In a terrifying and disturbing report, the highly respected Human Rights Watch has revealed that hundreds of members of the Iraqi LGBT community have been killed and many more tortured since 2004. Adding to the horror has been the fact that many of the abductions, tortures and killings are being aided by government forces. Without a doubt, the mass round up of members of the LGBT community in Iraq is one of the worst in any country.

Almost as disturbing has been the near total silence of the United States government on this issue. Despite some mild inquiries, the Obama administration has not put its full force behind the efforts to condemn and stop the wholesale killings and torture. The situation could not be more appalling and it appears to be getting worse.

In a press release, Human Rights watch said:

The 67-page report, “‘They Want Us Exterminated’: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq,” documents a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the “third sex” and the “feminization” of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing.

The cases contained in the report are truly sickening:

One man told Human Rights Watch that militiamen kidnapped and killed his partner of 10 years in April: “It was late one night, and they came to take my partner at his parents’ home. Four armed men barged into the house, masked and wearing black. They asked for him by name; they insulted him and took him in front of his parents. … He was found in the neighborhood the day after. They had thrown his corpse in the garbage. His genitals were cut off and a piece of his throat was ripped out.”

"Nuri" from Baghdad was quoted in the report of his imprisonment and torture just this past April:

“At 10 a.m., [Ministry of Interior officers] cuffed my hands behind my back. Then they tied a rope around my legs, and they hung me upside down from a hook in the ceiling, from morning till sunset. I passed out. I was stripped down to my underwear while I hung upside down. They cut me down that night, but they gave me no water or food. Next day, they told me to put my clothes back on and they took me to the investigating officer. He said, ‘You like that? We’re going to do that to you more and more, until you confess.’ Confess to what? I asked. ‘To the work you do, to the organization you belong to, and that you are a tanta’ [queen]. For days, there were severe beatings, and constant humiliation and insults. … It was the same form of abuse every day. They beat me all over my body; when they had me hanging upside down, they used me like a punching bag. … They used electric prods all over my body. Then they raped me. Over three days. The first day, 15 of them raped me; the second day, six; the third day, four. There was a bag on my head every time.”

If there is any hope to stop this massacre of our community in Iraq it is the loud and deep condemnation by the Obama administration. Secretary Clinton and her talented team must demand an end to this immediately or threaten to cut off aid. If you think this is asking too much of this administration as it attempts to withdraw from Iraq, just imagination their reaction if hundreds of Jews or blacks were being rounded up, executed and tortured. We know what their response would be if that was the case.

So far, the sound of silence from the administration is deafening.