The Foul Fruits of U.S. Tax Dollars in Iraq: Anti-Gay Witch Hunts and Violence

It's ironic, but LGBT Iraqis were largely better off under the often brutal regime of Saddam Hussein than there are now under the U.S. puppet regime that now rules in Iraq.   Instead of Hussein's largely hands off approach to gays, we now see sometimes state sanctioned witch hunts and murders of LGBT Iraqi.  The BBC looks at the plight of LGBT Iraqis and one of the other legacies of Chimperator Bush's fool's errand in Iraq - which mirrors the kind of batshitery that Mitt Romney would extend into Iran.  Not, of course that Mitt Romney or his sons would face the consequences of such ill advised wars.  Here are highlights from the BBC story: 

In post-Saddam Iraq, gay men and women have been systematically targeted for death by extra-judicial militias - with the co-operation of the democratically elected government, says Ali Hilli, founder of the London-based group, Iraqi LGBT.

Even through the worst years of Saddam Hussein, sexual minorities in Iraq enjoyed a fair degree of freedom.

In the years after the invasion, the security situation deteriorated for everyone in the country. But for sexual minorities, Iraq became hell on earth.

By 2007, political and religious groups backed by militiamen launched what we believe was an organised, co-ordinated campaign to hunt, arrest, torture and kill everyone they perceived as gay.   These radical groups deny sexual minorities the right to life. They target everyone who does not conform to their religious description of family.


That is why killings of gays are similar to so-called honour killings of women said to bring shame on to the family by having extra-marital sex, even in cases when women are raped.  In the same way, gay men and women who do not adhere to traditional sexual practices within an accepted marriage framework are seen as dangerous to society.

Instead of protecting sexual minorities, the Iraqi government facilitates their murder by arresting the victims and handing them over to militias who kill them.  Iraqi LGBT sources working inside Iraq have found the militias are also getting intelligence about the identities of sexual minorities from the Ministry of the Interior.

Unless the international community steps in to help and to put pressure on the Iraqi government, many more men and women will die.

Frankly, the situation sickens me and I suspect that other than gay-hating Christofascists crowd, most Americans would not be please with this result of needlessly wasted American lives and billions of tax payer dollars.  Meanwhile, George Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney have faced no consequences for their years of misrule.