culprits behind these attacks and threats are Sadr’s followers- Mahdi Army. It’s general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last month we’ve had two different families staying with us in our house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats and attacks. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s Shia, Arabs, Kurds- most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias.
Other areas are being overrun by armed Islamists. The Americans have absolutely no control in these areas. Or maybe they simply don’t want to control the areas because when there’s a clash between Sadr’s militia and another militia in a residential neighborhood, they surround the area and watch things happen.
This takes the surprise out of the fact that, in a survey carried out this April by the International Republican Institute, only 1% of Iraqis said they trusted American and coalition forces for their personal protection (and that poll was taken before a certain ‘incident’ was known).
Mahdist militiamen in Baghdad
Nor is it rocket science to see why, as even the Wall Street Journal admits, “the middle class — upon whom so much depends — is fleeing Iraq in numbers.” A point worth noting for the 55 percent of Americans who, according the the aforementioned poll, think “history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy” to Iraq. For without an urban, educated middle class, Iraqi freedom and democracy remain a chimera.
It’s the last remains of this middle class that are going now. Here’s a BBC report from 2002:
But since 1991, life in Iraq has changed dramatically – the country’s GDP has dropped from US$3,000 to $715 and doctors have had to learn anew how to treat diseases that had disappeared from Iraq in the 1980s such as cholera and diphtheria.
For the past 12 years, the country has been struggling under UN-imposed sanctions, which have greatly affected the life of the Iraqis but done little to undermine the power of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Riverbend continues:
For me, June marked the first month I don’t dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf.
As documented in this HRW background paper, Iraq ranked among the most progressive Arab societies with respect to women’s rights from the 1968 Baathist coup until the Gulf War. Gender equality was enshrined in the constitution; there were compulsory schooling and free higher education for both genders; and the law ensured equal employment opportunities in the public sector. However, the tide turned after 1991, as a weakened dictator traded off his modernizing vision for religious support, especially among reactionary Shias. Additionally, UN sanctions hit women disproportionately, just as they decimated the middle class.
After the second US-led war on Iraq, the wheel has now turned full cycle.
Not depressing enough, you say? Try this fresh report in the Observer:
Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal. The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the ‘immorals’ – homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution.
There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused.
What’s not to like? Reading on:
Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an ‘honour killing’ to murder someone who is gay – and the perpetrator can escape punishment. Section 111 of Iraq’s penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.
‘The government will do nothing to tackle this issue. It’s really desperate when people get to the stage they’re trading their children for money. They have no alternatives because there are no jobs,’ Hili says.
I think this goes to show that three out of four Americans can be wrong.
From my blog.
