Writer: U.S. should send aid not troops

Speaker at UCI says giving basic needs goes a long way toward advancing women’s rights.As the daughter of Saddam Hussein’s former personal pilot, Zainab Salbi has witnessed her share of acts of injustice.

She has listened to the cries of abused women living in war-torn countries, and she has heard the promises coming from international leaders to improve those women’s quality of life.

But Salbi is a realist. She said that what these people need are tangible goods and working utilities, not promises.

“We can talk about women’s rights all we want,” said Salbi, who spoke Friday afternoon at UC Irvine. “None of that matters if these women don’t have water, electricity and clean sewers.”

Salbi, an Iraqi native, said some extremist groups are attracting women by offering them food. She said she is confident the women would shun these organizations if they had the support they needed from others in the international community.

The United States should not send more troops to Iraq, it should send aid and food and anything else that helps the country’s residents get back to normalcy, Salbi said.

During her 45-minute speech at the 2005 Human Security Summit, Salbi mostly avoided personal politics on the war in Iraq.

She focused her talk on empowering women.

“We can’t build strong countries unless we have strong women at the negotiating table,” she told a crowd of more than 200 people.

Salbi was awarded the 2005 Human Security Award from the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs, a university-affiliated center that helps protect the rights of vulnerable individuals and communities.

She is in the midst of a book tour to promote, “Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny -- Growing up in the Shadow of Saddam,” which chronicles her childhood in Iraq.

Salbi was sent by her mother to America in the early 1990s to escape Hussein’s regime.

She eventually founded Women for Women International, an organization that helps women in war-ravaged regions become self-sufficient.

“Her story is an example of someone who had no resources and has created an organization that promotes change,” said Bryan McDonald, assistant director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs.

Added Heather Mills McCartney, wife of Paul McCartney and last year’s summit honoree: “People said, ‘Oh, she’s just a young girl from Iraq, what can she do?’ ... You have to speak out.”

During her speech, Salbi underscored the importance of keeping in mind the emotional elements of war. She pointed to the story of a now-19-year-old Afghani woman whose brother was killed and family torn apart when a missile landed on her home. She said the woman has had to dress as a man and work in the fields to make money.

“We need to talk about what war does to people -- about the 90% of casualties that are to civilians,” she said.

Women are often the first to experience violence -- be it domestic or war-inflicted -- during times of unrest, Salbi said. But their plight is often ignored or marginalized in the face of more visible damage, she said.

“In one way we are horrified by it [violence to women]; on the other hand, we are told to accept it,” she said.

Rapes occurring to women in Bosnia and the bombing of salons in Iraq are two examples that Salbi sited.

Women in war-torn countries need support in order for them to be effective leaders, she said. She used her story as proof.

“I never thought in my life I could what I’m doing today,” Salbi said. “I’ve been lucky.”