www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php
Preferences Visitors Online: 863 Today Total: 3,078 Unique: 2,534 Yesterday Total: 133,486 Unique: 107,633 Comments: 1,436,027 Today: 13 Yesterday: 3,076 donate Help keep Little Green Footballs bouncing by donating whatever you can.
february 2001 support lgf You don't have to pay to read LGF. But if you enjoy what we'r e doing here and you'd like to show your appreciation, you can use the A mazon or PayPal links below to drop some change in our tip jar and help us buy some groceries.
The victim, Mukhtar Mai, also attended the rally in Multan, a major city in the eastern province of Punjab. Waving signs and chanting, the demonstrators, many of them from nearby v illages, joined the rally. Organizer Farzana Bari said more than 3,000 women were at the event. We will fight for justice for Mukhtar Mai, the women chanted during th e rally, while others carried placards reading: Give protection to Muk htar Mai Some 200 policemen observed the demonstration, which ended peacefully. In June 2002, Mai said she was raped by four men on the orders of a vill age council that wanted to punish her family. Mais brother was accused of having sex with a woman from a more promine nt family, though Mais family says the allegations were fabricated to cover up a sexual assault against the boy by several men.
See, thats where there was an IED, my driver Ahmad said, using the mi litarys shorthand for improvised explosive device. He pointed to the charred shell of a car sitting a few feet off the shou lder. Last summer I was here, driving from the airport, and suddenly, Boom! I said, Its OK, its OK and then ever yone began shooting the Americans, the Iraqis over there, he said, g esturing to the nearby neighborhood. On this route, its hard to know whether a car that speeds by a military convoy simply has a nervous driver, or carries a suicide bomber. Last fall, a bomber on the road targeted an armored bus carrying US person nel. Often passing civilian s are injured or die in the attacks. One of the mosques near the beginning of the route, Ibn Taymiyah, is wel l known as an insurgent center. When US soldiers searched it, they fo und grenades, ammunition and guns. Farther on is a neighborhood named J ihad and another named Furat, where former intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein live.
The Americans have tried to make it difficult for insurgents to operate along the road. They have chopped down palm trees and taken down fences that the rebels hid behind. They have handed out leaflets and warned people who live in the area not to collaborate with insurgents. We stopped, letting it go far ahea d Next we sighted two SUVs that looked like they might be carrying sec urity contractors. Again we slowed, for fear that insurgents might targ et them. Suddenly Ahmad sped up, barreling down the rough highway at nearly 80 mp h My worries about insurgents and skittish US soldiers quickly turne d to fears of an accident as he honked to get cars to move out of the w ay. A burgundy car with three men in it was visible in our rearview mirror, speeding close behind us. As we drew up to our hotel, we sa w the car again it had been the chase car of another news organizatio n The misplaced suspicion would have been funny, if the situation had not been so dangerous. Although there are fe w attacks at night, there is also little visibility, and the US milit ary suspects every vehicle. Like us, Sgrena must have been frightened of being on the road. But havi ng just escaped from insurgents, she probably never would have thought she would be mistaken for one of them.
Of course, the writer is the first to understand, and up to a point even share, what lies behind tho se emotions. Take the anguish of Giuliana Sgrena, abducted by the very people she thought she was defending. For one month, she was a hostage to fear and the unknown, then only one step away from death, saved at t he last by the sacrifice of one of the men who freed her. We are well a ware that the anguish was not merely hers. But when understandable emotion produces unequivocal, crudely polemical statements such as those we are currently reading in Il Manifesto newsp aper, and which are echoed less assertively elsewhere, then it is permi ssible to put one or two - we think - not unreasonable questions. Well begin with the crucial one, which is this: is it true, as the self -styled Communist Daily headline puts it, that the death of Nicola Ca lipari was a preemptive and therefore premeditated, homicide? Is it t rue, as Rossana Rossanda writes, that the Americans were shooting to k ill, and that Caliparis death was an assassination? Must we really trust Giuliana Sgrenas feelings when she tells us that her abductors were very probably right when they told her, the Americans dont want you to go back, adding her own comment that they - the Americans again - dont want our work to show what Iraq has become with the war, desp ite the so-called elections. To continue, what might be the information in Ms Sgrenas possession t hat, according to her life partner Pier Scolari, could justify an assas sination by the Americans determined not to see it published? Finally, are we really to believe that the Italians car was hit by 400 bullets , a storm of projectiles (Mr Scolari)? Are we really to believe Giulia na Sgrena when she says that she personally picked handfuls of bullets off the seat, but that, in this premeditated rain of fire from an arm ored vehicle against an automobile with no armor plating, only one pass enger actually died?
BEIRUT, March 6 The leader of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite Muslim mo vement that for weeks has stood on the sidelines of Lebanons political upheaval, called Sunday for national demonstrations against what he ch aracterized as foreign influences seeking to expel Syria, a key sponsor of the party, from the country. Hassan Nasrallah, a Shiite cleric who serves as Hezbollahs secretary ge neral, was critical in particular of the United States and France. His announcement dashed the hopes of Lebanese opposition leaders that the l arge, disciplined movement would join their cause to drive Syrian troop s and intelligence services from Lebanon. The first demonstration is scheduled for Tuesday in Beirut, along an ave nue near the central square where Lebanons anti-Syrian opposition move ment has staged round-the-clock protests since the Feb. Nasrallah appeared after what he called an emergency meeting of more t han 30 political parties aligned with the Syrian government, which is f acing international pressure and a popular uprising here to end its 30- year presence in Lebanon. The meeting was convened hours after Syrian P resident Bashar Assad outlined a gradual shift of Syrias 15,000 troops in Lebanon to the countries common border, a plan criticized by US and French officials who have demanded an immediate withdrawal of Syria n forces.
Womens rights now, chanted the crowd, which included women dressed in abayas, or traditional long black cloaks. Some of the demonstrators at Mondays protest wore veils over their faces. Our democracy will only be complete with women, said a placard written in Arabic. We need a balance, open the door, said one written in English.
Kuwaiti women demonstrating for their rights in front of Kuwaits Parlia ment, in Kuwait City on Monday, March 7, 2005. Several hundred women an d supporters of womens rights converged near the National Assembly bef ore the Parliament session in which the rights of women would be discus sed. In arguments by both sides at the Assembly, a number of proponents of a law giving women full political rights indicated that Islamic Sha ria law was not against political rights for women.
He attacks LGF for the following statement, which he says is an attempt t o discredit Sgrena: The right-leaning site, Little Green Footballs, predictably tries to dis credit Giuliana and anyone who believes her: The details of this situation have been described in so many different ways that its very difficult to get a clear picture of what happened and mainstream media has predictably ignored Sgrenas radical anti-war background... The inmates of Democratic Underground are besi...
|
http://csua.com/feed/