"Iraqis Endure Worse Conditions Than Under Saddam, UN Survey Finds

The United Nations told us that 5,000 children a month were dying under sanctions. True, or not? Both answers have interesting implications. If you actually read your link, and I doubt you did, you would note that most comparisons are being made with 1980s Iraq, and that "two decades of war and sanctions" are folded into the report.

''Under the previous dictator regime, the basic rights for women were enshrined in the constitution,''

The Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq has apparently forgotten to update all of its website since the war.

Women are the victims of violence and backward religious traditions in Iraq, and are in desperate need of shelter and protection from random acts of aggression. These women are subject to continuous threat of being:

· killed by their husbands or male relatives (honor killings)

· Burnt or mutilated for suspicion of shameful acts

· publicly executed or shot by the police

· kidnapped and secretly murdered

· in state of despair and see no other way than to commit suicide

Consequently, millions of women undergo sexual discrimination encouraged by Islamist activists and Saddam’s regime that urge all “God Loving” men to oppress their women so as to abide by an Islamic submissive lifestyle that was created hundreds of years ago. This situation has been introduced and enhanced in the last decade, and does not allow women basic standards of human dignity. Other Reasons that result in the deterioration of social status of women in Iraq:

· Hundreds of thousands of women were widowed by consecutive wars, and genocide executed by Saddam’s army

· Economic sanctions spread out poverty to unthinkable extents where every widow finds herself responsible of a family with no sort of support or social insurance

· Recent years changes in civil laws so as to allow honor killings and referral to backward and barbaric tribal law

· Absence of supremacy of law, allowing Islamist misogynist practices which the ruling Baath party chose to apply by committing mass killings on women.

Electricity? See my response to Lindy's similar post.

But let's assume that there actually was a chicken in every pot under Saddam, if, of course, you belonged to the right group of people. If you were Sunni, and a good party member, you could live a fine, long life if you ignored the towns beyond Baghdad, that guy down the street who disappeared last week, and the Shiites, Kurds, and Marsh Arabs. If you were careful what you said in public or on the phone (regular line--cell phones are illegal), stood dutifully at the curb during all the official parades, and voted for the single candidate when "elections" came up.

Sometimes I wonder how many people would, not reluctantly but cheerfully, sell their freedom for a full belly and 24 hour electricity. Probably one of mankind's darker traits, and for any people who grew up in squalor, maybe not that hard to understand.

People in the Third World are starving, and miserable, and a tyrant who feeds them looks pretty good then. In China, communism was a step up at first.

So what's your excuse? You miss any meals lately? Aren't you one of those who wails and rends his garments at the slightest hint that your personal freedom might be encroached upon by your own government? That somebody might be tracking phone calls overseas to terrorist numbers?

If Bush instituted government-paid medical care for everyone, or subsidized your gasoline bill, would you let him tap your phones? Become President for Life?

What's your price?