[OPE] What Angelina Jolie did not see in Baghdad...

adsl675281@tiscali.nl

Filmstar Angelina Jolie, who has donated millions to humanitarian causes and is UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador ( http://www.unhcr.org/help/3f94ff664.html ) recently visited Iraq on a "non-political" mission to highlight the plight of refugees. Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst, writes:

(...) Last week, on February 1, two Iraqi women blew themselves up in two consecutive terrorist attacks in Baghdad, killing 91 people. Maliki's team said the two women were mentally retarded - downplaying the horrendous attack, claiming they did not know what they were doing when they entered the marketplace. Then came US officials who added this was the doing of Osama bin Laden, claiming he had run out of able-bodied men to carry out terrorist attacks, and had to rely on deranged women. 

Both arguments overlooked the important fact that there is desperation in Iraq. One doesn't need to be mentally retarded - medically speaking - to carry out a suicide attack. One needs only to be properly indoctrinated and brainwashed by the millions of terrorists roaming in Iraq, either from Saddam's loyalists, al-Qaeda, or Shi'ite militiamen. Recent polls show that 43% of all Iraqis live in "absolute poverty". That in itself is enough to cause severe depression and lead someone into terrorism. This week, Defense Ministry officials showed videos they had captured in a raid on al-Qaeda in December 2007. The videos were of little children, aged 11-15, being trained in combat and murder by al-Qaeda. 

Childhood is being perverted in Iraq and so is the role of women, who instead of getting a good education, falling in love, developing professionally, getting married, end up blowing themselves and others up in a crowded Baghdad marketplace. According to the London-based Opinion Research Business, 1 million Iraqis have died as a result of the US invasion since March 2003. 
[  http://www.opinion.co.uk/Documents/Revised%20Casulaty%20Data%20-%20Press%20release.doc ] The cause of death was either directly or indirectly related to the war of 2003 and its aftermath - rather than natural causes. 

Finally, Women's Affairs Minister Narmeen Othman said there are up to 2 million widows in Iraq, out of a total female population of 8.5 million aged between 15 and 80. Of this strikingly large number, only 84,000 receive assistance from the government (50,000-12,000 dinars a month). The two women who blew themselves up on February 1 might be one of the 2 million desperate Iraqi women who have been widowed as a result of the violence. They might have also lost a brother, father or son. Under Saddam, widows were cared for by the government, and officers who married a widow were professionally rewarded by the Ba'athist regime. 

Reconciliation in Iraq is not working. All the success stories from al-Anbar province - the one success story of George W Bush - are subject to collapse due to increased violence and lack of cooperation between the Ministry of Defense (controlled by Sunnis) and the Ministry of Interior (controlled by Shi'ites, allied to the prime minister). (...)  Last January, eight members of an Awakening Council were assassinated - a move that was supposedly taken with the tacit approval of the government. Since then, authorities have done nothing to investigate the murders. Several Sunni notables have accused Iran of masterminding the attack. 

This is the part that Angelina Jolie did not see in Baghdad. 

Complete text: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB09Ak02.html (photo attached)

Jurriaan

Okay, so you're Brad Pitt
That don't impress me much
So you got the looks but have you got the touch
Don't get me wrong, yeah I think you're alright
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night
That don't impress me much

- Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much"

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