Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Destruction of Iraqi Women

Abortions are an issue for the right. Nine out of the Ten Republican candidates said they opposed legalizing abortions and only Rudy Giuliani flip-flopped around about the Roe vs. Wade issue. It’s doubly ironic then that the Iraq war, touted by the Neo-Con right, has resulted in a giant spike in abortions in Iraq as reported today on The Raw Story:

Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn….

A record number of Iraqis -- most of them women and children -- are fleeing their homes to escape the bloodshed of sectarian violence and anti-U.S. attacks, according to a new report by the Iraqi Red Crescent organization, the largest aid group operating in Iraq.

"Rape, theft and drug addiction have also become "commonplace" among the displaced, who live in government buildings, at relatives' homes, tents, or squat in abandoned homes or makeshift huts on empty land……

… The number of "internally displaced persons" -- refugees who leave their homes but remain in the country -- has quadrupled since January


The utter destruction of Iraq and the very fabric of society that made up Iraq is something that the United States and Britain should be ashamed of. Their incredible ardor in thinking they could pull off something like this and actually make it work flew in the face of so many experts’ opinions and yet they forged ahead. As Iraq spirals downwards towards an abyss we can only imagine, one has to ask oneself what the long term consequences will be.

Radical fundamentalist Islam is always condemning the West for its loose morals and lewdness in society – a view absurdly close to the Christian fundamentalist groups in America – and is proclaiming the downfall of Western civilization as a direct result of our pandering to greed and our lack of prudery, our marriage with the devil which is evident in our need for ostentatiousness and our evident and open lust for sex. They see themselves confirmed in their condemnation of our society through the mirror of Iraq, which has, for their purposes, taken on our values and embraced Western culture and is now paying the price.

The Iraqi population can only wistfully look back to a time when drugs and abortions were not the norm and these new victims, the poor women who have sought out an illegal abortion as their only way out of this hell, the drug victims and their families who have to deal with this new scourge will be the first to embrace a new vision offering them succor and the only ones in place to do that at this time, are fundamentalist Islamic Mullahs and the Iranian model of ascetic living.

The purple thumb of democracy is insignificant in the face of daily bombings and the lack of safety, the availability of drugs and the need for abortions, the continuing conflict and an entire generation growing up in a war torn and ineffective country. The failed democratization of Iraq is nowhere more evident than the plight of these women who grew up in a society that adulates children, but have to destroy their own prospective offspring, because their future has been robbed.

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