(pic from the Great Micah Wright of course...)
If you would like to know what a female Iraqi programmer thinks of our "liberation", then you might want to check out this blog called Bagdad Burning. Check out her decimation of the Iraqi governing council, which they couldn't vote for or choose themselves (some democracy) and her realization that she couldn't work anymore. We also get to peek at one of those 8000 dead Iraqis that the pro-warblogracy never seems to take into account. Heartbreaking stuff. (I know she and Juan Cole have been linked to earlier, but this is worth an encore...)
Here's an Excerpt:
I stood staring at the mess for a few moments longer, trying to sort out the mess in my head, my heart being torn to pieces. My cousin and E. were downstairs waiting for me- there was nothing more to do, except ask how I could maybe help? A. and I left the room and started making our way downstairs. We paused on the second floor and stopped to talk to one of the former department directors. I asked him when they thought things would be functioning, he wouldn’t look at me. His eyes stayed glued to A.’s face as he told him that females weren’t welcome right now- especially females who ‘couldn’t be protected’. He finally turned to me and told me, in so many words, to go home because ‘they’ refused to be responsible for what might happen to me.
Ok. Fine. Your loss. I turned my back, walked down the stairs and went to find E. and my cousin. Suddenly, the faces didn’t look strange- they were the same faces of before, mostly, but there was a hostility I couldn’t believe. What was I doing here? E. and the cousin were looking grim, I must have been looking broken, because they rushed me out of the first place I had ever worked and to the car. I cried bitterly all the way home- cried for my job, cried for my future and cried for the torn streets, damaged buildings and crumbling people.
I’m one of the lucky ones… I’m not important. I’m not vital. Over a month ago, a prominent electrical engineer (one of the smartest females in the country) named Henna Aziz was assassinated in front of her family- two daughters and her husband. She was threatened by some fundamentalists from Badir’s Army and told to stay at home because she was a woman, she shouldn’t be in charge. She refused- the country needed her expertise to get things functioning- she was brilliant. She would not and could not stay at home. They came to her house one evening: men with machine-guns, broke in and opened fire. She lost her life- she wasn’t the first, she won’t be the last.
Before, the war, over at Warblogger Watch, I argued that women in Iraq had it better than in any other Mid Eastern state. Now, after the war, I'm arguing that we have to build a real democracy to ensure that women like this get their lives back. Bush is unable to do this, but Dean just might. The UN could certainly do a better job if they get rid of the cronyism and the no bid contracts. Also, check out the corruption in the Iraqi bidding process for repairs. Apparently, Tony Soprano is running the Iraqi Esplanade reconstruction projects...
Meanwhile, Perle, of all people, says that mistakes were made. Juan Cole, arguably one of the best analysts of Iraq out there, tells him where he's wrong. (scroll down) One of his primo military sources got shot and killed by the way. He lists the entire email exchange on his site.
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