Everyone hopefully agrees that any kind of genocide or ethnic cleansing of social undesirables is completely unacceptable. Yet while Americans fight in our own country over proposition 8 and gay marriage and what rights gay couples should have, Gay Iraquis are involved in a struggle for the most basic human right, the right to life.
The media will censor what no one wants to talk about. Those almighty keepers of the pen, the watchdogs of the world are afraid to talk about this. Why? Because for some reason no one wants to own up to what is happening. This is headline news, worthy of coverage on all the networks and local newschannels, front page material for the New York Times and Washington Post. So why is it not there? Why did I have to find it in as a secluded back linked story on Yahoo's news page, buried under tons of other stories that are not nearly as impactful? Even worse, I follow events like this and this is the first time I have ever heard about it, EVER. But apparently his secret war on gays has been going on in Iraq for years. Don't believe me, read for yourself,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090817/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_gay_killings
Seventy years after World War 2 and the defeat of the Nazis, the world still hasnt learned that genocide is wrong. Whats worse is that seventy years later, America is still making excuses for why we can't intervene, citing this as an internal matter for the Iraquis to handle. If we keep allowing the authorities to handle things in this manner then maybe Perez Hilton will finally have something else to talk about other then red carpet fashion. There are no long winded discourses or discussions or debates to have about this. The Human Rights Watch has found irrefutable evidence that Gays in Iraq are being targeted for torture and murder by their fellow citizens. The current American backed regime is not doing nearly enough to stop this. As the article said, these murders are seldom if ever found responsible for their crimes. These so called honor killings are the same excuse that men use to kill their wives who have alleged affairs or who dare to speak out against the status quo. This harsh and extreme form of Islamic rule of law is exactly what we were fighting to overthrow, yet in reality it hasn't gone anywhere. What message does it send to the world when we lecture Russia and China and Israel about Human rights while we order our troops out of Iraqi population centers while a quiet social genocide is taking place?
I've said it many times before that America is often a great nation in terms of ideals but not necessarily of practice. We spew all this rhetoric about how we stand for justice and equality and democracy and yet we stand by and let evil like this happen. The line we didn't know cant be used anymore. Human Rights Watch has exposed this conspiracy for what it really is. Besides we tried that lame excuse with the Holocaust, claiming we didnt know what was going on then too. We used that line up until 1944 even though everyone knew about Mein Kampf and intelligence reports from inside occupied Europe from as early as 1939. Barack Obama can and should lose all crediblity if he doesnt see this through to a positive conclusion for all of the Iraqi people. Politically it would be a huge mistake to order US troops back into Iraqi cities as it would upset Iraqi law makers and would brake the withdrawal time table we fought so hard to have implemented. Obama would surely lose votes at home and support abroad with such a policy decision. But doing the right thing is seldom the most expedient or easy choice. If we don't act now while these killings are being done with American forces still in the country, what will happen to these people when our military leaves? America can not claim a moral mandate to uphold justice and then not act on it when the time is right.
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