Vigilantes kill 40 women in Iraq's south

[seriousstan]

Source: yahoo

BAGHDAD - Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.

"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

"Those who are behind these atrocities are organized gangs who work under cover of religion, pretending to spread the instructions of Islam, but they are far from this religion," Khalaf said.

Throughout Iraq, many women wear a headscarf and others wear a full face veil although secular women are often unveiled. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rise of a Shiite-dominated government, armed men in some parts of the country have sometimes forced women to cover their heads or face punishment. In some areas of the heavily Shiite south, even Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071209/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_women_killed

[libodem]

1. That's what Bush means by freedom

and Democracy. Freedom to have absolute anarchy and lawlessness. I wonder if he ever thinks about what he has actually done to that poor country, so he could steal all the oil, with our National Treasury. What are each of us indebted now, about $30,000, so murderous thugs can go around Iraq killing hapless women? Wonder how many have been raped and killed by Blackwaters'boys? I hope, Satan, is stoking up the fires, in anticipation of cheneybushes arrival, in Hades.

[bluestateguy]

2. And how many American boys died so we could give them this "freedom"?

A Dictatorship Under New Management.

[Hulk]

3. Yeah?...but, but they can vote...or they could. Freedom!!!

[Tyler Durden]

4. Have we killed more than Saddam yet?

I believe if you count all of the civilian casualties that could be linked to the overthrow of Saddam, like these 40 women, we make Saddam look like a piker.

I mean, Hell, we pulled off this many deaths in less than 5 years. Saddam had DECADES.

I'm afraid the world will never forgive us; we will be treated like Serbia or Rwanda and rightfully so.

[tom_paine]

5. 1.2 million Iraqis dead minus those Saddam would have killed

and whatever that number is, believe you me even in five years I suspect it would have been well below the million mark, perhaps by 2 orders of magnitude.

In either case, subtract the number Saddam killed vs. the number who died but would not have excet for our inavsion, and you have your answer.

Probably higher tha one million, and almsot certainly less than 500,000.

So yes, not only has our little invasion outdone Saddam's murderous brutality, but in numeric terms, has cause far more deaths than Saddam would have had he been left in power.

[Tyler Durden]

7. And just think...soon we'll beat the Genocide numbers in Rwanda!

Call the Guinness Book of World Records, RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!

[tom_paine]

9. I am so proud.

:sarcasm: :puke:

[gratuitous]

10. Well, sure we out-murdered Saddam

Hell, we're Americans, and that means doing big things in a big way, so killing more Iraqis than Saddam ever dreamed of killing was a snap. The real bonus was the trillion dollars we squandered out of the national treasury. Did I say squandered? Perish the thought, and forgive the expression! Halliburton was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy at the end of 2002. It's now very much a going concern, guaranteeing that it will be able to live up to its financial obligations to, for example, its former CEOs. So we got that going for us, too.

[Vinca]

6. It's hard to imagine the lives of our citizens and money from our pockets

is going to institute "freedom" such as this. But, somehow, Dear Leader will put a positive spin on it. "But it were only ferty, and they were wearin' off brand duds. Heh, heh, heh. Ya gotta expect it with free trade. Heh,heh,heh."

[LynnTheDem]

8. "Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein"; women in Iraq WORSE OFF NOW.

Funny ain't it, how the MFing idiot rightwingnuts chant about how we'd be forced to wear burkas if bush hadn't invaded Iraq.

Iraqi women weren't forced to wear burkas.

Until after bush invaded Iraq.

[Enrique]

11. and Christians and Jews

and Yazidis. All worse off (or gone from the country) since the war.

[suffragette]

12. And the article notes the number is "much higher" than indicated

Khalaf said bodies have been found in garbage dumps with bullet holes, decapitated or otherwise mutilated with a sheet of paper nearby saying, "she was killed for adultery," or "she was killed for violating Islamic teachings." In September, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found, he said. A total of 40 deaths were reported this year.

"We believe the number of murdered women is much higher, as cases go unreported by their families who fear reprisal from extremists," he said.

This sounds more like living in terror than in freedom.