BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.
The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."
Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise.
"Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report.
Sometimes, it's just the color of a woman's headscarf that can draw unwanted attention.
"One time, one of my female colleagues commented on the color of my headscarf," Safana says. "She said it would draw attention ... [and I should] avoid it and stick to colors like gray, brown and black."
This extremist ideology enrages many secular Muslim women, who say it's a misrepresentation of Islam.
Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: "They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut."
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was "the best." But now, she says, it's "the worst."
"We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror."
This would have happened whether or not one vote was not cast. Obama was not in the senate and neither were you or I. How fortunate for us to have no guilt by association.
That being said, the ongoing onslaught and the so called surge (which HRC did not support) has made life for women in Iraq horrendous.
But the answer to the Diary question? I have no answer, but I do think about it. I don't understand the choice to fight in a war period. and I don't care whose side you're on. I do believe that people who support, own and have guns have a will to kill. (Have you watched the News lately?)
Laying all this blame on HRC or any one person is bullshit. There's plenty to go around.
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