Every time I read one of these stories, I'm more and more convinced that trying to drag Islamic countries out of the 11th century into the modern world is a complete and total lost cause....
Seventeen-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader told her best friend how she had fallen for Paul, a 22-year-old she met at a charity where she worked as a volunteer.
When her father learned she had been seen speaking to a foreigner he rushed home and butchered her, strangling and stabbing her while screaming that he was "cleansing his honour".
He was arrested, but Iraqi police took no action. His wife has since left him and is in hiding.
Abdel-Qader Ali stood on the girl's throat until she suffocated and then stabbed her, all the time shouting that his honour was being cleansed.
He was arrested and released within two hours. Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police said: "The father has very good contacts in the Basra government."
Because her family considered her impure, Rand was given only a simple burial. Her uncles spat in her grave to show their disgust.
I defy anybody to come here and attempt to convince me that these atrocities are anything but the product of a savage, barbaric religion. And we idealistic Americans dare to believe that a third-world, productionless society that condones this sort of thing is capable of functioning as a republic?
"But Ed", you whine, "this was an isolated incident. It's the exception, not the rule. You cannot indict a whole population because of the acts of a few."
Why yes, dumb reader, I can. There were 47 honor-killings in Basra alone in the past year, and the "authorities", as always, let the men go after only symbolic interrogations. Clearly, this is a society, not a few individuals, that endorses the murder in cold blood of it's daughters. Obviously we cannot impose normal human behavior on a barbaric society of savages. Our nation-building efforts could be better spent in Mexico or somewhere else, anywhere but the backwards, third-world, God-forsaken hell-holes of the middle east.
Here's Rand in happier times....and by happier, I mean not strangled, stabbed, and spat upon by her father and uncles.
"But Ed", you whine, "this was an isolated incident. It's the exception, not the rule. You cannot indict a whole population because of the acts of a few."
Why yes, dumb reader, I can. There were 47 honor-killings in Basra alone in the past year, and the "authorities", as always, let the men go after only symbolic interrogations. Clearly, this is a society, not a few individuals, that endorses the murder in cold blood of it's daughters. Obviously we cannot impose normal human behavior on a barbaric society of savages. Our nation-building efforts could be better spent in Mexico or somewhere else, anywhere but the backwards, third-world, God-forsaken hell-holes of the middle east.
4 comments:
Ed, thank you for blogging about this. I share your outrage at these heinous crimes.
One point, though. . .these crimes pre-date Islam. They are believed to have their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. So they've got more to do with culture than with faith.
That said, it is the case that the majority of the U.N.-estimated 5,000 dishonor killings per annum occur in Arab/Muslim countries and in Arab/Muslim immigrant communities elsewhere. So there's a correlation, but no causality.
I think the international community needs to step up and insist that the various international human rights covenants and agreements that have been signed with us are enforced. Jordan, for example, is in violation of 17 of them, just on dishonor killings alone. What good is it to have unenforced agreements? What purpose does it serve? And why are we settling for this?
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
anon, I defer to you about honor-killings being a cultural phenomenon and predating Islam but, that seems to be a semantic point as you don't see it happening in any other culture but Islamic ones. Moreover, do you think it's coincidental that the same societies that embrace barbarism such as this, also embrace Islam? I don't think so.
It is painful to look into these young women's faces, so full of life, of hope -- standing on the brink of womanhood with a long life ahead of them. Until...
Until some male member of their family became accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.
Why is the mainstream afraid to speak up? Where is the feminist outrage? Why don't more humanitarians fight for our sisters?
Karen Tintori, author
Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family
www.karentintori.com
Karen, thanks for stopping by.
You are right to point out the hypocrisy of the feminists and the Left in general when it comes to the treatment of women in these third-world hell-on-Earths. It is sad that the insistence of the Left to support America's enemies carries more weight than human rights abuses such as these. Additionally, to criticize ANY cultural aspect of others is anathema to liberals. Moral equivalence rules the day and no cultural practice is inferior or subject to criticism by another, according to liberal doctrine. I too am sickened by female circumcision, stoning, honor killings, gang rape for showing too much ankle skin, hanging of homosexuals, murder of anyone who dares to speak the name of Mohammed, the list of abuse and barbarism toward women and/or infidels goes on and on in these primarily Islamic countries, yet we say nothing in order to remain non-judgmental. I am sickened by our politicians that they value their political positions more than they value speaking out against human atrocities.
I'll put up a link to your site and your book Karen, people should have information like that.
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