Bob Fertik: "How Many Child Prostitutes Is Bush Responsible for?"

[Bozita]

Now, folks, what was all that stuff about Eliot Spitzer?

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/79770/

How Many Child Prostitutes Is Bush Responsible for?
By Bob Fertik, Democrats.com
Posted on March 18, 2008, Printed on March 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/79770/

George Bush has been tied to a prostitution ring involving as many as 50,000 women and girls. The prostitutes, some as young as 13, are among the 1.2 million desperate Iraqis who fled to Syria after Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the U.K. Independent.

Bush's invasion destroyed the Iraqi government and unleashed a wave of political and sectarian violence that has killed over 1 million Iraqis and forced 4 million to become refugees, according to the UN.

Facing starvation, as many as 50,000 women and girls have been forced into prostitution in Syria alone, according to Hana Ibrahim of the Women's Will Association.

"70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis," 23-year-old Abeer told the New York Times. "The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they'll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.

According to the Times, "inexpensive Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists from wealthier countries in the Middle East. In the club's parking lot, nearly half of the cars had Saudi license plates."

more...

[Zueda]

1. Bush did not do this on his own...

He had the help of fellow republicans and Democrats.

[Benhurst]

2. Anyone who backed the invasion or has voted to fund the occupation

is also responsible, including Clinton and Obama.

[Zueda]

3. Sadly, you are delusional.

But hey!. I bet your conscience benifets from it.

[noamnety]

4. Behurst is correct

I don't know why this is a surprise to anyone. The anti-war public is certainly willing to hold the republican members of congress responsible even when their votes are exactly the same as the votes of the democrats.

Unfortunately this tarzan style of thinking (us good, them bad) is also part of the cause, with Americans being unwilling to look beyond the letter behind a name and hold those people accountable for anything.

It's exactly what NCLB is designed to do - to reduce us to multiple choice thinkers who are not trained in critical thinking. In that one small area of politics, NCLB, given the goal, I believe Bush was absolutely successful.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. And anybody who has paid taxes in the past 5 years, which

gave the government money to carry out its war is also responsible.

Including you.

EDIT: And me.

[Benhurst]

8. We are. But, short of going to jail, what choice did we have? Our

leaders, at most, risked only their cushy jobs and lavish pension plans.

[ensho]

9. true - we are all guilty because we have not stopped the neo cons

nt

[seabeyond]

5. from what i am told it is no different than working at mcdonalds

ya... that is the bitch in me

i am truly disgusted for these people.

[lpbk2713]

6. Neil Bush might be able to give an informed answer on that.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/

He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.

The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.

"It was very unusual," Bush said.

[Bozita]

24. more Bush family values.

[seabeyond]

10. this is prostitution folks, where are all the men telling me how empowering it is to women to be

whores used by man to get money to feed themselves. i am not seeing any of the many men defending prostitution on this board telling us how these women have the right to sell themselves and feel good about themselves doing it to feed themselves.

these are the women that have to blank their mind as some man fucks them or worse so they can buy some bread.

human beings..... not that man wants to face the truth, then he might have to adjust thinking a bit.

all us women you label puritan..... prude..... wtf...... this is the outrage as you then tell me.... that really, just another job

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. I think you are conflating issues, or situations, here.

This is, unequivocably, despicable exploitation of the helpless.

Those who 'defend' prostitution are generally talking about whats-her-name - Spitzer's girl - and similar situations where they make as much in a night as I do in a month, and based on that income could walk away from it any time they want. THAT is a chosen lifestyle and occupation, more in line with 19th century courtesans than with women forced into prostitution to feed their families.

Apples and oranges.

[seabeyond]

12. pretty woman, a pretty little bow on it, a pretty little name on it. romantize, glorify

ignore the dirty, filthy, gritty reality of it

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. I'm sorry, I don't see how taking hom $5000/mo is sexual slavery.

I should live to suffer so.

It IS a whole different thing. And any woman who ever married a rich man just for his money did exactly the same thing.

[seabeyond]

16. the degradation comes in how much money a female makes, not the act? n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. No, its in it being a choice.

What is happening to these poor refugees is abominable, as they are not doing this out of choice - other than the 'choice' of hook or starve.

"Kristen", however, is in no danger of starving. She makes her employers, and herself, a LOT of money and she does it by choice. Maybe she would rather be making it as a musician, but when she chooses a $2000 date instead of working with a band, that's her choice.

Nobody should be forced into prostitution. Nobody should be prevented from being a sex worker if that's what they want to do.

Obviously, if it is their choice, degredation does not come into it at all.

[EOTE]

13. If these women didn't have the ability to become prostitutes...

the bulk of them would be dead. The profession isn't what's evil here, it's that they were forced into it because they didn't have any other options available to them. Bush is evil, this war is evil, prostitution is not.

[seabeyond]

14. well glory be that they can be treated like animals to eat. n/t

[EOTE]

17. Would you prefer them to be dead?

Because it seems to me that you're suggesting they not be allowed to be employed in the only job they're capable of obtaining now. But hey, I guess it's better to be dead than to have sex for money, right?

[seabeyond]

18. could you make a more stupid comment? n/t

[EOTE]

20. Could you be less capable of answering a simple question?

I didn't think so. You don't seem to grasp the reality of this situation. You self-righteously condemn this practice which is currently the only thing that is keeping these women from death. You don't realize it's not the practice that's bad here, it's the terrible situation.

[seabeyond]

21. and you seriously believe all that you are saying

which makes it reallyr eally stupid. first to decide what i am thinking without a clue and for it to be something so stupid.

of course i understand these females have no choice...... hence the disgust that they are in this situation and my anger that they find they have to sell themselves to a bunch of pig males that dehumanizes them to fuck them and worse.... so these women can eat and their children.

yes

i understand the dire situation.

[EOTE]

22. You were the one condemning prostitution.

You used this thread about a terrible situation in order to disparage prostitution as well as those who support it. So I'll ask you. Do you think these women should have the option of selling their bodies so that they can earn money for sustenance for themselves and their family? If you answer yes to that question, would you extend that right to others? Say in this country?

[seabeyond]

23. i have never stood in a position of aye or nay to the choice.

i have never stood and said prositution should be illegal.

i do say that it is not the prettwy woman, wrapped in a pretty bow, with a happy face on it. i have always held that it is demeaning, degrading, hurtful, sorrowful.....

and that is about as far as i go on the judgment of the thing

what pisses me off is when it is represented as no different than working at mcdonalds.