Iraqi Vice (pills, porn, prostitution and booze)

[Barrett808]

By Christian Caryl

Newsweek Dec. 22 issue - The trip from Ali's village to Baghdad takes an hour and a half by bus. As soon as he arrives, the 21-year-old Iraqi heads straight to Abu Abdullah's, just off Sadoun Street in an alley with a number instead of a name. "I don't have a wife," he says. "I don't have enough money to get married. So I come here." At Abu Abdullah's, $1.50 buys 15 minutes alone with a woman. The room is a cell with only a curtain for a door, and Ali complains that Abu Abdullah's women should bathe more often. But the young man says it's still a big improvement from Saddam Hussein's day. Back then, he says, the only establishment for a poor boy like himself was at a Gypsy settlement on the capital's western outskirts. "But now there are plenty of places." He grins. "Now we have freedom."

Before the invasion, Iraq was one of the world's most tightly controlled societies. Only a few specially licensed stores could sell alcohol, and in recent years drinking was banned outright in restaurants and hotels. A committee in the Ministry of Culture kept a strict watch against even mildly naughty movies, magazines and films. Convicted prostitutes could be beheaded. Hard-core drug abuse was virtually unknown--if you didn't count certain members of Saddam's immediate family and their close friends. Now Iraqis like Ali are making up for what they've missed--and many other Iraqis, young and old, are blaming America. "Some people say the spread of such things is designed to weaken our society," says Col. Daoud Selman, a police chief in one of Baghdad's roughest districts. "Every day we hear it from people on the street. Not just the religious people, but ordinary ones, too."

(more)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3706289/

[Dhalgren]

1. Welcome to the Brave New World!

We are fighting to make prostitution, drug abuse, pornagraphy and alcoholism available to all Iraqis - then maybe they won't "hate us for our freedom". :puke: :puke: :puke:

[delhurgo]

2. I know exactly how you feel. Freedom makes me throw up too.

People drinkin beer, whatching dirty movies, doing the wild thing,.... Hell, I'll bet they're even dancing too. We cant have that! Lets hope they get their people under control quick. They need a drug war, censorship of movies, books, ..., prohibition of alcohol, and to get back to the beheading of prostitutes. This freedom stuff has to got be nipped in the bud. Next thing you know they'll be demanding abortion rights, gay rights, ... who knows what else. It really is nauseating. Don't lose hope though. There's a good chance an Iranian type theocracy will form there. That will put an end to all this american-like behavior. Keep your fingers crossed.

[Dhalgren]

3. Let's not be too condescending in regards

to other peoples culture and mores. What we think is of very little concern as it relates to the application of liberty to other cultures. If you think the whole world should be a photocopy of the US, maybe you would be in support of the general PNAC principles, eh?

[DS1]

4. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll! YEAH!

In 5 years they'll invent KISS

[Dhalgren]

5. Don't forget the "Merry Pranksters"!

Can't you just see a bunch of madcap Iraqi youngsters, driving around Iraq in a big, old, psychedelic bus? They go from adventure to adventure, ingesting LSD and listening to loud, electronic music -making all the mullahs crazy. :hippie:

[barbaraann]

6. The "Christian" George W. Bush did this.

He turned young males into cannon fodder and young females into sex industry fodder. And drug addiction is a pillar of Skull and Bones manipulation of the masses.

[GRClarkesq]

7. A little cultural change would help

if the young poor males who cant afford wives had a better shot at getting married (or at least laid more often). Then they would have less time for hobbies such as radical islam and applied politics via RPG.

[Dhalgren]

8. Yuck!

.

[lumpy]

9. I believe it will be some time before

the Iraqi women will be giving the guys a tit show.