After the Iraq elections in Bagdad from a woman's point of view - it seems so effortless to lose freedom and power and so hard to keep or gain it. Women are about half the population but we certainly do not have equality.

Riverbend's post

"They try to give impressive interviews to western press but the situation is wholly different on the inside. Women feel it the most. There’s an almost constant pressure in Baghdad from these parties for women to cover up what little they have showing. There’s a pressure in many colleges for the segregation of males and females. There are the threats, and the printed and verbal warnings, and sometimes we hear of attacks or insults.

You feel it all around you. It begins slowly and almost insidiously. You stop wearing slacks or jeans or skirts that show any leg because you don’t want to be stopped in the street and lectured by someone who doesn’t approve. You stop wearing short sleeves and start preferring wider shirts with a collar that will cover up some of you neck. You stop letting your hair flow because you don’t want to attract attention to it. On the days when you forget to pull it back into a ponytail, you want to kick yourself and you rummage around in your handbag trying to find a hair band… hell, a rubber band to pull back your hair and make sure you attract less attention from *them*.

We were seriously discussing this situation the other day with a friend. The subject of the veil and hijab came up and I confessed my fear that while they might not make it a law, there would be enough pressure to make it a requirement for women when they leave their homes. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well women in Iran will tell you it’s not so bad- you know that they just throw something on their heads and use makeup and go places, etc.” True enough. But it wasn’t like that at the beginning. It took them over two decades to be able to do that. In the eighties, women were hauled off the streets and detained or beaten for the way they dressed.

It’s also not about covering the hair. I have many relatives and friends who wore a hijab before the war. It’s the principle. It’s having so little freedom that even your wardrobe is dictated. And wardrobe is just the tip of the iceberg. There are clerics and men who believe women shouldn’t be able to work or that they shouldn’t be allowed to do certain jobs or study in specific fields. Something that disturbed me about the election forms was that it indicated whether the voter was ‘male’ or ‘female’- why should that matter? Could it be because in Shari’a, a women’s vote or voice counts for half of that of a man? Will they implement that in the future?"

It's a shame that the Conressmen and frontline media do not seem to have the same concerns about J.Negroponte as those bloggers and reporters with memories of the Iran Contra days and the ability to step outside of the "US" mindset.

Many of the bloggers have given excellent commentary on the path we seem to be going down. The most recent that I found provoking were:

"Negroponte, Servant of the Empire, Rises to the Top" by Progressive Editor Matthew Rothschild

"An Iraq Murder Mystery for Negroponte?" by David Corn
"Negroponte's Dark Past" also by David Corn for The Nation

and from the Religious community:

"Murder mystery in Iraq" by David Batstone
an op-ed piece from sojo.net

John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. As such he supported and carried out a US-sponsored policy of violations to human rights and international law. Among other things he supervised the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. The base was used as a secret detention and torture center, in August 2001 excavations at the base discovered the first of the corpses of the 185 people, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at this base.

During his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. The infamous Battalion 316, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with them, while lying to Congress.

President George W. Bush has nominated Negroponte as head of U.S. Intellegence.

Bush: Still securing his power base and throwing more covers on the death and distruction caused by the grab for power. What a Christian!

Last night's news with Lisa Myers was yet another exposee of the abuses caused by the US in Iraq:

From MSNC: U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses
Four men say they witnessed shooting of unarmed civilians
By Lisa Myers & the NBC investigative unit
Updated: 7:43 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005

"There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations."

These contractors worked for Custer Battles .. a company formed just to profiteer from the war in Iraq.

This company has been in the news before:
Iraq Contractor Claims Immunity From Fraud Laws
Seized Oil Assets Paid For Offshore Overbilling
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch -- December 23rd, 2004
"Custer Battles has been accused of illegally inflating costs on plum contracts in 2003 to protect the Baghdad International Airport as well as for a massive program that replaced Iraq’s currency. Former Custer Battles employees and plaintiffs, W.D. "Pete Baldwin" and Robert Isakson, claim that the company routinely engaged in accounting trickery and used a corporate shell game involving Cayman Island subsidiaries to drum up charges by tens of millions of dollars with the clear intent to plunder funding for reconstruction efforts."

When will the criminals be held accountable? It seems that the Bush,Inc is busy building a judicial shield that will throw out ALL attempts to hold them or their lackeys to "rule of law".

Now is the time to work against the corporations that are profiting from the war. We need to support the media that brings the outrages public.

Last week the House of Representative passed HR 418 - Another VERY BAD bill. I was proud of my Representative Bob Filner and his vocal opposition to the bill. It's a strange day when the very liberal Bob Filner joins ranks with the very conservative Ron Paul... but this bill, under the guise of protecting us from terrorist and illegal aliens...moves us closer and closer to totalitarianism and fascism. It seems to establish a national ID, encourage ruthless illegal, immoral acts by bounty hunters, close the door on assylum seekers and give an unconstitutional power to the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive laws with no fear of Judicial review.

So what happened to the THREE branches of Government?

Here's just one section of this bill:
SEC. 102. WAIVER OF LAWS NECESSARY FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BARRIERS AT BORDERS.
Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows:
`(c) Waiver-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.
`(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction--
`(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1)
; or
`(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.'.