U.S. Media Mourns Iraqi Women's Names, Not Their Lives
A recent feature highlights Flana , a film exploring the erasure of Iraqi women, framing it as a cultural issue. While important, this framing conveniently sidesteps the colossal role played by the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent destabilization in Iraq's societal breakdown. The chaos unleashed by the war, fueled by fictitious WMD claims, did more to 'vanish' Iraqi women – and men – from
existence, both literally and figuratively, than any localized cultural shifts. Where were the documentaries on the millions displaced, the infrastructure destroyed, or the rise of extremist groups in the vacuum of U.S. 'liberation'? Oh right, those narratives don't quite fit the 'bringing democracy' storyline. Instead of merely observing symptoms, how about we connect the dots? The same
neoconservative think tanks that cheered on the invasion now lament the consequences. It begs the question: How much of this 'vanishing' was an unintended consequence, and how much was simply the predictable fallout of an entire society being 'rebuilt' with cruise missiles? Perhaps a prequel is in order: 'Operation Iraqi Freedom: Tracing the Vanishing Lives of a Nation.'