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Recent
Stories
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
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the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
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The Telltale Signs of Empire
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Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
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The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
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Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
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Nately's Old Man
Steve
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of the Day
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April
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Susan
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The New York Times and the Peace Movement
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Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
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America's Sovereign Right to Do
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Akiva
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Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
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Steve
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Dr. Phil in the Trenches
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Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
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Wallowing in Hypocrisy
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Gagne
Baghdad Babble
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Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
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I Understand There's a Boy in
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David
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Spying, Secrecy and the University:
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War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
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America is Not a Role Model
Diane
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Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
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Robert
Fisk
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Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
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War and Art
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Wars and the Color Line
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War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
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The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
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Anne
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A Drowning in Salem
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Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
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William
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Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
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A Busy Day for Bulldozers
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Joanne
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Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
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Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
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War and Occupation
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April
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Mickey
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War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
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David
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Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
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Colin Powell Telemarketer
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Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
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Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
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War Web Log 04/03
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April 15,
2003
"Smile
and Enjoy It"
The Rape of
Iraq
by
Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
The supreme victory for the rapist is proof that
his victim "enjoyed" it. Though he may force his way
into her property, demolish her home, murder her loved ones,
pillage her belongings, though he may terrify and humiliate her,
beat and batter her, break her bones and tear her flesh, spill
her blood, wound her organs and lay waste to her very soul, if,
in the midst of the rape, between tears and shrieks of agony,
if his victim should, for a moment, for some reason, any reason,
if she should smile, or, better yet, orgasm, the rapist is redeemed;
he is even (in his mind) heroic.
This is why, when the Anglo-American
rape of Iraq began, we so desperately searched the Iraqi faces
on our televisions for a smile. And that is why, when after three
weeks of horrendous carnage, we finally got more than three Iraqis
in one place to smile at our handsome invading army and help
them to topple a statue of our mutual accursed enemy, we declared
the war to be, virtually, over.
Of course, it's not really over. The
bombing and shooting continue, and then there's the looting.
But those smiles make everything all right. All the murder and
mayhem continue. But hey--a dazed teenager grins at an expensive
American camera, and hoots "Thank you Boosh!" and we're
ready to forget children with their arms blown off and too many
corpses on the highway to count, let alone identify. We feel
good about our war now, at least some of us do. As the rapist
would say, "I gave her what she really wanted." She
needed to be raped. She wanted to be violated.
As psych-buffs know, sometimes a rape
victim does smile, and even orgasm, in the midst of a horrible,
excruciating assault. Perhaps it is a life-saving attempt at
ingratiation or the body's way of defending against the onslaught,
a variation on the Stockholm Syndrome, but it is a natural, albeit
humiliating response. Of course, the rapist cares little about
the "psychology" of his victim. That smile is his triumph,
his war medal of honor.
This is why we feel so good, and so guilty
for feeling good (and in this case, the guilt is good), about
seeing those smiling Iraqis and watching that big ugly statue
come down over and over again (even if it was a staged media
set-up with fewer than 100 people, including press, marines and
folks from Ahmed Chalabi's entourage, which long-shots and comparison
photos of the event reveal).
We're looting you of your oil, so you
might as well loot yourselves. Have at it!
The toppling of the statue has other
patriotic erotic connotations. It is the cutting down of our
enemy. The orgasmic, victorious crescendo of the Cockfight at
the Baghdad Corral. The castration of Saddam. The decapitation
of Saddam. Well, not exactly Saddam the man (though according
to the Bushies, he's gone from being the evilest human since
Hitler to being not worth bothering to find). Not the actual
Saddam. Just a statue (though a larger than life statue that
plays really well on TV!). Kind of like a dildo versus the actual
cock. A surrogate Saddam. Saddam in effigy. The toppling of the
evil Saddam statue is an image of glorious, righteous castration
for the history books and a wet dream for the apocalypse-seekers.
For the "patriotic" American, it avenges the awful
images of our Twin Towers of corporate strength and potency--Dick
One and Dick Two--going down in flames, themselves castrated
by the fiery sword of the terrorist. Even though it was a different
terrorist.
But oh, how can we be so picky about
whether or not Saddam or any Iraqis actually had anything to
do with 9/11--when we're experiencing such deep, heroic, patriotic,
erotic feelings? Not only does our victim enjoy being raped,
she's glad we murdered her horrible old husband! Who cares about
proof of responsibility for 9/11, or the fact that the U.S. politically
and economically supported Saddam during the period of his worst
offences? Who cares about those tedious old Weapons of Mass Destruction
when our hearts are swelling with pride over our role as rapist-rescuers?
And now the looting. As one Iraqi shopkeeper
who was having his store cleaned out by looters, as the American
troops stood by doing nothing, remarked, "before there was
one Saddam Hussein. Now there are thousands of Saddam Husseins."
And why not? Seeing the looters smile and flash victory signs
at American soldiers as the Americans smile and flash back, the
message is clear: We're looting you of your oil, so you might
as well loot yourselves. Have at it! And keep smiling. Just don't
come near us with those grenades." The result: Everything
is being looted. Not just Saddam's palaces. Everything. At the
moment, there is not a functioning hospital in Baghdad. The Iraqi
Antiquities Museum has been cleaned out of 5000-year-old priceless
antiquities, most stolen, some smashed to pieces in the fury
of "liberation.". This is not just Iraq's heritage
that the illegal Anglo-American rape of Iraq has destroyed; this
is the heritage of the Western world, the archeological legacy
of the Cradle of Civilization, the land of Abraham and Sarah,
the ancient Sumerians and the legendary Garden of Eden. Marines
guard the oil fields and even, brazenly, the Oil Ministry, leaving
the hospitals, museums and the shops of hard-working Iraqis to
the looters.
And still the cozily embedded mainstream
media keep playing the image of the toppling statue and the smiling
Iraqis. CNN might as well be anchored by Ari Fleischer. The jacked-up
newscasters revel in the soft-core porn of war, "tastefully"
showing very little of the rampant hardcore death and dismemberment,
just lots of handsome, stalwart troops and beguiling, brown-faced
grins that communicate: Freedom! Liberation! Smiles! They love
us! We may have brutally, systematically raped their country
(and the rape continues), but they want it! They really want
us to bomb the shit out of them. They like that...
Who are all these looters anyway? Rummy
says they're "ordinary Iraqis" though a bit "untidy."
I don't know about that. I remember a little Iraqi factoid from
months back when the Statue Toppling was just a gleam in Boy
King Bush's eye: Saddam let all the prisoners out of his prisons.
Tens of thousands of them. He let the criminal element back on
the street, and now here they are, ruling Iraq, the interim government
of crime preceding occupation. Is this the Baathists' "unconventional
weapon" that that crazy old Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf kept
threatening to unleash?
Chimpanzees spread their lips into what
looks like a smile when they're scared. It is the smile of submission
and ingratiation, not pleasure, and it often masks deceitful
scheming against the powerful alpha male recipient of the smile.
Considering what we have put them through, who knows what lurks
behind that beautiful Iraqi smile?
Dr. Susan Block
is a sex educator, host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and author
of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
If you'd like to contact Dr. Susan Block
with questions, comments or contributions, please email liberties@blockbooks.com
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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