Let me preface this by saying that I find the whole situation appalling.
However, from what I gather, the new Iraqi constitution is allowing “personal law” and “family law” to be determined according to ones’ religion. This isn’t a particularly rare or unusual thing way to do things. This system is used in democratic India, where no single set of laws could possibly please everyone. There is lively debate and all-in-all it seems to work out pretty well.
It’s hard for Americans to really imagine, but these religions were here first. Here in America we had to COME here and accept America in order to belong. But elsewhere people have been living happily for thousands of years before some “constitution” came in and told them what to do. This new government will have to work to achieve legitamacy, and it never will if it doesn’t acknowledge the role of religion and tradition.
What would you have us do about it? Tell the Iraqi’s that they can’t have Sharia Laws and that their ‘democracy’ must conform to our own ideas and standards? They have their shot at doing things as they want (I remember the major bitch a few years ago being that the US wouldn’t let them have their own way, would make them a puppet, etc…seems the battlefield has shifted on this point)…if they fuck it up then they fuck it up. From their perspective (men AND women) they might think this is superior to what we thing is best for them…and frankly if they get their way and the government is how THEY want it (including Sharia Laws) maybe it will take the wind out of the sails of the insurgency to a certain extent. No one is going to call them a puppet of the US if they do their own thing in their own way after all.
I don’t know. I understand the point you and others are making. I also find it distasteful that a large group is potentially going to be disenfranchized, that womens rights, never very great in the ME are actually going to go back to the ‘norm’ for the region in a country that was actually a bit ahead of the game, etc. I just think that in the end Iraq has to make its own decisions on this…and yes, I understand that the women aren’t getting THEIR full say in this process and are being disenfranchized by the powerful few males fiat. My hope is that a stable government that is popular with the majority of the population in Iraq will be able to calm down the insurgency and some form of peace to allow the Iraqi’s to really crank up their rebuilding efforts. Perhaps in time as the insurgency dies down and as the country prospers through trade (they DO have an aweful lot of oil after all) things will shift slowly back, women will slowly have their rights restored and eventually they will be able to take their rightful (to us) place in Iraqi society. Who knows…maybe this will happen throughout the middle east some day.
I dunno. But the absence of a solution doesn’t mean there ain’t a problem.
I share your hopes, but I’m not at all confident that things are going to work out well, in either the short or the long term. Especially with the mounting pressure for us to pull out.
Well, to put it simply, Xtisme, bugging out of Iraq, leaving it’s women disenfranchised and Sharia law slowly strangling the civil liberties in the joint, heading out because our soldiers are getting blown up wholesale, well, that’s kinda not what Bush said was going to happen. I seem to remember something about “being greeted as liberators with flowers, etc.???”
What were those American lives given for in Iraq? Nothing. Maybe less than nothing.
Seems an odd time to want to take the words of Bush as gospel but knock yourself out. Personally I ignore such trite things but YMMV.
Afaik there are no immediate plans to ‘bug out’ of Iraq…despite growing pressure to do just that. We are giving the Iraqi’s pretty much a free hand in deciding what THEY want to do. I thought that was what everyone wanted…I seem to recall all kinds of dire warnings that the US would make Iraq a puppet or attempt to impose our will on their new government, force a constitution and goverment structure on them, or some such.
Doesn’t seem to be happening…yet now folks seem to be saying that we SHOULD do that (reguardless of how resentful the Iraqi’s would be if we did). No Bush fan here but I’d have to say that the guy just can’t win with some folks. If he were cramming our ideas down the Iraqi’s throat, if he was telling them in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t have Sharia Laws or whatever but only whats in column A of the Acceptable To The American Peoples list then folks would be going ape shit over it. Since he’s letting them do their own thing and they are leaning towards some fairly distasteful things (to us)…folks are going ape shit. Sounds like a Tails you win, Heads Bush losses type deal to me.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked Metacom: What would you have the US do about this? Should we force the Iraqi’s to have equal treatment of women under their constitution? Should we tell them they can’t have or use the laws they want? Should we just draft a constitution for them and force them to it by gun point?
Only time will tell that…I think its too early to say with any certainty that the Amerian/Iraqi deaths were for nothing or less than nothing. One thing those American lives were give for in Iraq though that is real is…its giving the Iraqi people a chance to decide something for themselves…for the first time in a long time. If they fuck it up they will have themselves to blame for it IMO. They have their shot…a shot I don’t think they were likely to get under Saddam or his successors.
