Another case of rape in Iraq
By Michael J.W. Stickings
From WaPo, more horror:
At least Talabani is taking these "allegations" seriously. (Although, as Melissa McEwan puts it, calling at least the second case an allegation is "rather silly" -- there's a confession of guilt, after all. And the silliness applies to both Talabani and WaPo.)
What's truly appalling is that Maliki thinks that the woman in the first case is lying, that she is (in WaPo's words) "a criminal who fabricated the story to exacerbate sectarian tension and undermine a U.S. and Iraqi security plan to pacify the capital". For of course it is Maliki who is one of the key enablers of the sectarian violence in Iraq today. He may be the prime minister, but first and foremost he is a sectarian Shiite with ties to Moqtada al-Sadr and the Shiite militias. And his plan isn't to pacify Baghdad or to unify the country but to destroy the Sunni insurgency and, in a larger sense, to ensure the Shiite domination of Iraq.
And what a civilized Iraq it would be. Here's its nominal leader accusing a rape victim of making it all up. How utterly despicable.
From WaPo, more horror:
An Iraqi police official in the northwestern city of Tall Afar said Thursday that a military officer and three soldiers had admitted to raping a Sunni woman and recording the act with a cellphone camera.
The four soldiers told an investigative committee convened by the Iraqi army that they sexually assaulted the woman nearly two weeks ago, according to Gen. Najem Abdullah, a police spokesman in Tall Afar.
The soldiers' statement follows another Sunni woman's assertion this week that she had been raped in Baghdad by members of Iraq's predominantly Shiite security forces. Iraq's Kurdish president and its Sunni vice president said Thursday that a judge should investigate her case, which the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dismissed as groundless.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in a statement that the courts were "the only legitimate place to examine such allegations" and that the government should avoid steps that would "inflame sensitivities and create mistrust."
At least Talabani is taking these "allegations" seriously. (Although, as Melissa McEwan puts it, calling at least the second case an allegation is "rather silly" -- there's a confession of guilt, after all. And the silliness applies to both Talabani and WaPo.)
What's truly appalling is that Maliki thinks that the woman in the first case is lying, that she is (in WaPo's words) "a criminal who fabricated the story to exacerbate sectarian tension and undermine a U.S. and Iraqi security plan to pacify the capital". For of course it is Maliki who is one of the key enablers of the sectarian violence in Iraq today. He may be the prime minister, but first and foremost he is a sectarian Shiite with ties to Moqtada al-Sadr and the Shiite militias. And his plan isn't to pacify Baghdad or to unify the country but to destroy the Sunni insurgency and, in a larger sense, to ensure the Shiite domination of Iraq.
And what a civilized Iraq it would be. Here's its nominal leader accusing a rape victim of making it all up. How utterly despicable.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
5:19 PM
1 Comments:
Michael, I'm linking to Riverbend's post on the subject:
Baghdad Burning.
Good post, that just adds another stick to the pile of reasons to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible. We just add to the confusion there.
By
Carol Gee, at 7:02 AM
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