TomPaine.com - Betraying Iraqi Women

This, to me, is not a shock but it is still very sad, I hope this makes you want to read this article.

Betraying Iraqi Women
Lucinda Marshall
July 16, 2004

Remember when the Bush administration told us that American soldiers would be greeted as liberators? How about when we were told that the war would free Iraqi women? We know that the citizens throwing flowers never materialized, and now it turns out that helping Iraqi women was just a PR line too.
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Despite the Bush administration's assurances to the contrary, conditions for women have worsened substantially as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its continuing aftermath. The contrast between the rhetoric and the reality is stunning. ...
The Bush administration’s claim of rescuing Iraqi women is just one more false pretense for war. It systematically ignores Iraqi women’s needs, terrorizes their lives and shows an extraordinary degree of misogynistic hubris. While it would be impossible to undo the damage, we must go beyond the basics of rebuilding the infrastructure and address issues such as honor killings—as well as our own complicity in the violence committed against women as an act of ‘liberation’. Most importantly, we must listen to the voices of Iraqi women and insist on their right to fully participate in healing their country.