Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Asha Bandele: Protecting our Girls. Three weeks ago a little boy in my daughter Nisa's first grade class threatened to shoot her. Nisa did not report this to me, despite me asking her about every detail of her day. Later, when I found out and asked her why she didn't tell me, she said she was embarrassed. She said she didn't want me to be angry with the boy. No matter how shaken that incident left me, I had to admit that the school responded appropriately by removing the boy from class for a time, making him apologize, and informing both the boy's mother and me of the incident. Still, I was left with an uneasy feeling, in part because my understanding is that the child's mother works in law enforcement--meaning a weapon may indeed be present in the household--but more because I'm acutely aware of the amount of violence that's directed toward girls. Nowhere was that driven home more painfully then during the events which unfolded in Colorado and in Pennsylvania the last weeks. That I know there's a need for schools which are safe and secure without undermining the dignity of students should go without saying, and I hope that policymakers and educators who met at the White House this week will consider this issue without being reactionary (no, teachers should not have guns in the classroom). But what also must go considered is that the recent horrific events were directed against girls, from the shootings and murder to the sexual assaults. That no grand summit has been called to address violence against girls is, to this mother's thinking, reprehensible. Violence against girls and women is a pandemic and the statistics are not secret. We know that more than half of all rapes occur before a girl reaches 18-years-old, and of that figure, 22% of rapes occur before a girl is 12. Still, the FBI estimates that less than 40% of rapes are ever reported. According to the United Nations Study on the Status of Women in 2000, at least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are "missing" as a result of sex-selective abortions, infanticide or neglect. UNICEF reports that nearly one million children enter the sex industry annually. Most of those children are girls. And in Toronto, the FREDA Centre reports that 86% of the girls who are runaways had experienced sexual abuse prior to leaving their homes. These statistics are but the proverbial drop in the bucket, and what I want to know is that when the data indicate that girls who are abused are more likely to dangerously binge on alcohol and other substances; smoke; engage in risky sex; and develop long-term health challenges including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and gastrointestinal problems, who among us is finally going to stand up and stop the pattern? While in no way would I ever discount the activists and educators who have been on the front line in the battle to stop violence against girls and women, I want to know where their counterparts in government are, especially the ones who have been so outspoken about the war against terrorism. I would submit that our girls, too many of them, are living their own version of terrorism. It doesn't have to be this way. There's a culture of silence around gender-based violence that must be broken. We can start by incorporating discussions about violence in general and violence targeted specifically against girls everywhere: in our homes, in our schools, in our houses of worship. We can determine violence against girls to be a priority in media coverage--as we have with other pandemics. We can examine our laws to see if they are truly designed to protect and restore women and girls. We can listen to our girls, pay real attention to them, and not just when they make a mistake. We can choose not to make heroes out of men who abuse women, even when, perhaps especially when, those men maintain a level of celebrity. When my daughter was about 48 hours old, a friend who was attending to us admonished me to "Put that baby down. You're going to spoil her." I replied, quietly, "I'm gonna hold this baby til I can't hold her no more." Now my baby is six. And then as now, I hold that baby, only as she grows older, I use not simply my arms, but my mouth to speak truth to her, my legs to walk into her school or anyplace else and defend her when needed. And, because Nisa, out of "embarrassment" couldn't tell me she'd been threatened, above all, I use my heart, to hear the story behind the story she first tells me. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 12:07:40 PM    comment []

Jayne Lyn Stahl: Outsourcing the Death Penalty. On Tuesday morning, at the White House, your president will sign into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (S-3930) which passed the Senate by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. The so-called "torture bill" does not preclude "alternative interrogation techniques" that include sleep deprivation, and waterboarding, as well as grants the executive branch the right to decide what constitutes torture. Moreover, this new legislation grants the president the right to hold people indefinitely without charge, and without remdy from the courts, thereby shredding habeas corpus. It is epecially important to consider the new powers granted to the executive branch, and the military, in light of revelations that an American citizen of Iraqi descent, 53 year old Mohammed Munaf, who was tried by an Iraqi court, and convicted of aiding and abetting the kidnapping, in 2005, of 3 Romanian journalists, has been sentenced to die along with five Iraqi co-defendants. (NYT) As reported by the New York Times, Mr. Munaf, who became an American citizen in 2000, went to Iraq in March, 2005, to work with the Romanian journalists in the capacity of translator and guide. And, when the Iraqis kidnapped the journalists, Munaf was also held for nearly two months. When the reporters were freed, in late May, Mr. Munaf was detained on the grounds that he was complicit in the kidnapping. According to government sources, Mr. Munaf is alleged to have confessed to cooking up the plot to kidnap the 3 journalists in Iraq, and pretending to be a vicitm. However, his attorney, Jonathan Hafetz, insists that the confession was made under duress, an allegation which is especially resonant in light of the Military Commissions Act which will is about to be signed into law. The Iraqi-born American citizen is currently being held by the American government, and his lawyers filed papers, last week, to prevent his transfer to the Iraqi government "arguing that his death sentence undermined one of the United States government's principal arguments for transferring him, namely that he would be in no danger of physical abuse in Iraqi custody." (NYT) Indeed, it would be gross incompetence were his counsel not to insist on challenging his coerced confession, as well as demanding answers as to why Munaf, an American citizen, is being held, tried, convicted, and sentenced by a foreign country, regardless whether it happens to be his native land. There appears to be some controversy surrounding Munaf's current whereabouts, some members of the government claim he is at Camp Cropper near the Baghdad airport, but the Justice Department says he is being held by "multinational forces." In a similar case, a federal judge rejected the Justice Department's assertion that an American was being held by a "multinational force," and yet another court called department claims that prisoners are not being held by the U.S. military "legalistic fiction." But, the Justice Department seems to think that Mr. Munaf's fears of facing torture, and beatings, should he be turned over to the government he fled a half dozen years ago are "speculative and based on news reports." The implication, then, is that Munaf, an American, who has been given death by an Iraqi court strongarmed by members of our own military has been watching too many horror movies! Apart from the obvious, troubling questions about who is now holding Munaf, and where, there are even more disturbing concerns. First, is an American citizen entitled to be held, and tried, according to American law, and not Iraqi, in his home country, and with a jury of his peers? Also, if he is, in fact, guilty of the offense for which he was convicted, is being an accomplice to kidnapping, especially one in which the hostages survive, a capital offense? If so, is it not up to the American government to hold, try, and execute Mr. Munaf? More importantly, how is it that officials with the United States military are empowered such that they get to intervene, and demand an Iraqi judge convict, and sentence to death, Mr. Munaf, an American citizen? Who pulls the strings, and who makes the ruling--a judge in an Iraqi court, or the Justice Department? Do we not make a mockery of Iraqi jurisprudence when American military brass is allowed to manipulate the outcome, and sentences of those who come before Iraqi courts? In light of the the signing by the president tomorrow of the Military Commissions Axt, and other staggering legislation thatr expands the executive branch, and military powers, in this country, it must be asked how it is that the United States government not only gets to outsource torture, but now the death penalty, as well, with impunity, and without challenge from Congress, or the Supreme Court. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 8:21:27 AM    comment []

Cenk Uygur: George Bush Will Live in Infamy for What He Has Done to Iraq. George W. Bush will live in infamy for what he has done in Iraq. 161 dead. 83 dead. 53 dead. 16 tortured. 17 decapitated. Shiite doctors dumping the bodies of Sunni patients they have murdered. Burn marks. Executions. Torture chambers. Revenge killings. Family members shot in front of their wives and children. These are all the headlines from Iraq in just the last couple of days. If this isn't a civil war, what in the world is? Anywhere from 50,000-650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last three and half years. Let that sink in for a second. That's a gigantic number. The human toll in Iraq has been unspeakable. And none of it had to happen. This was a war of choice. And it has been one of the worst choices ever made by a world leader. George Bush now threatens to go from one of the worst leaders in US history to one of the worst leaders in world history. Iraq had allowed the weapons inspectors back in, they were doing their job, Iraq had absolutely no weapons of mass destruction, the United States military was doing a fantastic job of containing Saddam Hussein, there was no sectarian hostility in Iraq, there was stability in the region - and we came in like a bull in china shop and turned the whole country upside down. For what? Democracy? Conservative pundits are now saying the Bush administration is considering replacing the Iraqi government. What? I thought they had a democracy. I thought that was the noble mission (of course, I didn't really think this, but that's the bullshit they've been feeding us all this time and the press has dutifully written down as if it had any merit in fact). No WMD. No connection to 9/11. No democracy. No stability. Nothing accomplished but a horrible, unspeakable civil war. We ought to cover our faces in shame for what we have done to Iraq. Yes, it was us. There was no civil war before us. There were no Shiite militias. There were no death squads. There was no insurgency. We broke it, now we own it. To make excuses and to blame the Iraqis at this point is revolting. George Bush has done the impossible - made Saddam Hussein's reign in Iraq seem not so bad by comparison. When you manage to make Saddam look good, you can't go any lower. I could go on busting him up all night long and listing the crimes of omission and commission in Iraq, but any way you slice it, the point is inescapable. We started a war in a country we had no business in and it has now spiraled out of control. We have blood on our hands. And we have a leader who is criminally negligent and barbarically clueless. And at this late juncture we have a president, vice president, Joe Lieberman and a Republican Congress who say they would do it again. Think about the madness of that statement. They would do it again. If that doesn't send a chill down your spine, you have no feelings left. Somewhere between 50,000-650,000 dead, some of them in the most brutal ways imaginable. For absolutely nothing. And they would do it again. If you vote for any of these guys again, you are one hundred percent guilty. You are voting for men and women who say they would make the same horrific choices again. They have warned you of how unimaginably callous and barbaric they are - and if you vote for them again, you are no better than they are. This is a democracy. What our leaders do, we do. If we break it, we own it. Now, it's up to you. Are you going to send these guys back in to make the same mistakes they promise to make again? The Young Turks [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 7:19:33 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.