Well, if THIS ISN'T AN INDICTMENT of George W. Bush's "liberation," I don't know what is!!!
I don't care about sexual orientation, because THEY ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN!!!!
"Gays Living in Shadows of New Iraq" by CARA BUCKLEY
BAGHDAD — In a city and country where outsiders are viewed with deep suspicion and attracting attention can imperil one’s life, Mohammed could never blend in, even if he wanted to.
Mohammed, 37, has been openly gay for much of his adult life. For him, this has meant growing his hair long and taking estrogen. In the past, he said, that held little danger. As is true throughout the Middle East, men have always been publicly affectionate here.
But, at least until recently, Mohammed and many of his gay friends went one step further, slipping into lovers’ houses late at night. And, until the American invasion, they said, Iraqi society had quietly accepted them.
That is a FRIKKIN' INDICTMENT of the LYING MASS-MURDERER, George W. Bush!
But being openly gay is not an option in the new Iraq, where the rise of religious extremism has left Mohammed and his gay friends feeling especially vilified.
Yup, GEORGE BUSH'S IRAQ!!!!!!!
In January, a United Nations report described the increased persecution, torture and extrajudicial killing of Iraqi lesbians and gay men. In 2005, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for gay men and lesbians to be killed in the “worst, most severe way.”
That is a ZIONIST LIE about Sistani!!!!!
He is NON-VIOLENT!
"Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, one of Iraq's most respected Shi'ite clerics, told Reuters:
"The Shi'ites are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence. We are determined on elections and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has made this clear ."
Sistani is Iraq's most influential cleric and an advocate of non-violence."
Right from the NYT's very own mouth, readers!
Like they thought I would have forgotten after three years!
He lifted it a year later, but neither that nor the recent ebb in violence has made Mohammed or his friends feel safe. They yearn to leave Iraq, but do not have the money or visas. They agreed to be interviewed on the condition that their last names not be used.
They described an underground existence, eked out behind drawn curtains in a dingy safe house in southwestern Baghdad. Five people share the apartment — four gay men and one woman, who says she is bisexual. They have moved six times in the last three years, just ahead, they say, of neighborhood raids by Shiite and Sunni death squads. Even seemingly benign neighborhood gossip can scare them enough to move.
Mohammed, nervously fingering the lapel of his shirt:
“We seem suspicious because we look like a cell of terrorists, but we can’t tell people what we really are. A cell, yes, but of gays.”
His hand drifted to his newly shorn hair. He had lopped it off days earlier. There had been reports of extremists stopping long-haired men, shearing their hair and forcing them to eat it.
The Jew propaganda never stops, does it?
It is impossible to say how many gay men and women face persecution in Iraq. According to an Iraqi gay rights group, run by a former disc jockey in Baghdad named Ali Hili who now lives in London, 400 people have been killed in Iraq since 2003 for being gay.
Set against the many thousands of civilians and soldiers killed in the war, the number is small. But for Mr. Hili, and Mohammed and his friends, it is a painful barometer of just how far Iraq has shifted from its secular past.
Thanks, BUSH!
For a brief, exhilarating time, from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s, they say, gay night life flourished in Iraq. Whereas neighboring Iran turned inward after its Islamic revolution in 1979, Baghdad allowed a measure of liberation after the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
Oh, God! AmeriKa had to take out the MOST PROGRESSIVE ARAB REGIME for shitty litttle Israel!
I HATE THEM EVEN MORE now!
Abu Nawas Boulevard, which hugs the Tigris River opposite what is now the Green Zone, became a promenade known for cruising. Discos opened in the city’s best hotels, the Ishtar Sheraton, the Palestine and Saddam Hussein’s prized Al-Rasheed Hotel, becoming magnets for gay men. Young men with rouged cheeks and glossed lips paraded the streets of Mansour, an affluent neighborhood in Baghdad.
Mr. Hili, who left Iraq in 2000:
“There were so many guys, from Kuwait, from Saudi Arabia, guys in the street with makeup. Up until 1991, there was sexual freedom. It was a revolutionary time.”
Hey, 'Murka?
You PROUD of what we've done in Iraq?
Are you?
Then came the Persian Gulf war, and afterward Saddam Hussein put an end to nightclubs. Iraq staggered under the yoke of economic sanctions. While antigay laws were increasingly enforced, Mohammed and Mr. Hili said they still felt safe. Homosexuality seemed accepted, as long as it was practiced in private. And even when it was not tolerated, prison time could be evaded with a well-placed bribe.
The American invasion was expected to usher in better times.
Mohammed said: “We thought that with the presence of Americans, life would become paradise, that Iraq would be Westernized, but unfortunately the way things were before was so much better than where we are now.”
BUSH'S "liberation" is a TREMENDOUS FAILURE!!!!!!
PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!
One night shortly after Saddam Hussein fell, American soldiers burst into the apartment that Mohammed shared with his two brothers. They were looking for insurgents, but took one look at Mohammed, with his long hair and shapely body wrapped in a robe, and teased him, he said.
Mohammed remembered them barking, as they turned to one of Mohammed’s brothers:
“What are you, a lady man? A boy? Or a girl? Who is this? Your girlfriend?”
Are you STILL PROUD of your WONDERFUL TROOPS, Amurka?
Bunch of HOMOPHOBE BULLIES, huh?
The news raced through Mohammed’s building:
“All my neighbors came to know that I was gay. My brother said, ‘Mohammed, leave the house; you can’t live here anymore.’”
Nice way to BREAK UP a FAMILY, George!
He rented another apartment, and was soon joined by some gay friends. They moved nine months later, after suspicious neighbors began to talk. Nine months after that, they moved again. They came to rely on remittances sent by Mr. Hili, who raises money for them in London.
Mr. Hili taps a network of acquaintances in Baghdad to ferret out safe houses, and pays extra for landlords to alert him to possible trouble. He says he supports about 32 people.
Amjad, one of Mohammed’s roommates, who is 33 and has manicured eyebrows and feathered hair, said he sometimes sleeps with an older man for money:
“He loves me, but I hate him. He is jealous and ugly.”
Is this the "liberation," Amurka brings with her, readers?
Then I am ASHAMED!
One of Mohammed’s friends, a 25-year-old law student named Rafi, said he was especially desperate to get out of Iraq. It is a sentiment shared by millions of Iraqis, but Rafi believes his future here is especially bleak. The influence from Iran is growing, he said. And in Iran, homosexuality is often punishable by death.
Yup, but WE WERE TOLD they were COMING BACK in WAVES!!!!
Just another ZIONIST LIE, right!
Which is why I'm NOT BUYING the PROP on Iran's alleged brutality!
Just NOT BUYING ZIONIST LIES anymore!
Rafi paused, casting his eyes downward:
“I want to get out, but not just out of Iraq, out of the Middle East, to a country that has respect for human rights. And for us. It will never be possible here.”
Does this alleged person even exist?
Isn't that statement so much SELF-SERVING ZIONIST PROPAGANDA, readers?
And IF NOT, then IRAQ is WAY BETTER since Bush's INVASION, huh?
I'll tell you, I am sick and tired of the ZIONIST LIES I find EVERY DAY in my SHIT WAR DAILIES!!
That's IT for today!
