Monday, March 05, 2012

The gender traitor speaks

Janury 26th, we first called out Gender Traitor Ibtihal al-Zaidi. Ever since her outrageous and offensive remarks the piece of trash has attempted a make over. We ignored her sudden interest in women athletes after her attacks on women. Some covered her sudden admiration for women but most outlets avoided the trashy Minister of Women.

The trash wants to try again at a make over and looks around at the media landscape of foreign journalists in Iraq, ignores Lara Jakes, Jane Arraf and other women and runs straight to a man: AFP's Mohamad Ali Harissi. How sweet.

Gender traitor tells Mohamad Ali Harissis that Iraq will not see a female prime minister for decades. As Goldie Hawn tells Eileen Brennan in Private Benjamin, "No s**t." (Screenplay by Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller.)

Mohamad Ali Harissis apparently was wooed by the Gender Traitor -- did she give him a hand job? -- because he writes, "She also defended remarks made in recent weeks that men held a superior position in society to women, but said they had been misinterpreted." They weren't misinterpreted. She told that lie already. Al Mada went back over their notes and stated they stood by their report, that she did make those statements.

Those statements? Why isn't AFP telling you what those statements are?

And why the F**K has AFP sat on this story? They're happy to spin and enlist in her attempts at a make over, but they never, EVER, reported on what that trashy Gender Traitor said. This is their first acknowledgment.

Reading this garbage -- and it is garbage -- you'd never know that the Gender Traitor's offensive remarks resulted in Iraqi women demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad because that's apparently not something AFP wants to note now and they didn't want to note before.

I didn't ask and I didn't expect the men of AFP -- emphasis on men -- to cover this issue but when they finally get around to it, they offer a one-sided take, they offer copy that is a publicist dream.

Doubt me?

A public official makes offensive statements. An interview takes place that includes denial, denial, claims of being misinterpreted by the subject. And the reporter never tells you what the quotes were. Never.

Not only did Iraqi women take to the streets and remind Baghdad and the country of the tradition of strong Iraqi women and it dating back to the start of the 20th century with, among other things, the Iraqi magazine Layla, women in Parliament also called out the Gender Traitor's words.

You don't get that in the AFP story either.

What's so F**KING offensive about this crappy story is that it leads up to International Women's Day (March 8th). AFP should be ashamed of themselves. You expect this piggery from the New York Times, AFP's supposed to be a little more advanced.

Instead, it's spin and spin some more. "The 47-year-old lamented the fact that she was the only woman in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's 33-member cabinet, despite the fact that Iraq's 325-member parliament is required to allot 25 percent of its seats to women." In what world is that either accurate or illustrative?

How many posts are there in the current Cabinet? 41. How many are filled? 35. How in the world do you get 33? You can click here for Wikipedia's chart. Now let's talk reality that AFP forgot to provide, they were so busy covering for the Gender Traitor. In the 2006 Cabinet, there were four women. Despite the fact that Nouri has increased the number of Cabinet ministers, there are less women holding posts now than in 2006. It's not about, as Gender Traitor maintains and AFP parrots, waiting for the slow slog women will have to make, it's about their being undercut and attacked and undermined every step of the way and apparently AFP is a-okay with that.


When the supposedly misquoted Minister of Women is quoted she states, "By superiority, I do not mean that men should exert their authority over women arbitrarily." Only the piggish at AFP could bury the lede. (It's at moments like this that I do understand why a very good friend complains about the erosion of French liberties and values in the last decades of France. I don't agree with her conclusions but I do understand why she is so outraged.)

The Minister of Women has just declared that men have authority over women. The stupid Gender Traitor needs to read the Constitution. As the women in Parliament and the women demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad pointed out, the Constitution grants Iraqi men no such right and establishes equality. She should be stripped of her position. She's a token only present because women -- including Jalal Talabani's relatives -- slammed Nouri for failing to name a single woman to his Cabinet. She's nothing but a Queen Bee, there to destroy the rights of Iraqi women. She makes that clear when she, the Minister of Women, defines her duties as a government servant: "My duty is to first satisfy God, and then the people and the women of Iraq." Women come third. May she reap all that she has sewn. XKJDKOIEHDL.

Al Rafidayn has an article on the KRG that quotes the gender traitor on women in the KRG and that also quotes some homophobe on AIDs cases in the KRG. Baghdad is not over the KRG. The KRG does not report to Baghdad. The Gender Traitor is nothing but Nouri's sexual plaything and if she's shooting off her uninformed mouth about the KRG, you can be sure Nouri has ordered her to. Point being, we're not interested in her lies. Or her and Nouri's efforts to discredit the KRG -- which is not Mecca and has its own problems but they pale besides Baghdad's problems.

Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Jim Moron." On this week's Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) -- topics explored include Mumia Abu-Jamal, Egypt NGOs, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and, with attorney Maria LaHood, the Olypia Food Co-op's legal victory.



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.






wbai
law and disorder radio
michael s. smith
heidi boghosian
michael ratner