While the homos in Baghdad’s U.S. Embassy were having themselves a gay old time on Friday, an untold number of gay Iraqi citizens were in various forms of hiding, fearing torture and death. So it’s great to see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recognize the “moral responsibility” the U.S. has in protecting Iraq’s GLBTs. Or is it?
Pelosi’s office issued a brief statement (78 words) on the torture situation in Iraq. So skilled are her press release writers in writing concisely, they managed to not even mention the word gay once!
The Speaker condemns torture whenever and wherever it occurs and believes the Iraqi government should take immediate action to prosecute such acts of hate. These crimes clearly violate international law and have no place in Iraqi society.
And as background, please note that as Ranking Member of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee in the 1990s, she helped secure the first funding for the Torture Victims Relief Act to assist those suffering from the physical and psychological effects of torture.
The only reason we’re even seeing that statement is because Michael Petrelis posted it on his website; it has yet to appear on Pelosi’s press section of her website, even though her office did find time to update the world on what she thinks about a statue and to pat Kathleen Sebelius on the back. And it’s not like Camp Pelosi is a a web novice: She announced House members’ spending of taxpayer dollars will now be posted online every quarter.
Maybe Pelosi is just too busy figuring out what torture is — and whether she’s even aware of it when the United States is involved with it — to spare any more effort for Iraq’s gays.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Sceth
I’m in the dark about this. Was there a specific incident that prompted this Statement, or did she just suddenly decide to give plebeians on the perpetual obvious?
Bill Perdue
@Sceth: Apparently activists in SF Gays Without Borders asked her for a statement. Michael Petrelis reports on it at h t t p : // gayswithoutborders . wordpress . com /
Pelosi and Reid engineered the dumping of the hate crimes bill and permitted Barney Frankenstein to gut ENDA before the last election so the Democrats could successfully woo the bigot christer vote away from the Republicans. It worked. They voted for Obama and against same sex marriage in California spurred on by the roman cult, the southern baptists, nee, the KKK, the mormons and Obama’s infamous “gawds’s in the mix”..
Pelosi, Reid and Obama are not our friends they’re the enemy. If you don’t believe men ask a friend to look at you back and see if it isn’t covered with tire tracks from a bus, the Obama Special.
InExile
What did she know and when did she know it?
Pelosi is absolutely no friend to the gays or anyone else, she is only a friend to herself. Weak with no backbone, stands for nothing, cares about nothing, just re-election. Pelosi is part of the reason we now have BO, helping to change rules and pressure delegates to declare their support for BO months prior to the convention to steer voters to BO.
For the last 8 years she sat quietly while torture policies were installed in our name without one word against it. She took impeachment off the table allowing Bush to continue his lawlessness. Then last month she says she NEVER knew about torture!
Resign now Pelosi!
galefan2004
Seriously, she shouldn’t have made any statement. It sucks to be gay and live in Iraq. It sucked to be gay and live in the United States in the 1960s and earlier too. The movement that changed that came from within the United States. We didn’t have big bad England come over and tell the United States to stop destroying people. The United States shouldn’t do the same thing to Iraq. We are not the world police. We are not responsible for the world’s suffering. If those people can’t stop it on their own then it sucks to be them.
Bruno
Pelosi is the one politician that has to be really really careful about not pissing off us gays. She gets elected out of the gayest place on Earth, after all. And as far as I can tell she’s been teetering on the edge at homebase for awhile now.
InExile
@Bruno: Too bad she was just re-elected overwhelmimgly for another term. We could do much better in the speaker position!
M Shane
It’s naive to say that Pelosi didn’t know what torture is or anything of the sort. And, of course she is interested in being reelected, like any office holder.
The issues which are so unpardonable are (1) that the Legislature ever gave Bush the power to wage war at his disgression and that they continuously funded an out rageously cruel and imperialistic war for the benefit of American Corporations (e.g. Halburton , Bechtel and Blackwater) contrary to several central principles of the Constitution. And that the American public allowed it iun total ignorance of anything, proving that we are unable to live in a Democracy.
and (2) that we still allow lobbyests from the Big Corporations to run Congress and control the Media so as to keep voters stupid.
If we don’t learn to be citizens, to show our outrage, this will continue to fail as a Democracy.
Picking on one person’s behavior will only heal a small lesion from an ailing body.
Americans need to get smart or this will continue down the path of dictatorship.
cymatic
Might want to fix the link to Petrelis’s site. It’s here: http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2009/06/pelosi-sorta-ends-silence-on-gay-iraqi.html
Also, if you’re going to accuse Pelosi of being a “torture endorser” in your headline, you probably should include some evidence to support that claim.
princess johnson
now you are mad at pelosi because you can’t focus in the face of obama’s international shine!
nancy pelosi better not piss off the gays!
wow
such narcissism
true colors r shi-ining thru
Dennis
Yeah, torture is all Nancy Pelosi’s fault…How ’bout the Bush administration LIED THEIR FUCKING HEADS OFF everytime any one of them opened their mouths, and the CIA misrepresented what “enhanced interrogation” techniques were being commonly used, and how often… I AM NOT giving her a total pass, and she should take SOME of the blame for not putting up more resistance, but don’t blame the clusterfuck of Iraq torture on her, or the Dems…Remember, they were vastly in the minority in DC circa 2000-2006, and ANY criticism of anything the Bushies and Cheney wanted to do was labelled “treasonous”…For real, where you bitches in a coma at that time?
Iraq, and torure, and Abu Garaib (sp?), and a thousand other problems were all Bush administration created, facilitated, and approved nightmares for our country.
What is “torture” is some of the fucking bullshit that gets posted on this site…
Bill Perdue
@Dennis: Dennis, do you work at the DNC? Do you ever tell the truth? Can you tell the difference between the truth and your lies?
I ask you because you only blame the Republicans for the war. That’s a lie. The truth, the obvious truth, is that everything to do with the American war to steal oil is bi-partisan.
To say otherwise is to lie. Who was the first right wing president to use the lie of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to commit genocide and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, in this case children? It was Bill Clinton. The same right wing jackass who gave us NAFTA, DOMA, DADT and deregulation of banks.
And all the Democrats praised him for it, including Pelosi.
That’s why they went along with Bush and Cheny and that’s why Pelosi and Obama refuse to indict Bush, Cheney, Aspin, Clinton, Gore, Rumsfeld, Powell, Albright, Rice and Gates because the Obama administration and the Democratic (sic) Congress is pursuing exactly the same goals – theft of Iraqi oil and Afghan gas transport – using exactly the same criminal methods as his predecessors, including genocide, state sponsored terror, kidnapping, torture and summary executions.
Obama won’t move on Clinton and Bush for the same reason that Nixon didn’t order LBJ jailed. It’d look bad when it’s his turn on the dock if an International War Crimes Tribunal is convened.
adamblast
We’re a pissed-off people these days, and rightly so. It’s our job now to hold our so-called allies’ feet to the fire with continued pressure. Still, it’s disheartening to see the relish with which folks like Obama, Pelosi and Solmonese are being attacked by the gay left–it’s not as if there are more effective people waiting in the wings, politicians and lobbyists magically unconcerned about their own power and longevity.
These are people who claim to be working for us. Their cowardice, dismissivness and lack of principle is indeed infuriating. Still, it is these people, or people just like them, who we must continue to deal with–or lose whatever little leverage we have.
Bill Perdue
@adamblast: “Still, it is these people, or people just like them, who we must continue to deal with–or lose whatever little leverage we have.
What leverage was that, Adam? Was it the leverage that prevented Clinton from ramming DADT and DOMA through a compliant Congress?
Or was it the leverage that allowed Reid and Pelosi to drop the hate crimes bill in 2007 so it wouldn’t be an issue for the bigots they successfully wooed away from Rove in 2008.
Where was the leverage we needed to prevent Barney Frankenstein’s alliance with Congressional Republicans that gutted ENDA before the last election?
Where was this leverage when Obama based his campaign, from McClurkin to Warren, on wooing bigots? When he excised all references to us from his platform? When he sabotaged our chances to defend SSM with his nauseating and bigoted slogan ‘gawd’s in the mix”?
The truth is we have no leverage. That’s a delusion. The reality is that they use us, our money and votes, and then they stab us in the back, over and over. Reliance on Democrats and Republicans is a loser’s game. The way to win is via militant mass action campaigns to compel them to accept our agenda.
Dennis
@Bill Perdue:
Bill, we agree on few things if anything, but if you can honestly see NO difference between the republican war machine (Haliburton, Blackwater, and the Bush/Cheney incestual relationship to Big oil) and you believe that if a Democrat was in the White House that we would have even HAD the Iraq war in the first place, then you have taken a vacation from reality.
The Iraq war was a Bush administration and republican created disaster for our country…the Dems great shame is that they did not resist more strongly….but at the time they WERE the minority, and public hysteria over terrorism was still rampant. Most idiots (not me) in this country fully SUPPORTED the Iraq war for the first few years, remember. Me, I was marching in San Francisco against this bullshit in 2003.
I do not hold the Dems as blameless, but they did not beat the “drums of war” in ANY WAY to the level the Rethugs did. There IS a difference between the 2 parties. Repubs were war-mongering, christianist assholes, the Dems (at their worst) are spineless and inneffectual, but I honestly find them less evil. I understand “less evil” is not enough for you, perhaps I am just more willing to “work with what we’ve got” rather than wait for some fair and just political system to magically appear, ain’t gonna happen.
Bill Perdue
@Dennis: Amending your remakes to say that it’s mainly a Republican problem is still wrong. The war and support for it is bipartisan and across the board. Gore would have done exactly what Bush did. He supported Clinton’s embargo on food, medicines and sanitary supplies fully. The truth is that both parties were gunning for Iraq, and not because Saddam said mean things about Bush1, but because of the oil.
It about the oil and always has been since well before the first gulf war.
Republican Senator CHARLES HAGEL: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.” (Speaking at Catholic University, Sept. 24, 2007)
Former Federal Reserve Chairman ALAN GREENSPAN, in his book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Democratic Senator JOHN TESTER: “We’re still fighting a war in Iraq and people who are honest about it will admit we’re there over oil.” (Associated Press, Sept. 24, 2007)
General JOHN ABIZAID: retired commander of CENTCOM: “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that.” (Speaking at Stanford University, Oct. 13, 2007)
It’s a long term war over oil aimed at permanent US military control of the Gulf oil supply. Bush1, Clinton and Bush2 basically had the same program and it’s one shared by Obama.
The Democrats were elected in 2006 and 2008 to end the war. They’ve betrayed all their promises and constituents, but most of all their solemn promise to GIs, including the 5000 GI’s murdered to make oil companies profitable, the over 15,000 severely wounded GI’s and the thousands who’ve been driven to suicide. Clinton, Gore, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Kerry and virtually all Democrats lied about WMDs in Iraq, secret FISA courts, torture, etc, etc. The worst offenders are Bill and Hillary Clinton, aka Ma and Pa Warbucks. Look it up.
USMC Major Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps serving officer from 1984 until 1991. Then he became a senior U.N. (UNSCOM) weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until 1998 during most of Bill Clinton’s time in office.
He quotes Hillary Clinton, an early and ardent support of Bush’s genocide in Iraq, as saying “I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 U.N. resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.” Clintons embargo murdered 500,000 children according to US and food aid agencies. Look it up.
During Bill Clintons administration the CIA and the US military began the policy of “extraordinary rendition “ or “irregular rendition”, which in real life refers to the illegal kidnapping of victims and turning them over to US satellite regimes for torture. Look it up.
The ONLY difference between Bill Clinton and Bush is that the latter was given a green light to invade by the criminal attacks on 9-11. Both of them continued the oil war begun by Bush’s father. Obama and Hillary Clinton are doing the same. They have no choice and it’s simply delusional to imagine that they do. That’s why the Democrats refuse to impeach Cheney and Bush or to call for an International War Crimes Tribunal in spite of the fact that they are cleanly guilty of treason against the US and genocide against the Iraqi’s.
Obama and Pelosi are cut in the same mold as the Clintons. They’re enemies of world peace and their policies are an extension of the genocide of Clintons and the Bush’s.
You’re just dead wrong about this Dennis. It’s at least as much the fault of Democrats as Republicans. Opinions don’t matter here, but facts do. Give us some facts.
Dennis
@Bill Perdue:
Bill, um, duuh, of course if there were no oil in the middle east, our government wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about what happens there…we are addicted to oil…our economy depends on it. I’ve always believed that Bush started this war over oil. If there were no oil there, the middle east would be just like Africa to us, of no real interest…sure, we’ll send a few troops here and there, send a few million in aid here and there, etc, but not get too involved in any of the dramas, it wouldn’t be “worth our time” according to the government.
So yes, we’re addicted to oil, and our government sucks…but where was Bush on improving gas mileage standards to reduce our dependence on oil? NOWHERE! When was Bush’s “Truth-telling” speech in Cairo? NEVER! When did Condi Rice extend equal rights to gay governmental employees? WHEN HELL FROZE OVER! Again, I say there IS a difference between republicans and democrats.
If you believe that Al “global warming” Gore would have started the Iraq war in the same way that Bush did, and that Obama’s desires for our country are no different than Bush’s, you expose yourself as a faaaar fringe leftie, while I am a more mainstream leftie. (Did we really land on the moon, or was that a conspiracy too? Was 9/11 really caused by radical Al Queda terrorists, or did Bush “authorize it” so we could have a war?)
Honestly Bill, I want many of the same things you do…just don’t agree with you on the specifics of how we’re going to get there. I don’t have all day for Queerty, so that’s it for now…
Bill Perdue
@Dennis: I asked for facts and all I got was unproven and wildly improbable opinions.
You and I do not want the same things at all Dennis. The antiwar left wants the total and permanent withdrawal of all us military, spy and mercenary forces immediately. We want to cut the purse strings that pay for the zionist polices of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in Palestine.
You’re amenable to supporting a government that’ll keep the war going for another 8 years or until the US gets its ass handed to it on a silver platter, as happened in Vietnam. In the meantime how many more dead and maimed GIs and civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will it take to satisfy your loyalty to Democrats.
You’re not a leftist at all. You’re a Democrat (sic) and the two are irreconcilable. That’s why, for partisan reasons, you support a candidate who’s perusing the same demented imperial policy as Clinton and Bush.
Obama is Nixon Redux. His policies will widen the war and increase the deaths. Your willful naiveté about that and your misplaced loyalty mean that you have nothing to do with the left or antiwar sentiments. You’re prowar.
TANK
Bill perdue’s a crank….nixon redux? LOL! We’d be lucky if obama could accomplish half of what nixon did sans watergate and acceleration of vietnam.
Bill Perdue
Tankie has no anus. Fecal matter long ago filled his braincase. That’s why, as so many have noticed, his ‘remarks’ are just a series of flatulent blasts and wheezes. They have no meaning.
Neither does Tankie. The best you can say about him is that he’s unnecessary.
TANK
Crank, keep your scat fetishism in check. It’s disgusting.
Bill Perdue
See, what did I say? Tankie is utterly unnecessary.
cymatic
Shiiiit… My comment advising you that your link is broken is in limbo “awaiting moderation” for days and Bill Perdue is spewing his insults unchecked? Queery is the best!
Dennis
@Bill Perdue:
Obama is Nixon redux??? That is so fucking hilarious, you should really do stand-up.
Sorry Bill, but I am a mainstream leftist…you my dear, are an off-the-charts faaar leftwing wingnut… far better than a rightwing wingnut assasinating abortion doctors, I suppose, but still like that rightwing wingnut, a prisoner of rigid ideology and an inflexible black/white worldview…when the rest of us know that most situations are actually colored in shades of grey…and progress in the REAL WORLD (you know, Earth) is often 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Good luck with your plans for solving the world’s problems, not sure there’s a lot of support for them, however.
Agreed, we have nothing in common.
Bill Perdue
@Dennis: I proved that Democrats are at least as guilty of war crimes and attacks on our constitutional rights as their cousins the Republicans.
You present no facts but continue to say that the war is bad if Republicans are doing the killing and torturing but good if Democrats do it.
Then you ask us to treat you like a ‘leftist’ with a few differences. It won’t wash, Dennis. You’re a supporter of Obama’s genocide and kidnap torture campaigns. You’re in the trenches with Obama, Gates, Prateus and the Clintons, aka Ma and Pa Warbucks.
Be honest. Don’t pretend to be against the war.
pilgrim
I love when you queens haggle.
TANK
I thought haggling is what fag hags do when they get into a fight…
In any event, you keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means.
pilgrim
2. to wrangle, dispute, or cavil: The senators haggled interminably over the proposed bill
TANK
@pilgrim:
Yeah, so what’s being negotiated and bargained?
pilgrim
are you really that bored?
TANK
@pilgrim:
You’re just misusing the word. What’s being dickered about, shemp?
pilgrim
who are you? who gets to sit around all day long and make comments on a blog? do you have a job? are you a proofreader, a writer, a parvenu, a miscreant? do you have a resume? why have you never started your own blog? what do you like, if you find almost everything unbearable? You’re always here, so your either unemployed or completely bored with your job..do you tell..who are you?
TANK
@pilgrim:
I’m keyser soze. And all day long? C’mon, I think you’re exaggerrating and likely projecting.
pilgrim
not at all. I make this journey infrequently but when I do, you are ALWAYS here with an opinion on just about everything. It makes one curious, especially regarding work, because it’s understandable if your really bored. Really, it’s a harmless question: what do you do?
TANK
@pilgrim:
First, this is vacuous hyperbole. I do not have an opinion on nearly “Everything”, idiot. As to my job or your attempts at “getting in my head” dime store profiling…no, you fail…and will get no personal information.
TANK
Oh, and in addition to misusing the word haggle, you also made a grammatical error with you’re.
pilgrim
an out work school teacher?
pilgrim
a failed writer?