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Why Does The Media Continually Refer To Her As "A Young Iraqi WOMAN"

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kpete Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 10:54 AM
Original message
Why Does The Media Continually Refer To Her As "A Young Iraqi WOMAN"
The United States now officially admits what we already knew: Abir Hamza, the victim of that vicious assault, was born in 1991. She was only 14 when a squad of all-American "Christian" good-old-boys killed her family, raped her, and burned her body. Not a single member of the unit shirked from this task. None of them felt guilty about what they had done to her (although they did regret the retaliatory measures against Americans).

"Our boys," raised within our suposedly enlightened "Christian" culture, considered this girl a sub-human -- a thing to be used. After all, she was Muslim.



The photo above, taken when Abir was but a toddler, is the only one we have at present. I don't mind admitting that when I enlarged the image and smoothed over the jpg artifacts, I got a little choked up. And angry.

I hope every American sees this girl's face. Are our red-state Jesusmaniacs so blinded by their anti-Muslim bigotry -- so blinded by the lies told by our war-loving president and his propagandists -- that they cannot recognise the humanity and innocence in that little girl's eyes? This war has had many victims; let her face represent those we cannot see.

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/07/her-face.html
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stop the bleeding Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:05 AM
Response to Original message
1. I wish this picture would be shown everywhere
Looks like those morals I heard so much about in 2004 are starting to show their true colors.

Let this picture - this human be a rally cry for all of the other 300,000+++ Iraqi voices who have been silenced in the name of their FREEDOM. This needs to be everywhere, barber shops, cafes, etc..


I really hate my government but love my country - God please forgive us.
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Bjornsdotter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:06 AM
Response to Original message
2. Spin, spin, spin

That's all it is. By refering to her as a "young Iraqi woman" they are trying to minimize the crime...as if it can be minimized. It could destroy our beautiful minds to call it exactly what it is...rape and murder of a 14 year old.

It's terrible and the MSM is just as guilty in their role of trying to "make it seem not as bad". I've written ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC about it and haven't received one reply.

Cheers
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mantis49 Donating Member (398 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 12:56 PM
Response to Reply #2
11. I heard it this morning on the local NBC affiliate.
Just finished sending them an email about it:

In your early morning newscast before the Today Show, you were reporting on the aftermath of the rape of a "woman" in Iraq and the murders of her and her family.

Two things:
1) She was not a "woman." She was a 14 year old girl. Do you think rape is more palatable if it's of a woman? Does saying it was a woman instead of a girl maybe make it easier for people in this country to take?

2) Your writers should pay more attention to their sentence structure. You described it as "the rape and killing of a woman and her family." Not clear. It was the rape of a girl and the killing of her and her family.

Contrast that reporting with the report on the drownings of the five children. You described them all as children. Obviously, a teenager in Iraq is not the same as a teenager here.

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Bjornsdotter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:57 PM
Response to Reply #11
17. Wonder if you'll get a reply

BTW, was it the station out of Chicago?

Cheers
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TorchTheWitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:42 AM
Response to Original message
3. The MSM is misogynist
They refer to this 14 year old girl as a "woman" for the same reason they refer to accused rapists in their 20's as "boys".

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rustydog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:46 AM
Response to Original message
4. What the FUCK does it matter? 11 years old, 21 years old
120 years old...What the FUCK does it matter?
SOMEONE, A group of American soldiers allegedly (neo-nazis, skinheads? read truthout today) planned for weeks to RAPE a fellow human being. they brutally murdered the victim and her family then tried to cover up the crime.
The issue is a brutal rape and murder, the age of the victim is a distraction, what could it POSSIBLY have to do with the fact the victim, 8 years old, 11 years old, 80 years old, WHATEVER, was stalked, brutally RAPED and murdered. Her family brutally murdered.

And this is freedom on the march, right?
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Theres-a Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:50 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. In our culture it matters,IMO.
They are deliberately calling her woman to soften the blow.Truly it would be horrible no matter the age,but the sickening attempt to clean it up a little,(just my opinion)is what bugs me about "girl" vs "woman".
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formercia Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #6
14. The media is culturally insensitive
Edited on Tue Jul-11-06 01:16 PM by formercia
by calling her a woman, it is inferred that she is no longer a virgin, a great insult to her family and Muslims.


Does that translates to she has been raped, therefore she is a woman? If so, it is the most politically incorrect attempt to be politically correct that I have ever seen.
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. it's got nothing to do with the actual crime.
I don't know if "exploitation" is the right word, but people are worried about framing this particular debate.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #4
16. And accuracy be damned
Why don't the MSM just say "a female" or "a person"?
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aint_no_life_nowhere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 02:26 PM
Response to Reply #4
18. They fact they stalked a child to begin with makes it even sicker
Our culture values children (at least I hope it does). I can't think of very many sadder things than the rape and murder of a child, although I deplore any murder and rape.

These acts arose out of the sick desire of these soldiers to have sex with a 14 year old girl. They hit on her repeatedly, according to the family every time she passed the checkpoint. While any rape and murder is horrific, the addition of child stalking and child molestation makes it worse.
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Theres-a Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:47 AM
Response to Original message
5. They have lost their humanity
She was a girl.They can't call her that. They call her sister that.Her sister was 5.What kind of monster murders a 5 year old? If they hated us for our freedoms,that is no longer true.They hate us for our evil.
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KansDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 11:59 AM
Response to Original message
8. Apparently, "womanhood" occurs somewhere between 11 and 14...
Police say 11 year old girl gang raped by football players

Just when during the years of 12 and 13 I'll leave to the interpretation of professional journalists...:eyes:

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SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 12:27 PM
Response to Original message
9. Because the US media is conflicted...
Edited on Tue Jul-11-06 12:27 PM by SoCalDem
Grown women starve themselves to look like 10 yr old pre-pubescents, and then get 44D implants
Some states/regions revel in "Little Miss Look-like-You're-21-But-You're-Only-6" contests
Our department stores stock gold lame' outfits in sz 6x
Teens are told that brains count, but society also expects them to date at 12
The judicial system tries kids as adults

Our society has blurred all the boundaries..

Some victims of crime are portrayed as girls, children and other of the same age are portrayed as young-women
depends on how they feel about the accused..

Make the victim a 15 yr old white female , and the suspect an ethnic male of 18....I'm betting that media coverage will always portray her as a girl, and him as a man..
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Ilsa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 12:50 PM
Response to Original message
10. The news here in TX keeps referring to a young woman who
was murdered as a "girl" even though she had a driver's license and was 16.
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patcox2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:00 PM
Response to Original message
12. Why is everyone so quick to be outraged over everything about this?
This is like the tenth post where someone is all typing in caps and stuff with unconstrained outrage and moral indignation over semantics.

Its tiresome.
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Hidden Stillness Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:03 PM
Response to Original message
13. It is This This Time; It Will Be Something Else the Next Time....
Simply put, they refer to her that way because, according to standard male-corporate-media-speak, "girl=child" and "woman=slut or bitch." As soon as an attack is discovered, the media goes right into "campaign mode," and starts slipping little attacks or innuendo about the victim--why was she at the bar alone anyway? why was she wearing a short-sleeved-shirt at that time of year anyway? this is not the first time she has made an accusation like this; according to the record, she is divorced, etc.--to condition the audience to react against a stereotype, combined with suppression of facts that help the victim, and associating all this with the preconditioned hatred of all things "woman" is easier than to expose themselves for what they are by going the "slut deserved it" route on a dead 14-year-old girl.

This is also part of a larger pattern by the male media of removing the woman's perspective completely from the consideration of the crime, so that it will only be described the way males want it to. The problem isn't male violence or oppression of women and girls--"feminist shit"--no, it is "racism" or "religion," however bizarrely things have to be twisted around to fabricate the presentation, as if it only happens certain places where males are, and not others, etc. It ain't us, it's those "other people"! Why was Christianity thrown into the description here, or "red state," etc., except to take the discussion away from women, and make it something males can use? (Waiting for the next round of "Why Do We Have to Hear About That Dead Bitch Natalie Holloway?" threads...) I rather doubt that these soldiers were good, contemplating Christians, but they probably all loved football, rock and roll and rap, TV, talk radio, and all the other commercial, secular places where women are slammed and humiliated all the time. The worst countries in the world for women, by the way, are Muslim: if a rape victim cannot produce four male witnesses to verify her story, she herself is then arrested for "illicit sexual activity," thrown in jail, (and further rapes by police and guards of the "unclean" woman are common, never any arrests for that ), and cases against the rapists almost never pursued--unless international human rights groups hear about it. Women have almost no rights under Sharia law; it is a Medieval Hell.

The only person I have heard covering this story correctly, with outrage, and with proof of the child's age, is Nancy Grace, (waiting for the next round of "I Hate Nancy Grace" threads...). Over and over again, when a rape is committed, especially with a commercial "celebrity" as attacker, the smirking, viciousness, and accusations start, in the "modern" West, where the only "Bible" the announcers ever read is their stock report. If there is video of the half-naked woman victim being attacked, God help her, because it is going to become money-making entertainment, and it is going to be replayed a thousand times.

When the rape of a victim is gleefully approached as if it were a video game--and when commercial video games feature rape as the "reward" at the end--when every time women try to refer to male oppresion, the eyes start to roll, it is dismissed, (maybe we were "bitch-slapped," like a "bitch" "deserves"), and the whole situation is re-characterized to remove the fact that it is a hate-crime against woman and girls, then no matter what "outrage" there may be expressed, it does not relate at all to the situation; it has become a "useful routine." No matter what else, it is male hatred of us, followed by more male hatred of us, as the system they invented shoves the victim's face in the shit and denies justice, and all the attempts to deny the woman's voice, and convert it to an "anti-American," "anti-Christian," "ethnic" spiel only furthers that injustice.

Raping a "girl" is perversion; raping a "woman" is "understandable"--that is what they are for, and we hate them. The only males who are not guilty are the ones who have noticed this, and admit what the problem is. You have to state it: only feminism will solve these human rights violations; that gets at the real meaning of it.
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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #13
21. very good
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Emit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
15. I called my local tv station yesterday following one of their stories
where they called her an "Iraqi woman." They said they were using AP reports and had not received any new reports which gave her age. I said that there were new reports on line and the guy on the phone said, "Well, until we get new info, this is how we have to report it." I first asked, "What, you can't research this yourself to find the correct info -- you have to wait 'til someone sends it to you? He basically said yes and so I asked, "If I send you the info from Yahoo News, will you use it?" He said, "Maybe." I emailed him the link to Yahoo News which shows her passport and has some info about her age and DOB. I haven't checked to see if they've changed their story yet.
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 04:28 PM
Response to Original message
19. Thw West in the only society that says adulthood starts at 18.
In most other societies you are an adult when you are around 14. Just a thought.
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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-11-06 04:38 PM
Response to Original message
20. Wrte AP, here's address found online
info@ap.org
According to journalistic rules, over 18 is man or woman, under 18 a boy or girl. Don't sanitize the news, quit manipulating the news.

Thanks for clipping the picture out of her ID. Spread it around.
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