Sunday, March 18, 2012

And the war drags on . . .

A new killing campaign is convulsing Iraq. The express targets are "emos", short for "emotional": a western-derived identity, teenagers adopting a pose of vulnerability, along with tight clothes and skewed hairdos and body piercing. Starting last year, mosques and the media both began raising the alarm about youthful immorality, calling the emos deviants and devil worshippers. In early February, somebody began killing people. The net was wide, definitions inexact. Men who seemed effeminate, girls with tattoos or peculiar jewellery, boys with long hair, could all be swept up. The killers like to smash their victims' heads with concrete blocks.
There is no way to tell how many have died: estimates range from a few dozen to more than 100. Nor is it clear who is responsible. Many of the killings happened in east Baghdad, stronghold of Shia militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army and Asaib Ahl al-Haq (the League of the Righteous). Neither, though, has claimed responsibility. Iraq's brutal interior ministry issued two statements in February. The first announced official approval to "eliminate" the "satanists". The second, on 29 February, proclaimed a "campaign" to start with a crackdown on stores selling emo fashion. The loaded language suggests, at a minimum, that the ministry incited violence. It's highly possible that some police, in a force riddled with militia members, participated in the murders.
It's logical to compare this to the militia campaign against homosexual conduct in 2009, which I documented for Human Rights Watch. Hundreds of men lost their lives then. Gay-identified men have been caught up in these killings as well, and Baghdad's LGBT community is rife with fear. Yet there are differences. The current killings target women as well as men, and children are the preferred victims. It's not quite true to say, as some press reports have suggested, that "emo" is just a synonym for "gay" in Iraq. Rather, immorality, western influence, decadence and blasphemy have come together in a loosely defined, poorly aligned complex of associations: and emo fashion and "sexual perversion" are part of the mix.

The above is from Scott Lang's "Massacre of emos in Iraq goes to core of a damaged society" (Guardian). Scott Long was someone who covered the 2009 targeting of Iraq's LGBT community, one of the few.

And what was true then is true now, how a lot of people are willing to kid themselves that someone else will do the work or that the State Dept's doing something.

A number of e-mails this weekend insist the State Dept issued a press release on this subject. They did not so thing.

We went over this in Friday's snapshot:


There is more to the statement but let's stay on the topic of statements to jump over to Huffington Post where they post two paragraphs and maintain that's a statement from the State Dept. Those two paragraphs are part of the four paragraph statement we ran in yesterday's snapshot. Maybe we should have included the title to the statement? "U.S. Embassy Condemns Attacks on 'Emo' Youth In Iraq." Use the link, you'll be taken to the US Embassy in Baghdad's website. From the title alone, you should be able to grasp -- even if you write for the Huffington Post -- that this is a statement not from the State Dept but from the US Embassy in Baghdad. It's a real shame Huffington Post can't stick to the facts or even do a basic fact check. As we noted yesterday of Hillary's 'quote' in the statement -- she's not speaking of Iraqi youths, it's from a speech she gave at the start of December.

If you have something to add to the above, feel free. But don't offer your fact-free e-mails because I'm not in the mood.

Here's a little game we can play: Where's the press release?

sd3


sd2


sd1

We'll make it even easier to play this version of Where's Waldo, here's all the above but in links:



Press Releases: 2012

March
-03/17/12 On the Passing of Pope Shenouda III; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC
-03/16/12 Azerbaijan: Alleged Plot (Taken Question); Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/16/12 ICC Conviction of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo; Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/16/12 North Korean Announcement of Missile Launch; Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/16/12 On the Occasion of St. Patrick's Day; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 Humanitarian Relief for Syrians; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 Internet Freedom Programs in the Middle East (Taken Question); Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 Remarks With Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad-Eddine Al-Othmani Before Their Meeting; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Treaty Room; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 Special Advisor for International Children's Issues Travels to the Caribbean; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 U.S. Government Contributes $1 million to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's Regional Program; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/15/12 U.S.- Korea Free Trade Agreement Takes Effect; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Anniversary of Lebanon's Cedar Revolution; Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro Travels to Israel; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Caucasus: Military Force (Taken Question); Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Grant Guidelines Revised to Focus on Vulnerable Populations; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 New Initiative Responds to Gender-Based Violence as Part of Global HIV Response; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Remarks at the Luncheon in Honor of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Benjamin Franklin Room; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Secretary Clinton To Chair President's Human Trafficking Task Force Meeting; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/14/12 Working to Empower Women and Girls Through Sports; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/13/12 Remarks at the Opening Session of the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Dean Acheson Auditorium; Washington, DC
-03/13/12 Sudan: Status of Sudan Economic Conference (Taken Question); Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/13/12 U.S. Department of State Announces Expansion of TechWomen to Africa; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/12/12 Mauritius' National Day; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC
-03/12/12 Press Availability at the United Nations; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; United Nations Headquarters; New York City
-03/12/12 Remarks at the United Nations Security Council; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; United Nations; New York City
-03/12/12 U.S.-Brazil Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/12/12 U.S.-China Asia-Pacific Consultations; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/10/12 Attacks in Southern Israel; Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/10/12 Remarks at the Women in the World Summit; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Lincoln Center; New York City
-03/10/12 Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King and USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Jon Brause Meetings in Europe; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/09/12 Making Latin America and the Caribbean a More Equitable Society: Economic Growth, Education, and Corporate Social Responsibility; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/09/12 Remarks at the Innovation Awards For the Empowerment of Women and Girls Ceremony; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Benjamin Franklin Room; Washington, DC
-03/09/12 Secretary Clinton Convenes the 2nd Global Chiefs of Mission Conference in Washington D.C.; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/09/12 U.S. Department of State and American Voices Announce 2012- 2013 American Music Abroad Participants; Office of the Spokesperson; Washington, DC
-03/08/12 Background Briefing on Libya; Senior Administration Official, Office of the Spokesperson; Via Teleconference
-03/08/12 International Women's Day; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Washington, DC


There was NO press release. That State Dept did nothing in 2009 and they're doing less right now. They've taken the statement issued by the US Embassy in Baghdad and sent that to the Huffington Post (sent two paragraphs of it) and the Huffington Post was stupid enough to fall for it.

When the State Dept issues a press release, boys and girls, you'll always find it on the State Dept's website. True under Bully Boy Bush, true under Barack. No press release was issued.

Think about the time it took for the State Dept to figure out how to respond to the Huffington Post article and grasp that instead of addressing the issue, they decided to lie and pretend they had.

That probably took them longer than issuing a statement.

But they'd rather do that and that says a great deal.




Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4487. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4488.

On yesterday's American who was released, read Chelsea J. Carter and Mohammed Tawfeeq's report for CNN.

New content at Third:



Isaiah's latest goes up after this.


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