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.
More Riverbend and some thoughts over the fold.
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?
Before the invasion I remember being moved by an Iraqi description of what life would be like in post-invasion Iraq. They thought that America would succeed in making Iraq into a distorted image of the US and feared that their daughters would be out selling their bodies to alcohol-crazed creeps in sleazy nightclubs.
Now they fear that the future of Iraq will resemble Iran two decades ago. We killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and Americans for this? None of our national or even corporate goals can be achieved by the creation of an Islamic Republic of Iraq. We're spending $300 b to do this?
It's interesting to watch American politicians talk about how American troops are the one thing standing between Sunnis and Shia killing each other in the streets. It looks more and more these days like that's not true. Right now, during all these assassinations and abductions, the troops are just standing aside and letting Iraqis get at each other. Not only that, but the new army or the National Guard are just around to protect American troops and squelch any resistance.
There was hope of a secular Iraq, even after the occupation. That hope is fading fast.
Major news outlets would seem to
support her view:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite Muslim assassins are killing former members of Saddam Hussein mostly Sunni Muslim regime with impunity in a wave of violence that, combined with the ongoing Sunni insurgency, threatens to escalate into civil war.
Your tipping points don't seem so great when viewed in the close-up, Mr Friedman.