Patterico's Pontifications

12/24/2010

A “WTF?!” Honor Killing

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 3:09 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

It’s a familiar story with a messed up twist.  First the expected part.  A father committed an honor killing against his daughter, in Iraq.  Okay, so far, ho-hum, right?

Now, here’s the twist:

When police came hunting for a 19-year-old woman they believed had been recruited by al-Qaida to be a suicide bomber in a town north of Baghdad, they found she was already dead: Slain by her father, who told police he strangled his daughter out of shame and then cut her throat.

The killing of Shahlaa al-Anbaky, reported by police Friday, appeared to be from an unusual melding of motives — part to defend the family honor, part to prevent her from joining the militants. But how much of each weighed in her father’s mind remains unclear, with police still investigating the details.

Al-Qaida has been recruiting women for suicide attacks because they can pass police checkpoints more easily than men by concealing explosives under an abaya, a loose, black cloak that conservative Muslim women wear. Suicide bombers have been al-Qaida’s most lethal weapon in Iraq, killing hundreds of civilians and members of Iraq’s security forces.

So he killed her, because he was ashamed of her membership in…  al Qaeda?

Now think about that.  For instance, if she was going to be a suicide bomber—as the article implies—then on balance he might have saved lives.  I mean if she was bound and determined to blow herself up, then she would be dead either way—the only issue is whether she would take anyone else with her.  Of course that is assuming that she would definitely blow herself up but there you go…

And it also indicates to him that being in al Qaeda is a deep, insufferable shame in the family.  As offensive to him as apparently dating a Hindu was in the last post on honor violence.  Which is kind of a good thing, right?

So, yeah, that is a seriously “WTF?!” kind of article.

It reminds me of the story of that pregnant Nigerian woman a couple years ago who was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.  They figured that since her husband had been dead something like three months when she conceived, by logic she must have had sex outside of the context of marriage, and thus, was an adulterer.  And then the Nigerian Supreme Court overturned the conviction and set her free.  Which is good, but the reasoning was frakked up.  The court argued that she was not an adulterer because, according to Islam, a man’s sperm can live up to seven months in her body, so there was an irrebuttable presumption that this was her late husband’s baby.

So the Nigerian case was the case of a court doing the right thing for an f—ed up reason.  And this case is a father doing a questionable (but maybe not even wrong) thing, for a good reason.  Wrap your head around that.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

31 Responses to “A “WTF?!” Honor Killing”

  1. Both the act and the reason are reprehensible. Read between the lines. The father’s shame was based on his “daughter” being a member of al-Qaeda. Women aren’t soldiers. They are property. He was ashamed his property committed an overtly male act.

    (corrected)

    East Coast Chris (c31a9b)

  2. East coast

    first, i deleted the previous comment because you indicated the second was the corrected version.

    That being said, i see nothing in the story to suggest that it was because she was female.

    Aaron Worthing (a767d3)

  3. “according to Islam, a man’s sperm can live up to seven months in her body”

    Yet another one of those triumphs of Islamic scientific discovery they keep telling us about!

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  4. The underlying issue here is that the daughter was recruited to al Q.
    One way that’s been done is to have her gang-raped and then told the only way to clean the family’s honor is to blow herself up along with some infidels.
    If that’s what happened, possibly Dad was annoyed that she got raped and used al Q as a cover story, which would be sort of connected, but not the real deal

    Richard Aubrery (59fa91)

  5. “according to Islam, a man’s sperm can live up to seven months in her body”

    I want to know according to Islam how long it can live in a goat or a camel.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  6. he must not have a lot of confidence in his strangling skills

    happyfeet (fd4f3b)

  7. Mr. Feets – Belt and suspenders I was always taught.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  8. Daley

    > in a goat or a camel.

    Ask JD, he seems to be an expert on underage non-consenting goats, anyway. 🙂

    He will know what i mean.

    Aaron Worthing (a767d3)

  9. Richard

    well, its not always involving a gang, if you know what i mean, and i wouldn’t assume facts not in evidence.

    Aaron Worthing (a767d3)

  10. as someone with experience in country said elsewhere this is “Iraqi Logic” at its finest.

    y’all are trying to understand it from your POV, hence the “wtf” nature of your understanding.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  11. “y’all are trying to understand it from your POV, hence the “wtf” nature of your understanding.”

    redc1c4 – Heck, it seems a lot more straightforward than liberal logic.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  12. AW and daley – if you ever see a skin flute playing midget goat, that is proof that oral cross pollination has been achieved.

    JD (109425)

  13. As I understand it, the most usual female recruit for alQaeda is a young woman who has engaged in sort of sexual activity or has a romantic interest that runs counter to Iraqi mores–the sort of girl who is most endangered by honor killings, in other words. alQaeda tells these women that they can redeem themselves, or prove their inner Islamicness, or at least allow their family to escape the complications of honor killing.

    So it’s entirely possible that the father here would have killed her even if alQaeda was not in the picture, but that factor has been carefully elided by someone–whether it’s the father, the police, or the news source is impossible to tell.

    As for the Nigerian story–perhaps the Nigerian court was trying to avoid the death sentence, and simply used the easiest hook shariah provided, regardless of its scientific impossibility.

    kishnevi (d785be)

  14. “if you ever see a skin flute playing midget goat, that is proof that oral cross pollination has been achieved.”

    JD – I did not know Willie the Wanker could get pregnant, even by blowing goats.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  15. JD, Daley,

    Behave, please.

    Aaron Worthing (a767d3)

  16. Sometimes I think the world is just barking insane.

    Anna Chapman (6075d0)

  17. Here’s the tipoff line;

    Police records indicated that Najim al-Anbaky killed one of his sisters in 1984 in what was described as an honor killing, the official said.

    narciso (6075d0)

  18. Strange things happen in Africa. A young girl who had a congenital anomaly that caused her to have no vagina got pregnant. It turned out that she had been giving her boyfriend oral sex and the sperm somehow got to her egg.

    Sperm rock !

    Mike K (568408)

  19. I am done with people behaving themselves with Yelverton.

    Patterico (4ef72a)

  20. “I am done with people behaving themselves with Yelverton.”

    Okay then. How long does Islam say that goat semen stays alive in Yelverton’s stomach?

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  21. Aaron.
    I don’t know if your view is more charitable than mine. Or not.

    Richard Aubrery (59fa91)

  22. Merry Christmas, racists !!!

    JD (6e25b4)

  23. I was filtrated on my non-behaving comment.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  24. I think you are confusing adultery with fornication. How can you cheat on a dead spouse?

    My catch all explanation for matters such as these is that there is a high rate of premature births in certain religious communities.

    Pinandpuller (ac62c3)

  25. 24–presumably the shariah definition of adultery is broader than our own.

    If this doesn’t seem right to you, consider that in the Bible “adultery” depends solely on the marital status of the woman. Unmarried man with married woman==adultery. Married man with unmarried woman==not adultery, merely fornication. Married man with married woman==adultery, but only because of her marital status, not his.

    So the modern American-European definition is not the only possible one.

    kishnevi (b3f7c3)

  26. I think this would make a great episode of “Law and Order, Baghdad’ complete with the McGuffin,

    narciso (6075d0)

  27. It seems like some of Willie the Wanker’s former students got their seasonal hate on in Oklahoma City yesterday as reported by Gateway Pundit. Listen to the whole thing.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)

  28. pinandpuller

    Actually, adultery is described in the bible and apparently the koran as any sex outside of the context of marriage, not merely cheating on your spouse.

    mind you, I won’t tell you too much info about my love life, but suffice it to say my wife and I didn’t exactly wait until we said our vows, so we are violators of this rule, too, but that is what adultery means in those contexts.

    Aaron Worthing (a767d3)

  29. Darn. There are Muslims who think blowing up innocents is a sin and a shameful thing? Who woulda thunk it?

    nk (db4a41)

  30. Merry christmas. yelverton buggers underage non-consensual goats while he is a cross-dressing gender-bender.

    JD (6e25b4)

  31. “yelverton buggers underage non-consensual goats while he is a cross-dressing gender-bender.”

    While wailing about the sins of anthropogenic global warming as he drives a massive SUV and cruises pristine lakes and rivers of the Southeast in a cabin cruiser consuming ginormous quantities of fossil fuels.

    Blatantly hypocritical, cross speciesist, incest promoting, low IQ, plagiarizing professor yelverton should not be allowed in public without supervision and sedation.

    daleyrocks (bfdac7)


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