# The Liberation of Iraqi Women: How's That Working Out? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2007, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085 "2007-05-30T16:50:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/21 "2007-05-31T06:24:48Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] NPR aired an interview today with Yanar Mohammed on the state of women in Iraq [In Iraq, Activist Struggles as Women's Rights Shrink : NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10543975) . I found it sad. [/QUOTE] I found it infuriating, both for the Islamist pigs who are attacking and oppressing Iraqi women, and for the US, who don’t seem to give a damn. If you listen to or read the NPR interview, I think this debate would be pretty much over. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/22 "2007-05-31T06:40:29Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] What should we do about it? Are Iraqi women going to be more liberated when we leave? [/QUOTE] Here is an idea. Bush admits that all of the reasons he gave for going to Iraq were wrong. He stops painting people who don’t want us there as anti-american, defeatists, cowards, or troop haters and then engages in an honest effort to find the best way to extricate ourselves from that mess while causing the least ill effects on the Iraqis. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/23 "2007-05-31T06:48:16Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] What inalienable rights? Do you doubt that the Iraqis who have helped us wouldn’t love to come here, given the chance? I suspect a purely voluntary program would have plenty of takers. [/QUOTE] I was speaking to rights of basic decency and such. I think a lot of people would come over if it were completely open to them (as it is, to my understanding, the system of becomming naturalized is VERY backlogged) but I think some would want to stay and “rebuild” or do whatever they could do to make their home..well…their home. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/24 "2007-05-31T07:08:52Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] I was speaking to rights of basic decency and such. I think a lot of people would come over if it were completely open to them (as it is, to my understanding, the system of becomming naturalized is VERY backlogged) but I think some would want to stay and “rebuild” or do whatever they could do to make their home..well…their home. [/QUOTE] Yes, but give them (and the EU needs to be better at this too) a choice of: - staying home, where you can’t feed your kids, - moving to a refugee camp, where you have to sell it in order to feed your kids, - moving to a country where you’ll be helped settling, learning the language, putting your kids through school (it doesn’t have to be a first world country, but it has to be a welcoming one). And many people would take the third option, which right now barely exists. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/25 "2007-05-31T09:50:10Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Well, we wouldn’t give them money in any case, but there isn’t anything stopping us from giving them aid, even with the saber rattling. Hell, we offered Iran aid when they had an earthquake in 2006 (they turned us down, IIRC). And there is no way in hell we’d let money or aid be channeled thru the Syrian government. I hope you’re not implying that we should. [/quote] Why not? The article indicates that the Syrian government and people are incurring some very real costs here: > [@](#): > > "prostitution isn’t the only problem. Our schools are overcrowded, and the prices of services, food and transportation have all risen. We don’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with this. We don’t have shelters or health centers that these women can go to. And because of the situation in Iraq, Syria is careful not to deport these women.” For instance, are we going to send qualified Arabic-speaking teachers to Syria? That’s not something we can do. But OTOH, we can give Syria money to hire more Syrian teachers. > [@](#): > > If you think people are going to automatically assume that assistance = money, you’re mistaken. Note that \*\*Kimstu \*\*didn’t interpret your post that way either. In some situations, there is no way around assistance being money. In this one, it’s logistically far easier to provide funds to refugees to pay for food and housing, than to send over a disaster-relief-type crew (if the Syrians would have one from us, which they wouldn’t) with trainloads of foodstuffs, and construction materials to build housing with. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/26 "2007-05-31T10:02:52Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Don’t get me wrong-- I’m all for toning things down and improving relations with Syria. But we have excellent relations with Saudi Arabia, and I don’t see that helping out women in that country. [/QUOTE] The one has nothing to do with the other. In SA, we have an excellent relationship with the government that’s imposing onerous restrictions on women in the name of religion. Of course that’s not going to help them. In Syria, we aren’t even talking about aiding Syrian women at all, and I quite honestly have no idea what sort of life they live. Under discussion here is what we might do to aid _female Iraqi refugees_ in Syria, who due to _destitution_ are having to turn to prostitution to survive. Destitution is something we can directly alleviate\*, thereby solving that particular problem - IF we’re sufficiently on speaking terms with Syria in order to do so. Why our excellent relations with Saudi Arabia would demonstrate the futility of this approach is beyond me. \*We ought to have a special program to deal with this. We could call it the Destitute Prostitute Institute, or the Poor Whore Corps for short. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/27 "2007-05-31T12:36:44Z")
Why don’t you think we don’t have programs like this in place already, for women in sexual servitude in many countries? Indeed, the Bush Administration actually has a pretty good record overall in helping out in this area. Here, though, the problem is complicated by the fact that the women are in Syria, and the government there does not want us in helping in any way. Especially considering that they figure that they might be asked for help in return someday, and the regime there isn’t especially helpful to us. You said you never understood why we were engaged in saber-rattling with Syria. If you don’t understand that, and the odious character of the ruling regime there, I don’t know why you should understand any of the rest of this. There are limits to our charity, and one of them is imposed by the recipient of our goodwill - we can’t make some people like us or take our stuff. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/28 "2007-05-31T13:34:13Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Why don’t you think we don’t have programs like this in place already, for women in sexual servitude in many countries? [/quote] How do you know what I do or don’t think about matters I haven’t addressed? Let’s not make a habit of it, OK? > [@](#): > > Here, though, the problem is complicated by the fact that the women are in Syria, and the government there does not want us in helping in any way. How do you know this? Why on earth would they turn down serious money to help deal with the refugees’ problems, and their problems that the presence of a large number of refugees has caused, if we offered it? > [@](#): > > Especially considering that they figure that they might be asked for help in return someday, and the regime there isn’t especially helpful to us. They’d probably figure that as long as there were no strings attached _now_, the aid was, at most, a _quid pro quo_ for their having been willing to absorb some of the consequences of our Iraqi clusterfuck. > [@](#): > > You said you never understood why we were engaged in saber-rattling with Syria. If you don’t understand that, and the odious character of the ruling regime there, I don’t know why you should understand any of the rest of this. > > There are limits to our charity, and one of them is imposed by the recipient of our goodwill - we can’t make some people like us or take our stuff. There are all sorts of odious regimes in the world, and some of them, such as Egypt, are the beneficiaries of substantial American largesse. Others, such as Saudi Arabia, we don’t give money to because they don’t need it, but if someone’s threatening to attack them, we’ll be there to defend them, because they’ve got lots of oil. Others, such as Burma or Zimbabwe, are simply on our back burner. Feel free to explain to me why Syria’s the one we’re rattling sabers at. Maybe we should take it to another thread, but Syria seems to be less threatening and problematic in many ways from the other nations (NK, Iran, China, even Iraq) that we’ve threatened in recent years, and more in a class with regimes that we aren’t happy with, but that we don’t act threateningly towards, either, and not all that different from some regimes we’re pretty cozy with. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/29 "2007-05-31T13:37:34Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Feel free to explain to me why Syria’s the one we’re rattling sabers at. [/QUOTE] Particularly as that poor Canadian schmuck found - the USA is happy to outsource torturing to the ‘odious’ regime. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/30 "2007-05-31T13:40:53Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] The one has nothing to do with the other. In SA, we have an excellent relationship with the government that’s imposing onerous restrictions on women in the name of religion. Of course that’s not going to help them. In Syria, we aren’t even talking about aiding Syrian women at all, and I quite honestly have no idea what sort of life they live. [/QUOTE] I was responding to **Kimstu** , who said: > [@](#): > > But I think one could make a case that if we had better diplomatic relations with Syria, we could influence how the Syrian government is treating Iraqi women. > [@RTF](#): > > Why not? The article indicates that the Syrian government and people are incurring some very real costs here: There were several issues stated in my post, so I’m not sure which one you’re referring to, or if you’re referring to all of them. Is there a precedent for us giving money directly to refugees? As for giving money to Syria-- money is fungible. It’s like giving money to their military. The way this would happen (and the way it is happening, but not enough) is to work thru the UN High Commission on Refugees. The Syrians are not going to allow hundreds of US government aid officials into their country. I think it is a reasonable goal to get the US to increase aid thru the UNHCR, which there is some talk of doing (that’s what the [meeting in March](http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2007&m=March&x=20070312174404esnamfuak0.1151697&chanlid=washfile) was about). It’s completely unrealistic that the US would give monetary compensation to Syria directly. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/31 "2007-05-31T17:43:48Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I was responding to **Kimstu** [/quote] @13, who was responding to you @11, who were responding to me @10. Got it. > [@](#): > > There were several issues stated in my post, so I’m not sure which one you’re referring to, or if you’re referring to all of them. Several issues stated in your post?? It was only _two sentences long_. And they weren’t long sentences. > [@](#): > > Is there a precedent for us giving money directly to refugees? As for giving money to Syria-- money is fungible. It’s like giving money to their military. The way this would happen (and the way it is happening, but not enough) is to work thru the UN High Commission on Refugees. The Syrians are not going to allow hundreds of US government aid officials into their country. I agree with you here - we’d want to funnel aid to refugees through the UNHCR or some other international relief organization. I certainly wasn’t contemplating that we’d actually have large numbers of people on the ground in Syria - just that we’d be the originators of the aid. As far as giving money to Syria goes, I assume aid to _anywhere_ (well, maybe Egypt, but that’s a special case) isn’t just a matter of “here’s a big check because you need money for things” and then we let them spend it however they will. In the case of Syria, I’d assume we’d give them money in increments, making sure in between that they were spending more money on the things they said they needed the money for. I expect they’d still wind up siphoning off 10-20% of the aid that passed through their hands for other purposes, but such is life. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/32 "2007-05-31T18:05:03Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I think it is a reasonable goal to get the US to increase aid thru the UNHCR, which there is some talk of doing (that’s what the [meeting in March](http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2007&m=March&x=20070312174404esnamfuak0.1151697&chanlid=washfile) was about). It’s completely unrealistic that the US would give monetary compensation to Syria directly. [/QUOTE] Considering the numerous recent cases of sexual abuse of refugees by aid workers and soldiers under UN command in camps under the protection or aid of the UNHCR - well, let’s just say that I don’t trust the UN in this area either. I’d prefer the aid to be administered by a more reputable NGO myself. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/33 "2007-05-31T18:14:56Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] There are all sorts of odious regimes in the world, and some of them, such as Egypt, are the beneficiaries of substantial American largesse. Others, such as Saudi Arabia, we don’t give money to because they don’t need it, but if someone’s threatening to attack them, we’ll be there to defend them, because they’ve got lots of oil. Others, such as Burma or Zimbabwe, are simply on our back burner. Feel free to explain to me why Syria’s the one we’re rattling sabers at. Maybe we should take it to another thread, but Syria seems to be less threatening and problematic in many ways from the other nations (NK, Iran, China, even Iraq) that we’ve threatened in recent years, and more in a class with regimes that we aren’t happy with, but that we don’t act threateningly towards, either, and not all that different from some regimes we’re pretty cozy with. [/QUOTE] I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Egypt, for all of its odiousness, has one major difference with Syria - it settled most of its issues with Israel that threatened war. For that, they get rewarded. Rightly so, IMHO, as Israel is an ally of our country, and we are pledged to its protection. Syria not only directly threatens Israel but sponsors and supports terrorist organizations that likewise threaten it and commit numberless terrible atrocities on its people. For this it gets punished. Again, rightly so. Maybe you think we shouldn’t be so closely allied with Israel here, which might be fair as far as it goes. But to say you don’t understand why we don’t like Syria much indicates to me that you don’t understand the Syria much. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/34 "2007-05-31T18:38:31Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] And all too many women who leave the country [have to go into the sex trade to support themselves or their families](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/world/middleeast/29syria.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin): [/QUOTE] > [@Voyager](#): > > This should be another class of Iraqis we give asylum to. 'Nuff said! 😉 [::d&r::] ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/35 "2007-05-31T18:46:50Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] I was speaking to rights of basic decency and such. I think a lot of people would come over if it were completely open to them (as it is, to my understanding, the system of becomming naturalized is VERY backlogged) but I think some would want to stay and “rebuild” or do whatever they could do to make their home..well…their home. [/QUOTE] Can’t argue with that. I believe that in these cases refugees get expedited. However, it would be good to let the people at risk decide how much they trust our rebuilding efforts, and not have someone from Washington tell them everything is dandy as he shoves them into the inferno. I noticed in the paper this morning that the number allowed in is increasing somewhat, but not by all that much. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/36 "2007-05-31T21:01:33Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Egypt, for all of its odiousness, has one major difference with Syria - it settled most of its issues with Israel that threatened war. For that, they get rewarded. Rightly so, IMHO, as Israel is an ally of our country, and we are pledged to its protection. [/quote] And Syria is apparently quite eager to work out a peace deal with Israel, and has come up with a fairly imaginative approach to the Golan Heights issue, but the main obstacle is apparently the U.S., which is adamantly against such negotiations. > [@](#): > > Syria not only directly threatens Israel but sponsors and supports terrorist organizations that likewise threaten it and commit numberless terrible atrocities on its people. For this it gets punished. Again, rightly so. Punished how? By barring negotiations with them where they’d be willing to put that on the table. Catch-22. Meanwhile, in Iraq, we’re allied with a rather unsavory Iraqi government, whose security forces have been and probably still are involved in ethnic cleansing operations. Where does that put us? > [@](#): > > Maybe you think we shouldn’t be so closely allied with Israel here, which might be fair as far as it goes. But to say you don’t understand why we don’t like Syria much indicates to me that you don’t understand the Syria much. To me, it shows that you’re buying into the Bushies’ very simplistic “we can’t negotiate with bad guys” frame. Lucky for Egypt that Sadat went to Jerusalem while Carter rather than GWB was President, otherwise it would have been, “what credibility do they have - it’s only been 4 years since they launched a full-scale military sneak attack on Israel! We can’t have anybody rewarding bad behavior like that!” And then there never would have been a Camp David accord. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/37 "2007-05-31T21:11:56Z")
[QUOTE=Nava] Yes, but give them (and the EU needs to be better at this too) a choice of: - staying home, where you can’t feed your kids, - moving to a refugee camp, where you have to sell it in order to feed your kids, - moving to a country where you’ll be helped settling, learning the language, putting your kids through school (it doesn’t have to be a first world country, but it has to be a welcoming one). And many people would take the third option, which right now barely exists. [/QUOTE] But, realistically speaking, is there even an element of choice? The absence of choice might be the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/38 "2007-05-31T21:38:02Z")
My reaction to the OP: I don’t especially care. No, that’s wrong. Of course, things are going unfortunately badly for lots of Iraqi women, and Iraqis generally. What I mean is the issue is a red herring. “Liberating Iraqi women” was always just another neo-con contrivance to sell an ill-advised war (remember, too, GWB fancied himself a “compassionate conservative,” and had a problem convincing women voters in particular of the case for war, given that lots of women think war is scary mean and icky, as it is). Trotting out Laura to tout the feminist victory that the invasion ushered in, or those stupid photos of the purple fingers, was always about domestic politics. Because (one would hope) the sovereign war-making power of the U.S. is not called into action on account of insufficient women’s suffrage in a country – which may be regrettable but is hardly a threat to U.S. sovereignty. (Let’s put aside momentarily the cultural insensitivity, to those who care about such things, in trying to engraft 2002 American feminist mores on a society that, to put it charitably, seemed and seems less than enamored of same). So – since liberating women was never the real point of the exercise, it is less than surprising that it has failed to happen in any universal degree. They never really meant it to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/39 "2007-06-01T00:36:49Z")
We are confusing the Afghani women with Iraqis I believe. They needed rescuing. They were suppressed and in danger. Not so in Iraq. Now they are getting abused. Iraq was not run like a Islamic society. It is starting to be now.There is likely a bad future for Iraqi women. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085/40 "2007-06-01T02:37:44Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] What I mean is the issue is a red herring. “Liberating Iraqi women” was always just another neo-con contrivance to sell an ill-advised war . . . [/QUOTE] I don’t recall it being mentioned at the time – it was all “WMDs,” “9/11,” and “democracy.” You may be confusing Iraq with Afghanistan as noted by **gonzomax.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-liberation-of-iraqi-women-hows-that-working-out/406085.md?page=3)