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Why The US Occupation Makes Iraqi Women Miss Saddam
BAGHDAD - Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year's maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do.
Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation." Sub-head A says "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." Under this Article the interpretation of women's rights is left to religious leaders - and many of them are under Iranian influence.
"The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women's rights," Yanar Mohammed who campaigns for women's rights in Iraq says. "Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law."
With the new law has come the new lawlessness. Nora Hamaid, 30, a graduate from Baghdad University, has now given up the career she dreamt of. "I completed my studies before the invaders arrived because there was good security and I could freely go to university," Hamaid tells IPS. Now she says she cannot even move around freely, and worries for her children every day. "I mean every day, from when they depart to when they return from school, for fear of abductions."
There is 25 percent representation for women in parliament, but Sabria says "these women from party lists stand up to defend their party in the parliament, not for women's rights." For women in Iraq, the invasion is not over.
The situation for Iraq's women reflects the overall situation: everyone is affected by lack of security and lack of infrastructure.
"The status of women here is linked to the general situation," Maha Sabria, professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad tells IPS. "The violation of women's rights was part of the violation of the rights of all Iraqis." But, she said, "women bear a double burden under occupation because we have lost a lot of freedom because of it.
"More men are now under the weight of detention, so now women bear the entire burden of the family and are obliged to provide full support to the families and children. At the same time women do not have freedom of movement because of the deteriorated security conditions and because of abductions of women and children by criminal gangs."
Women, she says, are also now under pressure to marry young in family hope that a husband will bring security.
Sabria tells IPS that the abduction of women "did not exist prior to the occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their right to a free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before."
Yanar Mohammed believes the constitution neither protects women nor ensures their basic rights. She blames the United States for abdicating its responsibility to help develop a pluralistic democracy in Iraq.
"The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women's rights," Mohammed told reporters. "Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law."
"The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal, backward laws," Sabria says. "The biggest problem is that more women in Iraq are unaware of their rights because of the backwardness and ignorance prevailing in Iraqi society today."
Many women have fled Iraq because their husband was arbitrarily arrested by occupation forces or government security personnel, says Sabria.
More than four million Iraqis were estimated to have been displaced through the occupation, including approximately 2.8 million internally. The rest live as refugees mainly in neighbouring countries, according to a report by Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings Institution-University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement.
The report, titled, 'Going Home? Prospects and Pitfalls For Large-Scale Return Of Iraqis', says most displaced Iraqi women are reluctant to return home because of continuing uncertainties.
The Washington-based Refugees International (RI) says in a report 'Iraqi Refugees: Women's Rights and Security Critical to Returns' that "Iraqi women will resist returning home, even if conditions improve in Iraq, if there is no focus on securing their rights as women and assuring their personal security and their families' well-being."
The RI report covered internally displaced women in Iraq's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region and female refugees in Syria. "Not one woman interviewed by RI indicated her intention to return," the report says.
"This tent is more comfortable than a palace in Baghdad; my family is safe here," a displaced woman in northern Iraq told RI.
The situation continues to be challenging for women within Iraq.
"I am an employee, and everyday go to my work place, and the biggest challenge for me and all the suffering Iraqis is the roads are closed and you feel you are a person without rights, without respect," a 35-year-old government employee, who asked to be referred to as Iman, told IPS.
"To what extent has this improved my security," she asked. "We have better salaries now, but how can women live with no security? How can we enjoy our rights if there is no safe place to go, for rest and recreation and living?"
Abdu, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who reports extensively on the region.
49 Comments so far
Show AllWe, the most brutal, bullying nation in the world for at LEAST 65 years, sent our mercenary thugs to attack, occupy, rape, and pillage Iraq. Little wonder women's rights languish; they languish here at home.
The invasion of Iraq has been a disaster for women and you will not see any reporting on this in the US media and both political parties refuse to even acknowledge the problem exists. The irony that the christian crusade of Bush and Blair has given power to the muslim extremists in Iraq just shows the stupidity of the neocon zionists and born agains that started the war.
The neocons knew that this development would be an inevitable result of invading Iraq and toppling Saddam. They just didn't care.
The christian right probably didn't think about it (what do they think about?) but they wouldn't care either.
q
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, on March 19, 2003, I went to hear Yanar Mohammed speak at Pace University, about Iraq, and issues facing women in Iraq. Amy Goodman, several times, interviewed Yanar on Democracy Now! Yanar Mohammed, of course, did NOT support the invasion of Iraq, and everything she feared, loss of the rights and civil liberties women had at the time, for the most part, NO longer exist. In addition, she receives death threats for her advocacy on behalf of women, children, and others who have no voice. She is a very courageous individual.
Thanks, godistwaddle, for recognizing that women's rights, here in the U.S. also languish.
-"Sabria tells IPS that the abduction of women "did not exist prior to the occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their right to a free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before.""
Does anyone remember the part about how the US was invading Iraq because of "wmd" (a term they made up)?
I saw a recent clip of Nancy Pelosi and Rachel Maddow talking. When asked about her not doing anything to impeach Bush, or seek accountability, Pelosi said that Obama wants to do something about the lies that led to war, but that he has decided to "move on"....Pelosi also says the Iraq situation is a "tragedy".
Pelosi says that she would look into it, if there was any evidence. (apparently she hasn't seen any, and is waiting for it to fall into her lap).
Why did you vote for these people, again?
I never could stand Obomba or Pelosi. But that is still a good question: Why did so many people vote for these people? Especially, in San Francisco where the voters had a great choice in Cindy Sheehan! I use to live in San Francisco and it is probably one of the most progressive cities in the U.S., which makes it difficult to understand how such a corrupt person as Pelosi could get so many votes. She may have won fair and square, but those Diebold machines....hmmmmm.
Despite the Haight-Ashbury "flower power" legacy (or hype, depending on one's perspective) and pioneering gay-rights breakthroughs (and national tragedies; RIP Harvey Milk), there's a lot of conservative reactionary Old Money in them thar hills.
Worse yet, the moderate liberal-lites who MIGHT have broken for Sheehan remain(ed) foolishly loyal to, and inordinately proud of, the Gorgon Pelosi; like the Botox that keeps her brow baby-butt smooth, the toxic residue of identity politics infected enough myopic liberals to make Sheehan seem like a shabby Cindyrella next to the "trophy" First Woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.
There might've been a bit of nervous-nellie voting for "the devil one knows", too. I remember going back and forth in the comments here with an SF resident who found Sheehan's "amateur" status off-putting. I don't remember his (?) nym, but he was convinced that it was smarter to vote for an experienced professional who knew how to work the system; he remained unpersuaded by my argument that it's all those Highly-Professional, Serious, Qualified, Experienced, Impeccable Curriculum-Vitae politicians that got us in the position we're in today.
I don't trust the voting process either, but I have no doubt that SF's benighted and backasswards liberal-lites saw, and probably still see, Pelosi as a better choice.
Sad and infuriating.
San Francisco and Pelosi's district is is probably the most extreme-gentrified urban region in the US - worse than Manhattan. Its residents are typical rich bourgois liberals and not at all "progressive" or leftist. so of course they voted for Pelosi. Sheehan would probably even done better in her former suburban hometown of Vacaville.
And the ideas that California in general is a politically-left region is largely exaggerated. Outside of urban areas, it majority suburban population seemed to be as conservative as any other part of the US.
And then you have Hillary Clinton blathering on about women's rights on the international stage. Such obscene hypocrisy, such perverse deceit ranks amongst the worst in human history.
And also, under Saddam, the right to organize a union was respected, and most workers, particularly oil-field workers, belonged to a strong union.
There were strong welfare programs and free university education - for men and women.
There was also religious fredom, and freedom to go to a bar and have a drink.
Ther was freedom to cut your hair any way you liked and wear a beard or not.
There was also a strong right to bear arms under Saddam. He encoraged every household to keep at least one AK-47 and ammunition and know how to use them. I'm not making this up - so much for the NRA's "citizens with guns keep dictators away".
You were even free to grumble about Saddam in the privacy of your home and among your friends, just like we on the US-left can do regarding Bush or Obama. You just couldn't dare grumble about Saddam while in any position of political or military influence, or the consequenced were severe.
pjd412 March 12th, 2010 12:49 pm -- Very impressive comment. The others so far in the thread are also good.
Do you think the fact that the U.S. military is dominated by conservatives, particularly Christians who believe women have a religious duty to remain subordinate to men, has anything to do with the blind eye toward the deterioration of women's rights in Iraq?
Though I do not ignore the evangelical takeover of our military servicemen (the brass is still part of the M.I.$.complex), I tend to take a broader look at this issue.
One of the reasons that the Invasion was such a "success" was that Iraq was actually the leader in democractic (as much as it was in the Arab world to my knowledge) and non-religious goverment (I forget the word). When you want a colony, you do not want rights to the people, else they reject the colony and form their own state. You also want to attract people (dictators and strongmen) who will suppress democracy and ensure the colonial power's control over money and resources.
Iraq had a strong civic presence and one of the best infastructures and economies in the region, even under a dictator, and Saudi Arabia and Iran among others felt the Iraqis' strength and threat. They were a threat to oil contracts and corporate plunder, because the people themselves were better off and had more of a voice (comparable to the region, not the US). So we starved them out with sanctions and invaded their county, twice.
Well, that's my opinion/recollection anyway... and the story of womens' rights in Iraq will never be covered by MSM.
oUr turn is coming...
Under Saddam, women had free school and could attend university abroad. Under Saddam, Iraqis also enjoyed free gas, free electricity, free dental and free medical.
WOMAN RULING MEN -- IS IT MORAL?
Legal rights come by the organized will of men, the deadly force of government. Whereas moral rights come by the deadly force inherent in each man. For over 99% of women do not have deadly force, and when faced with mortal danger, they grab their hair, step back and scream.
For any legal right that women may have, this was given to them by men and by men at any moment may be taken away.
Some say that Islam gives women less rights then Judaism and Christianity, but this is not true. For all three religions except the writings of Moses and all of Scripture as the word of God. Examples:
“Her husband has nullified them (her oath to God),
and the LORD will release her. Her husband...
he is responsible for her guilt.” Numbers 30:14
“A wife is married to her husband for life,
but if he should die she is free to marry.”
Romans 7:2, 1 Cor 7:39
Men of the rich ruling class do not allow their women any rights, for a rich man’s wife who does not smile in submission to the owner of the mansion, she gets a small new house for life, a small new car and exiled from the mansion for life.
Men of the intelligent middleclass, men to smart to labor in drudgery but to dumb to ever be rich, they rule over all women except those of wealth and nobility. For divorce court was created by the rich to make the corruption of owning excessive wealth look pale in comparison to a society norm, having sex with another man’s wife the standard for pleasure.
For no woman of the intelligent middleclass ever wins in divorce court, and no woman of the laboring class ever loses. Result being, less then 10% of the middleclass suffer divorce, and 95% of laboring men live separate from their wife and kids. Laboring men being the 50% of men who have less then 12 years of education.
Dude, I want to argue with what you say, but your spouting is so nutty that my brain cannot wrap itself around its absurdity. Get a grip. "Women ruling men- Is it moral?" what an unadulterated load of tripe!
Men have a natural instinct to save a child or wife, to take a claw in the head or knife in the guts for a wife, surely to do or die if that's what it takes to get the job done.
Comes now an emasculating wife,
addicted to food that is clearly harming her body,
and when the husband refuses to pay for it she
asks him a question not really a question,
“Do you want a divorce!!!”
But don't stress your mind trying to make fit what just won't,
its common horse sense either you have it or you don't.
I think he means us guys need to go out and do something manly, like kill our next door neighbor, or machine some cast iron on a rusty lathe, or when our wives come home they're going to cut off our balls and have them for dinner.Sheesh.
Why such hostility? Why such a destruction of friendship and camaraderie?
Give us some logic so we can see your point, otherwise we have no choice but to assume your here to destroy the place.
You have reached the confines of Quality Machine.We are able to answer your call.Logic is wasted on idiots.
Henpecked Husband
by Robert Burns
Curs'd be the man, the poorest wrętch in life,
The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission,
Who has not sixpence but in her possession,
Who must to her a friend's secrets tell,
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hęll.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit or I'd break her heart;
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bįtch.
Well, good thing you're not sexist. - I'd hate it if you were sexist, too...
Btw, have you "switched" your "bitch" lately? Or have you for some wildly unfair reason none?
Good thing it doesn't bother you any that Robert Burns' attitude to women are a couple of centuries outdated by now. Some things are eternal. Right?
I really enjoyed the sheer absurdity of your postings. Tnx. :-) Got more?
He needs to read the "Domostroi", the seventeenth century Russian manual for men on how to manage their domestic property, including women.The author recommends beating women regularly to maintain discipline, and also because if guys don't do that,how are women going to know that they're loved? Truth_Light was born too late. Some guys just can't win for losing.Sorry, Smarter
Iraq had the highest percentage of female Professors and one of the highest standards of living in the Muslim world before the USA sanctions and invasions.
If one reason the USA is killing Pastuns in Afghanistan is that some of them are, Taliban who resist educating women, then should not the USA stormtroopers start shooting themselves for stealing women's rights in Iraq?
And do not forget in the late seventies, in Afghanistan, the USA armed the Landlords and Fundamentalists who were rebelling against the progressive socialist government which was implementing agarian reform and womens rights.
So I guess the USA has eliminated womens rights in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heck of a job! Neocons!
Very true, but the world record for greatest harm done to women took place in the U.S. in 1920.
For without a word spoken by our politicians, lawyers or judges, under the cover of probation and women’s right to vote, in all 48 states any woman of the laboring class who wanted a divorce, or complete power over the children, she got an automatic no-fault divorce.
For today, no woman of the intelligent middleclass ever wins in divorce court, and no woman of the laboring class ever loses. Result being, less then 10% of the middleclass suffer divorce, and 95% of laboring men live separate from their wife and kids. Laboring men being the 50% of men who have less then 12 years of education.
And rightly understood, the birth of “Disaster Capitalism” took place in the Roaring 20’s, for then slavery of all blacks was expanded to slavery of all us laboring class whites.
Where do you get your figures?
Joe
EMASCULATION
If our Empire had its way, all politicians in Iraq would be women. For anytime you give women deadly force power over men, this is an act of emasculation as it destroys his gut drive to resist tyranny and do or die for liberty.
And that is what strapping a killing machine to the body of intelligent women in law enforcement is all about. For law enforcement is all of the intelligent middleclass, and they spend 95% of their time policing us slow and careful thinking men of the laboring class. Result being, 95% of men in our jails and prisons are laboring men. Evil being, 25% of all prisoners on earth are the laboring men inmates in our privatized prison system.
In my experience most rank and file police, male and female, come from working class backgrounds. Their agenda may not be in the interests of the working class, but the police officers are. The percentage of poor and working men in the prisons is a reflection of the role of class, race and money in our culture. I do not think it comes so much from the makeup of the police force, but rather from the priorities of those who control the police, courts, prisons, legal process and economic system.
A minority female police officer may well have a brother who is picked up for no good reason by other police officers. That happens in a family I know. The sister gives her brother a "get out of jail free" card that advises the arresting officer to call her when the brother is picked up. It is complicated.
BTW, it is not nice or accurate to call working men "slow", in my opinion.
Joe
Your perspective is that of one who has college level intelligence, like all of law enforcement. Keeping in mind that no one can catch a crook, unless they are more intelligent then the crook. That is why FBI agents are all college degreed and their entrance exam is ten times harder to pass then those given to police officers. That is why hardly a one of your well paid intelligent middleclass has ever invited a laboring man home for a meal, or even had a ten minute conversation with one of us so slow of thought.
Whereas my perspective is from one of the slow thinking laboring class, one who grew up in the slums of Minneapolis, Milwaukee and LA. Keeping in mind that 95% of all those in jails and prisons have one thing in common, they lack 12 years of education.
In summation, planet earth is an intelligence dictatorship, and only to prove the harm in it shall such misery be allowed to continue.
INTELLIGENCE
The speed at which the mind is able to rationalize a problem and take corrective action.
the economic hit men waltzed into Iraq with a constitution in hand and privatized all they could. Chicago School of Economics, Friedman and company, have done their best to strip the people of Iraq of every semblance of a social safety net.
Hey, that's just what they're doing here at home. They just refined their techniques overseas. It's our turn for the race to the bottom.
We are our own worst enemy.
The intention to invade Iraq was purely for selfish reasons and revenge against Saddam. Bush sr. friend of 8 years on the CIA payroll, failed to obey the Bush orders, so Junior was put in charge to eliminate Saddam, and the innocent of Iraq now suffer. It is not rather a leader is male or female, but the abilty they have to lead. It depends on the person, not their sex.
I'm sure there are many Kurdish women who do NOT miss Saddam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
Could be, but surely all the women in Iraq would say that the better of two evils, the evil of Saddam or the evil of our envasion, that the better was not our baby bombing invasion.
Evil is evil...
Evil is crime in any fair and just society.
For evil is to enrich yourself upon the misery of another.
Sin is greed, an intent to enrich yourself upon the misery of another.
Horrible. But that doesn't make the US an improvement. Check, for instance, the deformed babies from DU ammunition.
I'm not trying to make a case for the Coalition of the Willing. They are all evil, the Coalition and Saddam.
Listing the de jure rights that some women had under saddam's rule doesn't mean there was a free society.
It was a society with rights for some, not all and that means it was not a free society.
CHRISTIANS, JEWS, MOSLEMS -- BROTHERS IN FAITH
As a pacifist who sees no hope of world peace until the three major religions get their noses out of each other’s business, may this slow thinker point out to all PhD theologians: Founding fathers of the three major faiths are in fact the Old Testament Prophets.
And so, not to say that I agree or disagree with what Scripture says about the rights of women, but just to show what the three faiths share in common, let us start with the Prophet Moses:
WOMEN’S RIGHTS -- OLD TESTAMENT
(1) If the men in a family are so fool as to let their woman run loose after dark, if a virgin is seduced or raped, then she is married to the man for life.
(2) A woman is married for life to the first man she has sex with. Any woman who has sex with more then one living lover commits sin.
(3) A wife is married to her husband for life.
(4) Blood guilt for the sins of a wife or daughter are all on the husbands head.
(5) A woman must keep her head covered and be silent in a house of worship.
(6) A woman is not to teach or have authority over any man.
(7) A sex code is a bond that preserves the sanctify of a family, adultery murders permanently the family, adultery is worse the murder and both parties guilty of adultery must be stoned to death.
(8) A husband may evict from his home any wife or daughter who treats him in contempt, and be relieved of any burden to support them.
All religions are tools of control for the elite extremest group of super rich.
Laws can rule over people, peace can be achieved by eliminating all religions, and the super rich.
If thats a communist view, than what do you call a hand full of super rich using religious hogwash running the world, same thing.
True, all visible religions are the most perfect tool for protecting excessive wealth the world has ever known. All a fake morality and a fiction salvation.
True, capitalism is communism for the rich, just look at China.
Why, its almost as if it was all by intelligent design, just as if the purpose of this world was to prove the harm in an intelligence dictatorship.
DIVORCE -- JUDICIAL SLEDGE-HAMMER OF SEPARATION
Jclientelle:
“Where do you get your figures?”
FIGURES
(1) Less then 1% of the rich suffer divorce.
(2) Less then 10% of the intelligent middleclass suffer divorce.
(3) 95% of laboring men live separate from their wife and kids.
(4) Laboring men being the 50% of men who have less then 12 years of education.
From 1988 until 2000, I served as head of a divorce trauma support group called Turn Hearts of Fathers. We helped over a thousand couples get through divorce without enduring the corruption of lawyers inflating the anger, all to inflate attorney fees.
Going rate to get a divorce then for a laboring class family with children was $6k to $20k. The Family Court Commissioner got a third of attorney fees under the table.
DUMB IS BEING SLOW -- STUPID IS BEING IMMORAL
Jclientelle
“It is not nice or accurate to call working men "slow," in my opinion.
So, Jclientelle is of the intelligent middleclass,
and for some reason he sees it shameful to be in the dumb class.
For surely he must know that in our very large society there is such a dumb class.
And so, exactly who is the bigot in this issue and controversy?
For surely Jclientelle must be predigest against those who are dumb,
if he thinks it shameful to be dumb.
But, ask anyone working for the Salvation Army and they will tell you, most all the permanent homeless have not the intelligence to earn a living wage. For until Republican Reagan closed down all the institutions that cared for people of this limited intelligence, surely there were no homeless.
For I grew up in the sums of Milwaukee, Minneapolis and LA, we lived among the homeless day in and day out, and never did I know anyone of the laboring class who thought it shameful to be dumb.
Most interesting how those with college level intelligence think that to be slow of thought is the same as being “stupid.”
Truth is, only those filled with pride are stupid, as only those blinded by pride are the fools we refer to as stupid.
Actuality is, only those of his highly educated and intelligent class have the pride needed to think stupid, to act stupid and thereby qualify as being stupid.
Just look at the comment made here by Jclientelle, a most intelligent piece of fiction and that is why it qualifies as a most sincere piece of stupidity.
RicardoHead
“Logic is wasted on idiots.”
Not so,
for we are all born idiots,
void of knowledge or logic,
and unless one so kind to us,
with patience and logic takes time to enlighten us,
locked in darkness will be the doomed existence and absolute end of us.
GODS OF SOCIETY -- MEN OF GOD-EGO SUPERIORITY
Smarter
“Good thing it doesn't bother you any that Robert Burns' attitude
toward women is a couple of centuries outdated by now.”
Smarter most definitely is smarter, he being to smart to
labor with me digging a ditch, but to dumb to ever be rich.
A trophy husband surely, gets to break the heart
of any laboring class girl permanently,
gets to labor us slow thinkers in economical slavery,
gets to work in air conditioned luxury,
live in terrific homes so splendidly,
and with 401k plan invested in the war materials industry,
enjoys all his twilight years leisurely, on Country Club greens so heavely.
"The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal, backward laws"
Another article on Common Dreams yesterday depicts the rejection of Enlightenment principles by Repuk school board members in Texas, such rejection connected closely with enthusiastic support for the illegal/immoral USA invasion/occupation of Iraq, causing a million Iraqi deaths and several million more injuries, and several million more displacements, and trauma to the rest of the Iraqi population.
The European Enlightenment cannot help but share points with Enlightenment philosophies in the far east, carried forth through many centuries, suggesting a more universal embrace of Enlightenment than a Texas school board would have students believe.
One may ask if the whole deity thing concocted in the Middle east out of which sprang Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, should be ditched. The anthropogenically-induced desertification of the Middle East prominently testifies to the failure of that nature-destroying philosophy.
Give the deity-worshippers another century and they will probably complete the desertification of North America, along with mandatory chastity belts for women.
To the contrary, for,
(1) Judaism taught us that the deadly force of government can never overcome evil, not even if the government were controlled by God himself. Not even if God was in a cloud above for 40 years wondering in the desert. Not even if God was in the holy temple in Jerusalem and government leaders could talk directly to him for 865 years
(2) Christianity first taught us to be pacifist, “Jesus said, Do not use force to overcome evil. If they strike you on the right cheek, turn to them the other.’”
(3) Christianity finally taught us to never trust Christian Crusaders who talk like pacifists, but act like the devils most valuable disciples. For they are “lukewarm” Christians, a mixture of hot-good and cold-evil such that is impossible for them to tell the difference between good and evil.
(4) Islam taught us that even the most harmless people on earth, Moslems who fight only in self-defense, even they cannot live in peace with Jews and Christians who kill in the name of God.
(5) For this world has but one purpose, to establish a full and perfect understanding of darkness. Darkness being an illusion of good hiding misery, a liars pretense of good hiding his intent to be enriched upon our misery, a mixture of good and evil such that one needs the Holy Spirit to show him the way out of darkness and evil.
(6) Evil: to enrich yourself upon the misery of another, a crime in any fair and just society.
It's true that, while Saddam Hussein was a tyrant in his own way, the Iraqis at least had all the commodities; electricity, running water, freedom of women not to wear veils, and healthcare and opportunity for free schooling, etc.
Americans in Iraq: Losers. Americans in Afghanistan: Losers.
Americans in America: Time is telling right now.