Relatives of the 17 Iraqis killed by American mercenary forces employed by the Blackwater corporation (now called Xe after months of bad press) were stunned to learn that the case against the mercenaries was thrown out. Sahib Nassir’s 26-year-old son, Mehdi, a taxi driver, was shot in the back and died during the incident. He…
Category: Iraq
Iraqi Gays Murdered By Their Own Tribe
The latest news about the repression of homosexuality in the Islamic world comes from Iraq where 6 gay men were murdered by members of their own tribe after members decided in a group meeting to kill them. For all the hand-wringing about alleged repression of homosexuals in the U.S. and other western nations, this news,…
Iraq Votes Peacefully and Properly
Iraq’s provincial council elections went off smoothly under the watchful eye of the military, the BBC reports, and the country’s Sunni minority turned out in force this time after boycotting similar elections in 2005, losing political representation as a result. The head of the Iraqi electoral commission in Anbar province – a centre of the…
Iraq Partnering with U.S. Universities
Iraq and the United States recently announced a cooperative education agreement that will allow Iraqi students to study at universities here in the U.S. The goal? Sending 500 Iraqi students to universities overseas as part of that country’s ongoing effort to educate its citizens. Larry H. Dietz, [Southern Illinois University Carbondale] SIUC’s vice chancellor for…
What It Means to be Free
Freedom isn’t an easy thing to handle. That’s a fact lost on many westerners and most of the rest of the world. Freedom brings with it responsibility and difficult choices, many of which – if made using proper moral and/or ethical filters – constrain the array of possible actions down to a bare few, if…
Kurdish Girls Suffer Sexual Abuse, Mutilation
The Washington Post reports that more than 60% of Kurdish women in the northern part of Iraq have had their clitoris “circumcised” as part of what some Kurdish women consider a cleansing procedure demanded by Islam. Is there a more vile crime a woman could inflict on another woman? Usually it takes a man inflict…
Islamic Honor Killings On the Rise in Iraq
Iraq has a Ministry of Human Rights that is working to end gender discrimination in that country. That’s a tall order in a country in which Islam-inspired honor killings – the ultimate form of misogyny – are common and on the rise. The Guardian reports that 81 known honor killings have occurred in Basra alone…
Iraq Thankful for American Troops
Perhaps thankful is too strong of a word. Or perhaps not. 80% of Iraq’s parliament voted for a security pact that will keep American troops in that country for three more years – sounds like they’re glad to have us there. After the madness that’s been happening in Mumbai over the last 2 days and…
The Left’s Claim to Value Life
One of the American left’s great lies is that they value human life. This claim is manifested primarily in their opposition to the practice of executing violent criminals and the prosecuting of wars against evil nations and their rulers. There are reasons for thinking people to take these positions; however, for a liberal American to…
Obama on the Iraq Troop Surge
Barack Obama told Bill O’Reilly as much of the truth about Iraq last night as any Democrat not named Leiberman is likely to: “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated…I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” Yuval Levin: Nobody anticipated the surge would succeed in these ways? Why…