Rape Rumors Lead to Suicide Bombing

ISTANBUL — The allegations can
be heard almost everywhere in Turkey now, from farmers’ wives eating
in humble kebab shops, in influential journals,
and from erudite political leaders: American troops have raped thousands
of Iraqi women and young girls since ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.

urullah Kuncak says his father, Ilyas Kuncak, was boiling about the
rumored rapes just before he killed himself delivering the huge car bomb
that devasted the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank last month, killing
a dozen people and wounding scores more.

"Didn’t you see, the American soldiers raped Iraqi women," Nurullah
said in a recent interview. "My father talked to me about it. .
. . Thousands of rapes are in the records. Can you imagine how many are
still secret?"

The US Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, has strongly denounced
the reports, calling them "outrageous allegations . . . based
on a US `source’ best known for her pornographic websites and erotic
television program. We believe it is irresponsible for a serious newspaper
to present such false claims from a clearly unreliable source on its
front page as if they were fact. We view this article as a deliberate
attempt to mislead Turkish readers and to damage the strong ties between
the Turkish and American people."

"I am a sex therapist and I use sexual terminology for political commentary," Block
said. "I did not say American troops are literally raping Iraqi
women. . . . I don’t know if Americans are raping Iraqi women. I do know
they are killing them. I don’t know if that’s much better." She
said it is clear that she was using "rape" as a metaphor for "invasion."

from
the Boston Globe