the war against women

how did this world of hope for a better future for all so quickly disintegrate into a feeding frenzy over dwindling natural resources? why are americans so willing to send their young abroad to die in pointless, vanity wars that only result in the loss of our human rights and vast profits for corporations?

and why – WHY – aren’t more people alarmed about the international war against women, which raging worldwide?

just some examples:

Aquí se viola.

Aquí se mata.

Here they rape,

Here they kill.

Chiapas, May, 2009

The most dangerous part of the migrant trail through Mexico, where undocumented Central Americans have no protection and where the horrors seem ceaseless and locals seem deaf to cries for help, is La Arrocera. Over the course of a year of walking that migrant trail, I heard the stories of hundreds of attacks on migrants, of people beaten to a pulp, of murder, of women screaming while they were raped in the hills, while, just beyond them, Mexico refused to listen.

Luis Flores, as head of the International Organization for Migration in Tapachula, Mexico, leads community education projects in the area and case manages Central American human trafficking victims. Here, he explained to me, migrant women are turned into a product. “They come having already been raped, abused, they come from dysfunctional families in which, many times, it was their father or uncle who raped them. What many of them won’t tell you, is that they knew they’d be raped on this journey, while migrating, that they feel it’s a sort of bill that must be paid. According to the Guatemalan government, it’s estimated that eight of every ten Central American migrant women suffer some form of sexual abuse in Mexico. It’s six of every ten, according to a study done by Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies. They travel with that lodged in their minds, knowing that they’ll be abused once, twice, three times [...] Sexual abuse has lost it’s terror. At a certain level, they know they’re victims, but they don’t feel that way. Their logic runs like this: yes, this is happening to me, but I took the chance, I knew it would happen.”

Of every 250 migrants who were raped, and who participated in a survey by the International Organization of Migration, only 50 accepted medical and counseling help. Many said they thought it would be pointless because they thought it would happen to them again, that there was still a lot of road left to walk.

from Epidemic of Sexual Assault on Migrant Trail in Mexico: Excerpt from book “Migrants Don’t Matter”

over 50,000 american military women have been sexually assaulted by u.s. soldiers

This article is part 4 in the five-part series, “The Battlefield and the Barracks: Two War Fronts for Women Soldiers. “

Nearly 90 percent of soldiers wounded in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – some 35,000 – survived battle injuries, thanks to breakthroughs in US state-of-the art military medicine, among them, surgical techniques, regenerative medicine and prosthetics. Neither the Department of Defense (DoD) nor the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), though, was prepared with the same cutting-edge treatment for the one in three women soldiers in those same wars – an estimated 70,000 – who were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.

The VHA is the agency within the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) responsible for picking up the pieces of lives injured and shattered by combat, war trauma and military sexual assault. It will be faced, over the next months and years, with a tsunami of severe injury and illness from the DoD’s largely feckless sexual assault prevention programs.

Afghanistan’s teen brides who set themselves alight

Flayed by a fire she began herself, Aatifa’s childlike frame is painstakingly wrapped in thick bandages — her shrieks of “Allah” echoing around the hospital ward where surgeons prepare to graft skin back on to her skeletal torso.

Her wide blue eyes alternating between flashes of anger and wells of tears, the 16-year-old Afghan girl struggles to explain what led her to douse her own body in petrol, step outside and light a match.

Married at the age of 14, the young carpet-weaver, who has nine brothers and sisters, said her mother-in-law criticised her housework and encouraged her mechanic husband to beat her for allowing her mother to visit too often.

She complained to authorities but was berated for causing trouble. Later told that her husband hated her and would marry a second woman, she swung between anger and depression before carrying out her masochistic deed.

Read more, from the revolutionary association of the women of afghanistan

An Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon who was filmed being physically abused in public has committed suicide, local media have reported.

The video, first aired by Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) last week, caused outrage by showing a man abusing Alem Dechasa as she cried on a street outside the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut.

The man was shown grabbing Dechasa and telling her, “get into the car” while she screamed out, “no, no, no”. Another man then assisted in dragging Dechasa into the back of a car as she struggled to resist.

Asaminew Debelie Bonssa, Ethiopian general consul in Lebanon, told The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut that Dechasa committed suicide by hanging herself early on Wednesday morning at a psychiatric hospital where she had been taken after the incident.

Bonssa told The Daily Star that he had seen Dechasa on Saturday in the hospital and that she was making plans to return to Ethiopia.

Maid in Lebanon abuse video kills herself

Moroccan girl commits suicide after being forced to marry her rapist

A 16-year-old Moroccan girl has reportedly killed herself after a judge ordered her to marry the man that raped her.

The teen, known only as Amina, ate rat poison after the Tangier judge ruled that her 26-year-old rapist could marry her instead of going to jail, according to the Moroccan publication al-Massae.

The ruling came after Amina’s family asked the court to punish the man. The paper said that Amina committed suicide at the home of her husband’s family.

Under Moroccan law, a rapist may be exempted from punishment if he agrees to marry his victim. Local tradition holds that forcible marriage protects the honor of the woman who is raped.

Women’s Solidarity Association director Hafida Elbaz has called for the penal code to be updatedso that rapists cannot avoid sanctions.

from raw story

Canadian women allege U.S. border groping

Four female U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Detroit are being sued by three Canadian women who allege they were sexually fondled at the border.

The lawsuit involved three separate incidents of women trying to enter the United States at the Windsor, Ontario-Detroit border dating back to January 2011, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday.

Lawyer Tom Wienner of Rochester, Mich., is representing the women, who allege their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches were violated, the Windsor Star reported.

While two of the Canadian women don’t want to be identified, one of the plaintiffs, 33-year-old Leslie Ingratta told the Star she was ordered to undress in a holding cell and underwent “an invasive personal search” involving her breasts, groin and buttocks.

“It was a horrible experience altogether,” she said.

U.S. Customs officials declined to comment on the allegations, the Free Press said.

Since last year, there have been two other lawsuits involving allegations of excessive strip searches by female officers at the same border crossing, the report said.

Read more: from the detroit free press, via upi

texas law forces nonconsentual penetration for women seeking abortions

The abortion sonogram legislation that passed the Texas House and Senate requires a doctor to perform a sonogram on a woman at least 24 hours before she has an abortion. During the sonogram, the doctor must describe the fetus or embryo; the woman can choose whether she wants to see images from the sonogram or listen to the heartbeat. Victims of sexual assault or incest are allowed to opt out of even hearing the description, regardless of whether they’ve filed a police report. The bill also includes an exception for medical emergencies.

After passing the Legislature during the 2011 session, the new law was immediately held up in court, after opponents challenged its constitutionality. In January 2012, a federal appeals court said Texas must enforce the law while it is being challenged in court.

The Senate originally approved a version that would allow all women a two-hour waiting period, but disagreement with the House led to a compromise: Women who live more than 100 miles from the nearest abortion provider can receive a sonogram two hours in advance of an abortion.

In a dramatic scene on Capitol Hill, several Democrats walked out of a congressional hearing on the Obama administration’s rule that would require health insurance plans, including those provided by Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, to offer free contraceptives for health-related issues and birth control. The lawmakers took action after the committee chair blocked testimony from a female witness who supports the mandate. We’re joined by D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who walked out of the hearing, and the witness who was barred from testifying, Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Georgetown is a Catholic university whose health plan does not cover contraception. [includes rush transcript]

“Where Are the Women?” Lawmakers Walk Out on Contraception Rule Hearing

‘US military condones culture of rape’

According to several women who have served in the US armed forces, the US military has been accused of showing a high degree of tolerance for sexual violence and condoning a culture of rape.

Eight current and former female US soldiers filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Washington on Tuesday, charging that they were raped or sexually harassed while serving in the military.

According to AP, the women have also claimed in the lawsuit that they faced retaliation when they complained about the abuse.

The lawsuit accuses US military commanders of showing a “high tolerance for sexual predators in their ranks” and failing to take action to tackle the problem.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld and former Navy secretaries are among the defendants.

The US Defense Department admitted in January that the number of rape cases in the military is around 19,000 a year.

Eight women allege rape, retaliation in U.S. military

Eight current and former female members of the U.S. military allege in a lawsuit they were raped, assaulted or sexually harassed while in the military and were retaliated against when they complained.

The suit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington is the latest to allege widespread sexual violence in the world’s most powerful military. It comes less than two months after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced new steps to curb thousands of sexual assaults a year.

The lawsuit accuses military leaders of having a “high tolerance for sexual predators in their ranks” and failing to take steps to deal with the problem despite avowals to do so.

The eight women include a Marine on active duty and seven veterans of the Marine Corps and Navy. Seven allege a fellow service member raped or tried to sexually assault them, and an eighth said she was harassed while deployed in Iraq.

Defendants include Panetta and former and current Defense and Navy secretaries and Marine Corps commandants.

see previous post, rape camps, sex slavery, the u.s. military’s dirty secret

also:

 women being poisoned by cosmetic industries

Girl Scout Cookies, or Godless Communist Lesbian Cookies?

she dialed 911, cop arrived, raped her

rape culture thrives in u.s. military academies

Birth Pools Seized by FDA in Portland, OR

Sexual violence in the US military is massively under-reported

Students Arrested at Protest to Save Academy for Pregnant and Mothering Teens

The Republican Attack on Women’s Health Goes Global

FBI spied on coffee shops, taverns and organic markets

The FBI conducted a three-year investigation, dubbed “Seizing Thunder,” into a animal-rights and environmental “terrorists” in the Pacific Northwest that devolved into widespread—and seemingly pointless—surveillance of activists for no apparent reason aside from the fact that they were anarchists, or protested the war in Iraq, or were “militant feminists.” Here’s the file.

I first came across the name “Seizing Thunder” several years ago while rifling through the FBI’s investigative files on the Animal Liberation Front. The ALF records obliquely referenced the evocatively named investigation, which I requested via the Freedom of Information Act just for kicks. Last month—after three years—the FBI returned nearly 500 pages (it held back 784).

It turns out that Seizing Thunder, which was based out of the bureau’s Portland field office, was one of several investigations into animal rights and environmental activists nationwide that the FBI eventually merged into Operation Backfire, a wide-ranging probe of ALF and the Earth Liberation Front. Backfire concluded in 2006 with the indictments of 11 activists for arson and other “acts of domestic terrorism,” including a notorious 1998 destruction of a $12 million ski lodge in Vail, Colo. The Portland portion seemed to focus primarily on gathering general intelligence on activists who used tree-sitting and other monkey-wrench tactics to fight old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Click to expand

What makes Seizing Thunder interesting, however, is how easily the agents slipped beyond investigating actual federal crimes and devoted considerable resources to tracking political activists with no apparent criminal intent.

Seizing Thunder was opened in 2002 to target members of the “Animal Liberation front (ALF), Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and an anarchist group called the Red Cloud Thunder, all whose members are inter-related and they openly claimed several major arsons,” according to the files. The investigation involved physical and video surveillance, warrants for phone taps, and cooperation with local police departments in Portland and Eugene, Ore. But the feds quickly dropped the pretense of tracking organized groups and quickly began surveilling people simply for identifying themselves—or for being identified by informants—as anarchists. The memos read like artifacts from the Red Scare:

• July 19, 2002: “On [redacted], the source observed a [redacted] Oregon license plate…parked at [redacted], a known anarchist hangout.”
• August 8, 2002: “The source observed the following vehicles in the vicinity of [redacted], a major hangout for the anarchist and [redacted]“
• September 19, 2002: “On [redacted] the source observed [redacted] vehicle, Oregon license plate [redacted] parked at [redacted] one of the hangout for anarchist….”
• October 18, 2002: “On [redacted] the source was questioned as to the [redacted] anarchist travelling to [redacted].”

“The anarchists were dressed in black”

What sort of federal crimes were all these anarchists getting up to, aside from the thought variety? The records, which document the FBI’s extensive cooperation and intelligence-sharing with local police departments in Eugene and Oregon, show that agents collected intelligence about an anarchist march that was being planned to protest U.S. policy in the Middle East:

On [redacted] at approximately 2:30 p.m., the source visited [redacted]. The source did not observe any anarchists. The source walked [redacted] to view their bulletin board. Most of the ads on the bulletin board were for individuals looking for roommates.

On [redacted] the source attended [redacted]. The source visited [redacted] where the source met two unknown anarchists at [redacted]. The anarchists were dressed in black and were in their early 20s…. The source stated the anarchists are planning a protest to “Reclaim the Streets” on April 20, 2002, in Portland, Ore.

Here’s how the Associated Press covered that crucible of terror and violence:

About 700 people marched through downtown Saturday in a peaceful protest against U.S. support of Israel in the Middle East crisis. There were no arrests and no altercations, police said.

via How the FBI Monitored Crusty Punks, ‘Anarchist Hangouts,’ and an Organic Farmers’ Market Under the Guise of Combating Terrorism.

You can read the full file, from gawker

Afghan officials insist killer did not act alone

A member of an Afghan government delegation investigating the killings said Wednesday that the group has concluded they were carried out by more than one soldier. Parliament member Sayeed Ishaq Gilani said the delegation had heard from villagers who said they saw more than 15 troops at the scene.

But it is unclear whether the soldiers the villagers saw were part of a search party that left the base to look for the U.S. soldier who was missing. The delegation is slated to formally release the results of its investigation later Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the delegation visited the two villages in southern Kandahar province where the shootings took place. Two villagers who lost relatives insisted that at least two soldiers took part in the shootings.

U.S. military officials – and some villagers who have spoken to The Associated Press – have so far insisted that only one soldier was involved.

“We are still receiving, reviewing and investigating all leads in connection with this terrible incident, but at this time everything still points to one shooter,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

The surveillance video, taken from an overhead blimp that films the area around the base, shows a soldier in a U.S. uniform approaching the south gate of the base with a traditional Afghan shawl hiding the weapon in his hand, the Afghan official said. He then removes the shawl as he lays his weapon on the ground and raises his arms in surrender.

Ahmad Shah Khan, a resident of a nearby village that was not involved in Sunday’s shooting, said a soldier from the base had threatened their kids three days before the incident, after an armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb, causing damage but no casualties.

The soldiers arrived in Mokhoyan village – 500 yards (meters) east of the base – with their Afghan army counterparts and made many of the male villagers stand against a wall, said Khan.

“It looked like they were going to shoot us, and I was very afraid,” said Khan. “Then a NATO soldier said through his translator that even our children will pay for this. Now they have done it and taken their revenge.”

Several Afghan officials, including Kandahar lawmaker Abdul Rahim Ayubi, said people in the two villages that were attacked – Balandi and Alkozai – told them the same story. It’s unclear if the soldier that threatened the villagers is the same one accused of carrying out the shooting spree.

via Afghan official: Video shows soldier surrendering – World News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news.

sensing impending victory, the taliban breaks off negotiations with afghan government, u.s.

The west’s strategy in Afghanistan has been thrown into disarray after the Taliban said they had suspended preliminary peace talks with the US, and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, called for coalition troops to retreat to their bases and end patrols through Afghan villages.

In statements released within minutes of each other on Thursday, the main partner and main opponent of Nato-led forces fighting in Afghanistan trampled on political and military blueprints that the coalition had hoped might allow them to exit a decade-long war without leaving the country in chaos.

“I’m really shocked, these are two pieces of very bad news,” said one senior western diplomat in Kabul. “It’s probably the bleakest day of my time here in Afghanistan.”

The mission in Afghanistan has suffered a series of setbacks as a result of demonstrations against the burning of the Qur’an by American soldiers and the massacre of 16 civilians by a US gunman, disrupting plans across a wide front and raising tensions.

Hopes of a decisive military victory over the insurgency had long been abandoned, and the Taliban announcement last year that they would open a political office in Qatar had appeared to offer a real prospect of serious negotiations after years of false starts and dead ends.

But the Taliban suspended talks on Thursday because they were presented with “unacceptable demands”, the group said in a statement that did not detail the problematic requests, but described Washington as “shaky, erratic and vague” and rejected any discussion with Karzai’s government as pointless.

The decision appears to have been driven both by lack of progress on a prisoner exchange scheme that would have freed several senior Taliban members from detention in Guantánamo Bay, and US efforts to secure a place at the table for a Kabul government that insurgents consider a puppet regime.

The Obama adminstration rebuffed Karzai’s call for an immediate withdrawal of US and other international forces from villages. It also played down the Taliban walkout from the reconciliation talks, portraying it as part of the normal “ups and downs” of any such peace negotiations.

via Double blow to Nato as Karzai and Taliban derail Afghanistan strategy | World news | The Guardian.

Chagos, Island of Shame: The heart of an American empire?

David Vine’s meticulously researched Island of Shame: the Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2011) enables us to engage with the “strategic islands concept” and its consequences for the Chagossians and others. It provides a level of information about both the US and British policymakers and the human beings at the receiving end of their global power ambitions that had not been accessible before.

The Island of Shame is particularly interesting as it does not stop at merely charting in painful detail the forcible and duplicitous expulsion of the Chagossians by the British in order to provide the US with the “sanitised” islands they sought. It places the story of the couple of thousand Chagos Islanders in the context of larger global events: the expulsion of indigenous populations in many other places by the United States or other aggressive imperial forces; the worldwide chain of “strategic” bases built and maintained by the US; and addresses not just whether the US is an empire, but also what kind of empire it is when compared to those of bygone eras.

The people of the Chagos Islands are the descendants of enslaved Africans and indentured labour from south India brought to work on the coconut plantations in the 18th century. With the emergence of newly independent countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the US, which was allied to the former colonial powers, was thought by some of its security analysts to be in need of an alternate strategy to be able to combat the Soviet Union’s reach around the world. The idea of a “strategic islands concept” was apparently dreamed up by Stuart Barber, in which American military bases would be located in remote islands under direct US or continuing Western colonial control.

The role of key figures such as Paul Nitze, who towered over American strategic analysis for several decades, in successfully pushing for a hyper-military version of global dominance and a ruthless approach to Diego Garcia, is a fascinating tale in itself. Barber himself later recanted and repented: In an unpublished letter to the Washington Post in 1991, he wrote of “the inexcusably inhuman wrongs inflicted by the British at our insistence on the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia and other Chagos group islands”. He supported the Chagossians’ right to return and compensation for their decades of suffering. Indeed, he did not think their eviction from the islands was necessary for having a base there.

What actually happened, as detailed in Vine’s book, is that the British and the US made secret agreements in the 1960s to deliver the islands “swept” of any people. The policy was pursued through means such as exchange of notes (rather than treaties), or Orders in Council, to avoid parliamentary and congressional scrutiny. The islands were detached by the British from Mauritius prior to its independence to form the “British Indian Ocean Territory”, using the archaic procedure of royal decree and violating UN rules on decolonisation. Supply of provisions was cut and Chagossians visiting Mauritius on vacation or for medical treatment suddenly started to be told they could no longer return home. Each island family used to have a number of dogs as pets, who would go fishing. In the final forcible expulsion, hundreds of these pet dogs were shut in a shed and gassed. Their owners were then herded into cargo boats and ditched in Mauritius and Seychelles.

Other aspects

Several other aspects of the mindset of the empire-builders emerge now and then in the story of the Chagos Islands. For instance, the plans for strategic island bases had included Diego Garcia (then part of British-controlled Mauritius), Aldabra in the Seychelles and Cocos/Keeling Islands of Australia. While US officials wanted the post-colonial (non-white) governments of Mauritius and Seychelles to give up sovereignty over Diego Garcia and Aldabra, they were willing to continue to have Australian sovereignty over the Cocos/Keeling Islands. Australia’s own notorious history with regard to indigenous peoples is well-known. Vine terms this Anglo-American-Australian alliance “the coalition of the pale” and points out that it endures to the present day.

Another curious fact is that while the US and UK authorities do not allow journalists or independent observers to visit Diego Garcia, two other groups of outsiders are allowed. Dozens of people sailing in yachts are allowed to visit the other islands of Chagos, far away from the military base. Several thousand workers from other countries such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka are also employed on the base. Chagossians could have been so employed instead of being expelled, but it appears “locals” are not favoured, in case they start demanding “self-determination” and “democracy”.

It is important not to think of the Chagossians’ fate solely as an exceptional tragedy that befell a small number of people. As Vine points out, powerful groups or states have displaced “native” peoples elsewhere for a variety of reasons. The US itself is built through a process of displacing and impoverishing its indigenous peoples. The Bikini Atoll was “cleansed” of its people in order to be used for nuclear testing. Vine argues that Diego Garcia belongs to another larger phenomenon as well: It sits at the heart of a system of strategic bases which serve as the instruments to project US military power.

via Chagos: The heart of an American empire? – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?

This bank is like the world’s worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt’s funeral. They’re out of control, yet they’ll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.

Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail

 

This bank is like the wor…