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Isn't this the country the US and UK invaded in 2003 because of non-existent WMDs (shades of Iran today) and overthrew the nationalist, secular leader, so that it has now fallen more into the hands of Islamists?
Incidentally Iraq's parliament told the US military to leave in 2020 and the US has refused. So this is going on under the continued US military occupation of this country.
> and overthrew the nationalist, secular leader
Two things can be true at once:
1. The US invaded on false pretenses. We should never have been there.
2. Saddam Hussein and his family were brutal dictators who shouldn't be mourned. We didn't exactly topple the leadership of, say, Sweden.
Hussein was a secular leader in much the same way as Stalin was. Their horrific abuses weren't driven by religion, but that's little comfort to the lives they destroyed.
Saddam wasn't secular in the sense western audience understand the word.
>secular leader
Eh what? Hahahaha
This happened two years after the US invaded. In fact the US had encouraged religious Shiite uprising in the south, which is universally acknowledged. The US military invasion shifting power to mullahs, the Baathist has to make concessions, which they had not for decades before.
"More than 30 [US] states nationwide have no ban on child marriage. And it is not an anomaly. According to the non-profit Unchained At Last, since the year 2000, the United States has documented 315,000 cases of child marriage within its own borders—largely sanctioned by the Church and courts. No federal law bans child marriage in America. Not one."
"CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 1979. Afghanistan has ratified this treaty. The United States has not."
"Today, the spectacle of America condemning child marriage abroad while refusing to adopt the international treaty that prohibits it is a moral and legal incoherence that undermines every word we say."
https://www.qasimrashid.com/p/the-taliban-legalizes-child-ma...
Not that either is great, but there is a world of difference between saying "a 16-year-old can marry another 16-year-old if the couple and both sets of parents agree" (an often a judge too) and saying "a 12-year-old can marry a 30-year-old against her will".
Alas, several states still lack minimum ages, so your 30-on-12-year-old scenario is still quite possible in the US.
Particularly disturbing is how much pushback there was to the recent Oklahoma bill to finally end child marriage two weeks ago. Thankfully it passed anyway, but the state house vote was 51-36. Some of the quotes from the house members voting against the law are rather chilling, e.g.:
“This was a vote in favor of parents rights over government overreach. It’s possible that some people are comfortable with the government overriding parental decisions, but I’m not one of them. To vote yes on this is a vote to let the government dictate how to parent your children.”
- Rep. Clay Staires (R-Skiatook)
AFAIK, California, Mississippi, and New Mexico still lack a minimum age for marriage.
If the law permits it, a 12-year old has no other choice but to agree to whatever their parents want. It is well documented that children dissociate to keep an image of "good parents" alive, regardless of their action. Very few 12-year olds -- or 16-year olds -- will break with their families over this, and even then the break will psychologically haunt them forever. This is how you breed violence, and we need to stop lying to ourselves and others about it.
The cited report states that some cases in the United States involved children as young as 10. The average age gap (not mean age gap) across all 300,000 cases is ~4 years older for the male. I understand they pick extraordinary cases, but a single case is sufficient to understand why this is not working. "This is not the majority of cases" is a misdirection.
"He was aged 18. Mandy was 12. His grooming and abuse continued for years, fully sanctioned by Mandy’s mother, who spoke of God’s plan. He proposed to her four years later, and she tried to say no. After exhausting every possible way to escape what her parents were forcing her to do, she ran away, but as a minor, she had no power. Her parents were able to force her back home and into marriage." https://www.unchainedatlast.org/united-states-child-marriage...
That aside, there are plenty of developmental psychology arguments why you should not allow children to marry at 16; even if they wanted to and did it out of their "free will" (whatever that may be at 16). You will, again, breed dysfunctional families, and (not only) domestic violence.
This is going to burn through karma faster than a blowtorch but it seems to me that just because something is a tradition doesn't mean it should be respected. The world changes, traditions should change to. And before anybody says "what right do I have to tell other people how to live", why not? why shouldn't I tell other people how to live? I'm sure those people would tell me how to live so I feel totally ok with thinking some people's traditions are reprehensible and I feel like those traditions should change.
Absolute trajedy.
Can someone explain why this is on HN tho
Lots of people upvote off-topic because they didn't lurk enough to learn the proper way to behave. But its flagged by people who did.
Sorry, I’m new on HN. Can you educate me on what’s on topic for HN?
From "FAQ" link in the footer: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I drove through Iraq for a month in 2022. From Baghdad north to Erbil, then south to Fallujah and Najaf.
Men and women rarely interact, like many Muslim majority countries. It is odd for most people to talk to the other gender who is not their direct family. Found the stereotypes we have in the west of women were the same there but more exaggerated. A tough existence.
Before we look all high and mighty on this.. Just a reminder "gay panic defense." is still used in court today in the USA to justify killing of gays.
The most famous case was when Lucien Carr killed David Kammerer. The just called it an honor slaying.
No person should ever be killed, and it should never be justified because its the social norm.
You are allowed to try to use the defense in some places, but there's no guarantee that it will work. It is banned in DC and 30 states: California, Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, Oregon, Vermont, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Arkansas, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Delaware, Michigan. Put another way, it's banned for about 76% of the US population. Does it actually work a lot when it is used? Did it ever? Note that the case you're referencing is from 1944, for instance.
1944 is the year they hanged George Stinney in South Carolina, a 14 year old black boy falsely convicted of murder, using about zero evidence.
I think the point is that THE DEFENSE STILL EXISTS IN SOME CAPACITY.
As a gay guy I've had str8 ppl tell me "you can still go to Egypt just you know, don't be gay". It's infuriating, depressing, and so much more.
Honestly, sometimes I kind of understand the tiniest bit of the queer peeps that were getting extra spicy like last year. Society is an amorphous blob of averages and if you don't fit into the average...well.
Doesn't work that way in Canada. In 2010, a 37-year-old male got 6 years for sucker-punching a 62-year-old male who made advances toward him in bar in the Vancouver west end (lotsa gays there). The 62-year-old fell, hit his head, and died as a result.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/gay-basher-g...
6 years is not a lot, but it's the same length of sentence handed around the same time to a random murderer who killed a welder from Thailand.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/killer-of-thai-welde...
From these we know two things: a human life is not worth a fuck in Canada, but at least gay and non-gay is about the same.
Best way to shorten a murder sentence seems to be to just do it with your car. It's crazy what people seem to get away even if they're clearly deranged, drunk, and blowing through red lights etc..
Oh, especially now in British Columbia with "no fault insurance". At-fault drivers cannot be sued by victims, unless they are convicted of a crime in connection with the incident.
If you can make the vehicular homicide look like an accident, you are scot-free, except for increased insurance premiums. No criminal charges, and no civil case to face.
Yep, this incident comes to mind: https://globalnews.ca/news/10920612/vancouver-hit-and-run-fa...
152km/hr in a 60 zone, drunk, on film saying "I ain't stopping for no red lights", deliberately sped up as he was about the hit the guy, didn't stop afterward, left the scene, then called in to falsely claim the car was stolen, and had been previously convicted of sexual assault. 5 years less time served, 5 years after with no license. I guess the only way you could really top that list is if he continued on to say "hey lets hit that guy and see how far he goes"
80 years ago? Thanks for noting how far the US has come
> Just a reminder "gay panic defense." is still used in court today in the USA
Can you cite a case in the last 5 years?
Can you cite a case in the last 20 years where the jury didn’t roll their eyes?
So why not outlaw it then? Should be easy if it's doesn't get used then there's no reason to have it hanging around right?
Let's outlaw people using deathrays shot from spaceships too /s
Do we need to make a law for every hypothetical thing?
Yeah, but what about ...
Absolutely awful, but part of their culture and legal system. Question for the historians: what precedents are set regarding changing a culture? What worked and what did not?
> After the ban, Balochi priests in the Sindh region complained to the British Governor, Charles Napier about what they claimed was a meddlement in a sacred custom of their nation. Napier replied:
>>Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!
>Thereafter, the account goes, no suttee took place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)#Opposition_to_...
I.e., imperialism.
Imperialism gets a bad rap—and it can be bad—but it wasn't black and white as the rash and motivated slogans in the street would have you believe. Empires can have a beneficial and civilizing effect on peoples who are unable or unwilling to address certain issues themselves. The British Empire was a huge force in halting the slave trade. The Spanish—allied with surrounding tribes—put an end to the murderous and psychotic Aztec elite; the Mayans experienced a similar fate. Sati in the Indian subcontinent is another example. Rome's civilizing influence on Europe's barbarians is also well-known.
I am sympathetic to the idea that contemporary views on imperialism are overly-focused on its downsides and blind to its upsides. "What did the Romans ever do for us?" etc.
But I find these arguments a bit tired. I'm not familiar with Sati but I know the Indian subcontinent has been civilized, if not united, for thousands of years. The British brought different values and culture, for sure, and a plethora of benefits. But I can't agree that they had a "civilizing effect" on a people who already lived in a civilization.
> Empires can have a beneficial and civilizing effect on peoples
You can't trot out Kipling's "white man's burden" without at least acknowledging the historical and racial context around it. And in my opinion, justifying imperialism because it's civilizing a lesser people is a sure route to the cruelest forms of domination via chauvinism and white supremacism.
I think it would be better justified as a sort of corporate merger: Your company organization sucks and we think we can get better outcomes for both companies if we put your company under our management.
> The British Empire was a huge force in halting the slave trade.
This is true. At the dawn of the industrial age, those pioneers of industry outlawed their chief competition in the most noble, high-minded, and selfless act of compassion in human memory.
> The Spanish—allied with surrounding tribes—put an end to the murderous and psychotic Aztec elite
Also true. Of course, they then proceeded immediately to set about extorting and exploiting the locals.
Well, we know one thing from this story: the Gulf War didn't fucking work.
But, oh, bombs, drones and air strikes will yield much better long-term results in Iran.
Probably pushing the idea that doing stuff like that is something criminal trash class families do.
Helps when religious leaders are against it. The Catholic church was against forced marriage which is why that mostly died out in Europe during the middle ages.
The conversion of hearts, ultimately. A culture is sustained by people. Missionaries are powerful in this regard, but they must be prepared for martyrdom as they will be contradicting established evil practices.
Film and media are very powerful for shaping attitudes. Of course, can you expect them to be made or viewed or released in a country with a problem like that?
Severe laws and a regime willing to enforce them. The law is a teacher. Murder by itself deserves death—this falls out of the definition of justice in a straightforward manner—so at the very least, such a regime would have the murderers executed. Accessories would be punished in due proportion of their complicity. But how to have such a regime in such a country? Democratic processes only amplify existing pathologies.
What can we do to help them?
There is a lot of Whataboutery in the comments.
This could have been prevented if the UK let her in
Yeah let's just fire all of borderforce. UK is morally and ethically responsible for thr plight of all of the citizens of the Middle East after all. Hell why not make it the entire world.
Huh?