Riverbend has spoken for the first time since New Year’s Eve. At least she is alive, even if her message is not anything we’re eager to here.
The Rape of Sabrine…
It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.
As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.
She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance.
I wonder what excuse they used when they took her. It’s most likely she’s one of the thousands of people they round up under the general headline of ‘terrorist suspect’. She might have been one of those subtitles you read on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, “13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security forces.” The men who raped her are those same security forces Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained. It’s a chapter right out of the book that documents American occupation in Iraq: the chapter that will tell the story of 14-year-old Abeer who was raped, killed and burned with her little sister and parents.
They abducted her from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn’t a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.
Read the whole thing. It isn’t pleasant.
I don’t even know what to say.
Rage, shame, horror, deep sorrow.
Collateral damage. Shit happens. Fight them over there so we don’t have to bear any of the fallout of our country’s actions.
Maybe if the Senators were to read this, they could debate about another useless non-binding resolution.
Thanks a bunch, Hillary. You continue to make this possible.
I know that segue might seem like a bit of a reach, but I actually checked out Hillary’s blog earlier this evening, to see the kind of comments people were making, and whether there was any censorship of criticism.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/blog/view/?id=3
And I saw stuff like this:
I’m an African-American, 33 year old man supporting Hillary! I’m a husband and father of two daughters! This is about the best chance to win back the White House and showing my daughters what they too can be! Need I say more?
Well, my first, uncharitable thought was that the comment sounded fake. But, okay, I really should give the benefit of the doubt.
But what it comes down to is this–what good does it do to be able to say we have a woman president, if the same woman is complicit in something that is so horribly bad for women (and children, and other living things) over in Iraq. (And who knows where next.)
There’s not a rat’s chance in hell that I would vote for Hillary if she were the Dem nominee. If she were up against the anti-war Republican Hagel, I would vote for Hagel. Otherwise, I would either vote Green or not vote for the presidential slot at all. And I have voted Democratic in every single election since I started voting.
I am sure that I am not the only Dem that feels this way. Why can’t Hillary and her DLC buddies figure this out? I am actually disappointed in Hillary. I had actually thought that she had too much brains to think that she stood a chance in a national election (as opposed to primaries). I really thought she had enough integrity not to run.
Plus, does she really think that Dems want to adopt a dynastic system of government the way the Republicans have?
Well, Riverbend lays it right out, so you can understand.
I have been rather circumspect, on matters military, in the hope that I could eventually discern where a progressive/military anti-war dialogue could occur. A lot has had to be swallowed, in that hope, which has so far proved vain.
From time to time it is good to think about what we are really doing–what this is really about. The Iraq war is not about defending freedom–none of these wars are about defending freedom–here in the US or anywhere. It is about an attempt by a monied elite to control the world’s oil, (and beef up Haliburton’s profit line). This is for what our soldiers risk their lives and fight and die, and–(NOT) incidently–rape and murder.
It is shameful in the deepest sense–total dishonor–military and national. It is a betrayal of all our explicit national values.
It is also . . . a mistake. The US has chosen the path of self-destruction, and that can no longer be undone.
(Though it might still be ameliorated.)
Riverbend’s post is a reminder of WHY it can not be undone. Of course, the atrocities she recounts are not the reasons themselves, rather, they are the sure tokens.
They remind the world–and us–of the real reasons.
Amelioration would be good. I do not think the Fates have decided–that is to say we ourselves have not yet chosen–the full depth of our destruction. A lot still depends on what we do–although truly, I am not much hopeful.
Two cases to remember. When the German Nazis were destroyed in the middle of the 20th century, the Allies had to decide what to do with Germany. The original plan was the Morganthau Plan, and it entailed a combination of depopulation and economic destruction. In fact Germany would have ceased–in any meaningful sense–to exist.
As it happened, the Germans lucked out. It was decided Germany would be needed in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, so instead (in the western parts) they were saved and rehabilitated under the Marshall Plan, which was the plan actually adopted and implemented.
A second case is ancient Assyria. When it was finally defeated through a combination of bad luck and the unified alliance of its enemies, its conquerors decided that nothing should be left. And so it was: Its people were made to disappear and its history and artifacts were rubbed out, so that all that remained were a few legends of horror, and a few wrecked, abandoned sites to interest modern archaeologists.
The thing to remember is that both these empires provoked their fates. And then had to trust to luck.
Which is not wise to do.
Your comment
Absolute nails it! This atrocity is a symptom of the greater overall harm our country has caused.
I taught Arabs for over 16 years. The courage of this woman is absolutely atronomical!!. In their culture, they believe that there must be some sort of “Karmic” (for wont of a better word) reason this happened to her. She can never get married, and can never have a family of her own, if she stays in the Middle East.
In fact it is dubious if she will be allowed to even live. The Arabs believe what happened dishonors the entire extended family she belongs to. Her father, brothers, uncles or males cousins will perform some type of honor killing. If they are kind people it will be swift and merciful. If they are more traditional they will soak her with oil and set her on fire to purify their families honor.
I wish we of the progressive blogosphere could contact someone and get her to a Western Country. She most likely will never be truly acceptable to her own people, without an intact hyman. But at least in the West, she may meet someone, and be able to build some type of life.
I think it is a mistake to blame EVERY shitty thing that happens in Iraq on the US occupation. It is not as though the previous ruler had a spotless record in this regard.
In some ways ALL of us bear some responsibility. WHY did we not notice the problems that existed when Justice Anton Scalia saw to it that the Supreme Court “selected” Bush to be President? How many of us even knew the horrors of Bush family history? How many of us failed to perform our civic responsibilities to even check out or understand the history of the decades since the Shah of Iran was installed and how it was all connected through each subsequent atrocity? What did we a “The People” do to hold our leaders accountable for things like Iran/Contra, or the terrors of Peru and Columbia? In fact, most of the criminals involved in these reprehensible acts, are either part of the government and being paid with our tax money, or “advisers” to the current administration.
No, no one in the progressive blogosphere physically contributed to Iraq’s problems. Our negligence and indifference allowed it to happen.
As George Soros told reporters at a Breakfast meeting in DAVOS Switzerland, “America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany,” he said. “We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process”