TADHAMUN تـضـامـن

Tadhamun (solidarity) is an Iraqi women organization, standing by Iraqi women's struggle against sectarian politics in Iraq. Fighting for equal citizenship across ethnicities and religions, for human rights, and gender equality.

جمعية تضامن تدعم المساواة في المواطنة بغض النظر عن الأنتماء الأثني أو الديني وتسعى من أجل العدالة الأجتماعية و حماية حقوق الأنسان في العراق

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Leaving Iraqi Refugees in the Lurch

Much of the violence in Iraq has been caused directly or indirectly by US policy. The Iraq invasion was a war of choice against a former ally that had never instigated hostilities against the United States and was little threat to US security, says Ivan Eland.
The Iraq War has made refugees of millions of Iraqis. They have been ethnically cleansed or displaced to other locations both inside the country, to neighboring countries, and overseas. Yet the Bush administration, the creator of the chaos and mayhem in Iraq, has done little to help them.
According to NBC News, since April 2003, when the initial U.S. military action was over, the United States has taken in a scant 535 Iraqi refugees. In contrast, European countries, many of which opposed the Bush administration’s invasion, have taken in 18,000.
One commentator noted that taking any more Iraqis would be an implicit admission by the administration that the war was not going well.
Well, guess what, the war isn’t going well—and this dirty little secret has been out for some time now. The U.S. government has a long tradition of remaining secretive about embarrassing facts that have long been obvious to everyone—sometimes with disastrous consequences.
For example, in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, President John F. Kennedy didn’t allow the invading Cuban exiles, as they hit the beach, to have the support of their own air power or that of the United States, because that would have indicated that the invasion had outside help—read the United States—and was not merely an indigenous uprising.
No matter that the United States had a long history of overthrowing governments in Latin America, and American newspapers had already run articles exposing the U.S. training of the Cuban exile invasion force in Central America. Because Cuban leader Fidel Castro could read, he readied a much larger force, which was waiting for and defeated the invaders when they finally landed.
Similarly, no one any longer believes rosy Bush administration pronouncements on Iraq. Although even Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, still has trouble mouthing the “L” word, people with any common sense, including stalwart Republican supporters of the administration, has had that sinking feeling in their stomachs for a while now that the cause in Iraq has been lost.
Politicians don’t like to tell the American public what they don’t want to hear, but at least the administration could quietly begin to open the floodgates for Iraqi refugees. Many of these people helped the United States in Iraq and could be in grave danger once U.S. forces are reduced or withdrawn.
Alas, however, the United States, the melting pot of immigrants, has a surprisingly poor record of opening its borders to wartime refugees. A couple of examples are illustrative. The United States left far too many of its friends to a grim fate after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
In addition, prior to and during World War II, the United States had a disgraceful record of taking in Jews being openly and viciously persecuted by Adolf Hitler. The United States could have saved many innocent lives if the puny number of Jewish refugees taken in had been significantly hiked. This abysmal record was one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest failings.
The United States must do better in the Iraq case. Much of the violence in Iraq has been caused directly or indirectly by U.S. policy. The Iraq invasion was a war of choice against a former ally that had never instigated hostilities against the United States and was little threat to U.S. security.
The United States chose to depose an authoritarian regime that was the only thing holding together a fractious country, which already had had its social fabric torn by numerous wars and grinding international economic sanctions. The United States, with insufficient military strength to provide security for the country, then disbanded the only other forces capable of helping bring order—the Iraqi security forces.
With so much to answer for in Iraq, the Bush administration needs to own up to its colossal failure and help save Iraqis that have already sacrificed much to help the United States in its quixotic quest to bring democracy to that divided nation. Unfortunately for these Iraqis, in similar past situations, the United States has a very poor record, and the Bush administration is not good at even implicitly admitting mistakes.


Ivan Eland is Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. Dr. Eland has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office, and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
ConsortiumNews

Petition sign and circulate:

Release Iraqi women hostages, victims of terrorism themselves

بعيدا عن الوطن؛ حراك التضامن مع الوطن فنا، شعرا وكتابةً
Away from Home; Memory, Art and women solidarity: you are invited to an evening of poetry and music 22/3/2017 18:30 at P21 Gallery London click here for more details
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Public meeting at The Bolivar Hall, London Sat.14/5/2016 at 15:00 IDPs : Fragmentation of Cultural and National Identity



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Protest the suffering of Iraqi Christians: No to terrorism No to state terrorism.Hands off our minorities. Hands off our people. Shame on the human rights violators on all sides. Assemble 11:30 on 28/7/14 near Parliament Square, near Westminister tube station London. For more past events click here

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Halt All Executions! Abolish The Death Penalty!

We women of Tadhamun condemn the persisting practice of arbitrary arrests by the Iraqi security forces. We condemn their arrests of women in lieu of their men folk. These are 'inherited' practices. We are alarmed by credible media reports of the Green Zone government’s intentions of executing hundreds of Iraqi men and women.


For more info click here
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Professor Zaineb Al Bahrani of Columbia University NY speaking at a our meeting on the destruction/damage to historical sites in Iraq

On youtube: Part1
Part 3
Part4
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Human Rights Watch: No woman is Safe

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المقالات المنشورة على هذا الموقع لا تعكس بالضرورة آراء منظمتنا أو أعضاء منظمتنا


Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD

Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD
Building of 1 500 massive police station !
From the angle of the photo, it is possible to calculate that the complex is being built at E 396388 N 3785995 (UTM Zone 38 North) or Lat. 34.209760° Long. 43.875325°, to the west of the Malwiya (Spiral Minaret), and behind the Spiral Cafe.
While the point itself may not have more than Abbasid houses under the ground, it is adjacent to the palace of Sur Isa, the remains of which can be seen in the photo. While the initial construction might or might not touch the palace, accompanying activities will certainly spread over it.Sur Isa can be identified with the palace of al-Burj, built by the
Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, probably in 852-3 (Northedge, Historical Topography of Samarra, pp 125-127, 240). The palace is said to have cost 33 million dirhams, and was luxurious. Details are given by al-Shabushti, Kitab al-Diyarat.
Samarra was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO at the end of June. The barracks could easily have been built elsewhere, off the archaeological site.--
Alastair Northedge Professeur d'Art et d'Archeologie Islamiques UFR d'Art et d'Archeologie
Universite de Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) 3, rue Michelet, 75006 Paris
tel. 01 53 73 71 08 telecopie : 01 53 73 71 13 Email :
Alastair.Northedge@univ-paris1.fr ou anorthedge@wanadoo.fr