The Common Ills: Now they feign interest in Iraq's LGBTQ community

Friday, January 16, 2015

Now they feign interest in Iraq's LGBTQ community

We'll start with a Tweet.

Iraq: They came for Christians, Yezidis, Kurds. Now they come for homosexuals. #ISIS throw 2 off roof for being gay.

We noted the attack in the snapshot a few hours ago.

Others had noted around the same time that journalist Toby Harnden.did. We didn't note them.

We noted Harnden who is journalist who I would say lean's right.

And that's fine, even though we're left, because I feel like I know where he is coming from.

But when I see Julie Lenarz Tweeting it, I have this strong repulsion.

With Harnden, it's part of a canvas and incidents.

With Lenarz, it's about screaming for intervention.

She's not so much expressing horror as using the attack to call for what she wants -- ground forces in Iraq.

She's with a relatively new institution, Human Security Centre, so when I think, "Well suddenly they're interested in the attacks on Iraq's LGBTQ community? Where were they throughout Nouri al-Maliki's second term when Nouri was using the Ministry of the Interior to attack, threaten and kill men suspected of being gay?"

And, sidebar, that's another difference between Harnden and Lenarz, he noted the reality that the dead this week were suspected of being gay. People like Lenarz are so quick to utilize a crisis, to harness a tragedy, they don't bother with that. They're going to label the dead the same way the killers labeled them -- and they're in such a rush for war that they don't see the dead as people -- men who may or may not have been gay but will now be gay in death -- the same way some in the press rush to run with "prostitute" for various women killed in Iraq -- women who may or may not have been prostitutes but their killers said they were and now that's what some in the press want them to be.

Lenarz could argue that her organization was silent back when Nouri's goons were killing men suspected of being gay because her organization didn't exist.

And that's true.

It was 'born' only recently.

But Lenarz herself? She's no infant.

Nor are the others in charge of her organization.

They were functioning adults calling for war in various places back when Nouri was targeting men suspected of being gay.

And the issue didn't warrant comment from Lenarz and the others back then.

But today, when it can be used to garner public support for do-something-do-anything-we're-outraged-and-we're-stupid-so-we-just-want-violence-to-cleanse-our-outrage, now Lenarz wants to talk about the persecution.

I wish I could look at her Tweet and think, "Well, good, at last we're all going to call out these outrages."

But she's not calling them out.

Her Tweet's too busy creating a narrative to even note outrage or disgust over what was done in the photos she reposts.

Because she's too busy fighting to ensure that ground troops from foreign countries are sent into combat in Iraq.

I'm opposed to that but set that aside for just one second.

Lenarz is arguing for a 'solution' that is no 'solution' to the tragedies she uses to advance her cause.

The Islamic State's not doing anything, with regards to LGBTQ issues, that Nouri's government wasn't already doing.

Lenarz isn't interested in the protection of the LGBTQ community in Iraq.

She has no interest in that.

She's got no solutions for these attacks.

She just wants to use them -- and feign horror over them -- to pimp a war.

Again, I wish I could show more charity to those who are known as The Cruise Missile Left but I'm just not a fan of War Hawks.

Someone also ought to point out to her that her narrative leaves out the scientist and journalists targeted by the Islamic State (and that this narrative also goes for the Iraqi government).

The following community sites -- plus FPIF, Antiwar.com, IPS and Jody Watley -- updated: