SOTU Iraqi Woman on CNN Now

[Hissyspit]

Thread with discussion of her background and identity: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1561594

[flyarm]

1. what cnn didnt tell you!!

is that woman has been in the usa since 1968 from what i have just heard!
well i am 53 and that is before i graduated high school !
does anyone else have info on when this lady came to the usa??
it would be nice to know what her background is!

fly

[bluedog]

2. check this out

run a google check on her..........



Now serving as Advocacy Director for the Arab and Islamic World at the Alliance
Internationale pour la Justice, Safia Taleb Al-Souhail


. Our family fled from Iraq after the Ba’ath coup d’etat
of ___1968,___ but Saddam’s agents still managed to kill my father in his ...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox ...





http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031114-094724-7116r ....
Looks to be another exile for *ush, father was a big shot & she's in line to take over
his power spot.

/snip

Today, Ms. Souhail, 38, is a leading candidate to fill the slot left vacant when
Aquila Al-Hashemi, one of only three female members of the Iraqi Governing Council,
was assassinated.
As the daughter of a powerful tribal sheik, and a longtime human rights activist, Ms.
Souhail is an increasingly influential voice in Iraqi politics.
Her father, Sheik Taleb Al-Souhail Al-Tamimi, led a million-member Central Iraqi tribe
called the Bani Tamim. When he was killed, she inherited the political leadership of
the tribe.
While her father lobbied Arab kings and presidents for support, Ms. Souhail would stay
close to the Iraqi-Jordan border, handing messages to his supporters inside Iraq.

[Roland99]

3. Bad link for that Wash. Times article

[sunnystarr]

4. How misleading is that!!!! God this makes me sick!!! (nt)

[KansDem]

8. Reminiscent of Bush Sr.s "ripping Kuwaiti babies from incubators" story..

Remember this little gem to stir up hatred toward the Iraqis?

But sizable minorities in both the United States and Britain were against such a war and although the mainstream media largely ignored their protests, these had to be dampened down unless they gained strength. Hussein had to be demonised. He was painted as being ruthless, another Hitler, a fanatic, deranged, a psychopath, hated by his own people and despised in the Arab world. Further, from the moment his troops had arrived in Kuwait they had committed unspeakable atrocities.

The most important of all these atrocity stories - both in its impact on public opinion and in its political influence - was the Kuwaiti babies story. Its origins go back to the First World War when British propaganda accused the Germans of tossing Belgian babies into the air and catching them on their bayonets. Dusted off and updated for the Gulf War, this version had Iraqi soldiers bursting into a modern Kuwaiti hospital, finding the premature babies ward and then tossing the babies out of incubators so that the incubators could be sent back to Iraq.

The story, improbably from the start, was first reported by the Daily Telegraph in London on September 5, 1990 and two days later by the Los Angeles Times, which attributed it to Reuters. But the story lacked the human element - it was an unverified report, there were no pictures for television and no interviews with mothers grieving over dead babies. That was soon rectified. An organisation calling itself Citizens for a Free Kuwait (financed by the Kuwaiti government in exile) had signed a $10 million contract with the giant American public relations company, Hill and Knowlton, to campaign for American military intervention to oust Iraq from Kuwait.

The Human Rights Caucus of the U.S. Congress was meeting in October and Hill and Knowlton arranged for a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl to tell the babies story before the Congressmen. She did it brilliantly, choking with tears at the right moment, her voice breaking as she struggled to continue. The Congressional Committee knew her only as "Nayirah" and the television segment of her testimony showed anger and resolution on the faces of the congressmen listening to her. President Bush immediately picked up on the story and referred to it six times in the next five weeks as an example of the evil of Saddam Hussein's regime. Amnesty International lent its weight to the atrocity in its report of human rights violations published on December 19.

The Sunday Times of London helped keep the story alive by tracing a Dr. Ali Al-Huwail, a Kuwaiti said to be living at a secret address in the United Arab Emirates. The doctor played down the number of babies said to have been murdered - he could vouch for "only ninety-two deaths". The article also quoted a "Franco-Jordanian doctor" who said he was sceptical of the account. But the newspaper chose to illustrate the story with a drawing of evil-looking Iraqi soldiers ripping the babies off their incubators.

In the Senate debate on whether to approve military action to force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait seven senators specifically mentioned the incubator babies atrocity and the final margin in favour of war was just five votes. John R. Macarthur in his study of propaganda in the war says that the incubator babies atrocity was a definitive moment in the campaign to prepare the American public for the need to go to war.

It was not until nearly two years later that the truth emerged. The story was a total invention, a fabrication and a myth, and "Nayirah", the teenage Kuwaiti girl, coached and rehearsed by Hill and Knowlton for her appearance before the Congressional Committee, was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. By the time Macarthur revealed this, the war was won and over and it did not matter any more.3

The "incubator babies" ploy was not the end of Hill and Knowlton's involvement in propaganda for the Kuwaiti government. The company developed press kits that were sent to American reporters, members of Congress and federal officials. They also sent more than 20 video news releases to more than 700 television stations around the world. Many ran the releases as straight news without mentioning that they came from Hill and Knowlton, public relations consultant to the Kuwait government.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20030324_operation/first_casualty.htm

The US Senate and the American people were duped. And we still are...

[susu369]

13. I thought the same thing

that immediately came to mind.

This Thug Gang is a master at propaganda.

[FreedomAngel82]

17. Is there any way we can

get this info to Kerry and we can get him to help us with this?

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Can we please tell the people

the truth about her? Of course none of Bush's supporters will believe it. *sigh* Is there anything we can do about this?

[sarahlee]

5. Another GOP Propaganda Job

Read the research on her here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/3/61911/26777

[bluedog]

7. excellent write up

and info on her...an ambassador to Egypt (from Iraq) no less

[sarahlee]

10. I wrote up a quick summary

with the link and set it to most of the MSM and told them they had been had again....

[hopein08]

15. I think I missed that part

was she an ambassador to Egypt?

[sarahlee]

18. Time Magazine, July 26,2004:

When U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein 15 months ago, the Bush Administration proclaimed that women's rights would be a centerpiece of its project to make Iraq a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world. But for many Iraqi women, the tyranny of Saddam's regime has been replaced by chronic violence and growing religious conservatism that have stifled their hopes for wider freedoms - and, for many, put their lives in even greater peril. For women like Shaima, the most terrifying development has been the rash of honor killings committed by Iraqi men against sisters, wives, daughters or mothers whom they suspect of straying from traditional rules of chastity and fidelity. Although such killings are hard to quantify and occurred during Saddam's regime as well, Iraqi professionals believe that women are now being murdered by their kin at an unprecedented rate. On the basis of case reports provided by police, court officials and doctors at Baghdad's forensics institute, the number of victims of honor killings in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 may total in the hundreds. (By comparison, in neighboring Jordan, where women's-rights advocates have succeeded in bringing attention to the issue, activists report an average of h20 honor killings a year.) "This isn't just an issue about women. It's about the whole society," says Safia al-Souhail, a female Iraqi politician who was appointed ambassador to Egypt last week. "We have to stop it. It's going on everywhere, and no one is speaking.

http://www.peacewomen.org/news/Iraq/July04/marked.html

[Roland99]

9. As soon as I saw that clip on Nightline I knew it was staged

And everyone on that show last night couldn't get enough of it...including a former speechwriter for Clinton.

[Contrary1]

6. She had an Arlington, Virginia area code in 2002

http://www.9neesan.com/docs/doc88.htm

[Hissyspit]

11. Kick

[King Coal]

12. I wonder if Rove go a little of that.

[Hissyspit]

14. Ick!

:puke: