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Letters to the editor, April 12-13, 2003 This website is not related to Al-Jazeera TV This page contains news and commentaries sent by Al-Jaeerah Readers |
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Wake up America By Janis Schmidt
Suppose you woke up one morning and discovered that your parents were mass murderers? Would you be in a state of denial? Suppose this had been going on for years, from your grandparents, way back? Suppose you thought your parents were going to work at some respectable job. After all, it seems like they always provided for you. Just like an abused child, from a very disfunctional home, you support your parents, no matter what. You would even fight for them, which is admirable. As a child, you have no other recourse.
Also, you have no way of knowing better.
But you know they don't take good care of you. Deep down,
you feel like the unwanted child. Then, suddenly, Dad said it
was time for you to go to work, and sent you out on a job.
You were so proud to be working with Dad.
All that freedom and responsibility. But you had a rude
awakening. All the time you thought Uncle Daddy was fighting
dragons and evil monsters, here Dad was going around the neighborhood,
pillaging and looting, shooting anyone that stood in the way.
Only this time, he took Mom and Sister
along, and made them watch. Are you in a state of
shock and awe?
What would you do?
All of a sudden, everything is revealed.
It appears that Dad's job was theft and murder, which is how he
accumulated his wealth, to provide you with your happy home.
What would you do?
I wish to God that this was simply a
hypothetical question. But it is not. I am not talking
about your parents, per se, but about your government. America
has a lot of blood on its hands, ever since Columbus. Did you
know that you could add up all the war dead, and it still would not
equal the number of Indians killed by Americans who now proclain
Indian country to be their country? This country was founded on
murder, theft, fraud and deception. And it continues up to the
present day. Murder is the means by which America progresses.
Murder is called defending national security. Murder is called
preemptive security. And it has been going on for a long time.
How did you not know this?
There will be a price to pay for having
shed so much innocent blood. That time is now upon us.
America has so criminally abused the Natives of the world, that the
victims are finally saying, "No more. America, you
have raped and murdered, pilaged and plundered enough. I'm not
going to take it any more. I can't and survive. You leave
me no choice."
The whole world is looking at America,
wondering if democracy is dead, and wondering what kind of monster is
rising from the ashes. America is not home to artists and
intellectuals. It is no longer home of the free or land of the
brave, if indeed it ever was. It is now home of the thugs, a
land of snitches and flag waving simpletons who mistake murder and
extortion for freedom and democracy.
I don't know about you, but I object to
that. I was born here.
America, the whole world knows you are not
innocent. But America is the father of freedom.
Or at least that's what the Constitution tells me. But what the
hell is going on? Is that how you feel? I am sorry to say,
you have been violated. You have been forced to watch the
rape of the Cradle of Civilization. You are know longer
innocent. What do you do? Your eyes have been opened.
Now, what?
You must cleanse and purify yourself.
You must admit any culpability, and correct your behavior. If
you do not do this, you will remain a loutish cretin, someone that one
one wants to have around, indeed, the unwanted child.
You have been damaged, against your will,
I hope. But now you must do something about it. I am going
to be offering lessons in humanities on my web site, www.lakotaperspectives.com,
for starters. This will be a hands on approach to relearning the
virtues and values in which to live by in order to live a good life.
I am not using any startling new discovery. Instead, I model my
discourse after Socrates who said, "The active pursuit of
the virtues will lead to the best possible person living in the best
possible society."
I was reading through some American
weblogs today. I found a lot of damaged people there.
People saying things like, "I hate the French."
and "Lets bomb the anti-war protesters." and all
kinds of foul language, so devoid of any grace or beauty. I
notice radio talk show full of hate and jingoism, urging people to
adopt their message of hate in the spirit of patriotism. How far
you have strayed from the truth.
I hear and see a nation with a very
damaged psyche. Is this also collateral damage? Let us
find our way back. Just like the victims in the trade towers,
let us go hand in hand. We are trapped in a building
that is on fire. It may not survive. We may not survive.
The only thing we know for sure is that
we cannot afford another false move, and
we do not have the luxury of sitting on the fence. Remember,
nothing was ever created out of hate, but out of love. And, a
journey of a thousand miles begans with the first step. Our
house is on fire. We must find our way out in the dark.
Shall we begin?
A pattern of conquest and neglect
The Bush way
IHT Saturday, April 12, 2003
Credit where credit is due: The hawks were right to say
that a whiff of precision-guided grapeshot would lead to the collapse
of Saddam Hussein's regime. But even skeptics about this war expected
a military victory. Instead, we worried - and continue to
worry - about what would follow. As one skeptic, Michael
Kinsley of Slate, wrote Thursday: "I do hope to be proven wrong.
But it hasn't happened yet."
Why worry? I won't pretend to have any insights into
what is going on in the minds of the Iraqi people. But there is a
pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does
not bode well for the future - a pattern of conquest followed by
malign neglect.
One has to admit that the Bush people are very
good at conquest, military and political. They focus all their
attention on an issue; they pull out all the stops; they don't worry
about breaking the rules. This technique brought them victory in the
Florida recount battle, the passage of the 2001 tax cut, the fall of
Kabul in Afghanistan, victory in the midterm elections and the capture
of parts of Baghdad.
But after the triumph, when it
comes time to take care of what they've won, their attention wanders,
and things go to pot.
The most obvious example is Afghanistan, the
land the Bush administration forgot. Most of the country is back under
the control of fundamentalist warlords; unpaid soldiers and police
officers are deserting in droves. (Remember that the Bush
administration forgot to include any Afghan aid in its latest budget.)
President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai,
told an Associated Press reporter: "It is like I am seeing the
same movie twice, and no one is trying to fix the problem.
What was promised to Afghans with the collapse
of the Taliban was a new life of hope and change. But what was
delivered? Nothing. Everyone is back in business."
The same pattern can be seen on the U.S. economic
front. President George W. Bush won a great triumph in 2001 when he
pushed through a huge tax cut - saying that his plan was just the
medicine to cure the economy's ills. What has happened since?
The answer is that things have gradually fallen apart.
There was one quarter of good growth, early in 2002 - and there were
cries of triumph over the policy's success. After that, however,
things went steadily wrong. Growth was too slow to create jobs: At the
end of 2002, after a year of "recovery," fewer people were
working than at the end of 2001.
And in the last two months the situation has
deteriorated rapidly. In February and March the U.S. economy lost
465,000 jobs, bringing the total job loss since the recession
officially began in March 2001 to more than 2 million.
At this point the employment decline has been
bigger, and has gone on longer, than the slump that took place during
the first Bush administration. And there's no sign of an upturn: New
claims for unemployment insurance are still running well above the
level that would signal an improving labor market.
Some hope that the U.S. economy will turn around of its
own accord - that consumers and businesses, relieved that the war has
gone well, will begin spending freely. But hope is not a plan. What is
the plan?
The answer seems to be that there is no plan for the
economy. Instead, the White House is fixated on achieving another
political triumph - the elimination of taxes on dividends - that has
little or no relevance to America's current economic troubles.
I could demonstrate this irrelevance by going through
an economic analysis, but here's a telling political clue: USA Today
reports that the administration, faced with concerns in Congress about
budget deficits, has indicated that it is willing to consider a
phase-in of its dividend plan.
That is, it's willing to forgo immediate tax cuts - the
one piece of its proposal that might actually help the economy now -
in order to be able to pass its long-run proposal intact, and hence
claim total victory.
The scary thing is that this slash-and-burn
approach to governing may continue to work for Bush's people,
because the initial triumphs get all the headlines. Unfortunately, the
rest of the world has to live in the wreckage they leave behind.
Global domination carries grave risks
Tipping the balance
William
Pfaff IHT
Saturday, April 12, 2003
PARIS
Statements by both President George W. Bush and
Secretary of State Colin Powell at the start of last week made it
clear that the United States does not intend to give the United
Nations a political role of any consequence in postwar Iraq.
Washington says that as the United States and Britain
waged and won the war they will also manage the peace. The United
Nations, a Pentagon official says, will have no role ‘‘in
constructing a democratic Iraq.’’
The intellectual and political position of the
administration and its supporters is that the United States, as sole
superpower, legitimately defends international order because the
United Nations has defaulted on this responsibility, having never
enforced its resolutions demanding Saddam Hussein’s disarmament.
Unilateralism and preemptive war are said to
be necessary to defend the United States, and to establish
and maintain a democratic international order, which the United
Nations cannot or will not do.
However, Iraq is not that simple. The
Fourth Geneva Convention imposes on the military occupier full
responsibility for the well-being of the civil population. It
severely restricts the occupier’s right to make use of the
occupied country’s resources.
No one is going to stop
Washington from doing what it pleases in Iraq, but if it goes
against international law it will have to pay and stay.
The Bush administration would
prefer to have the international community pay for
reconstruction and have other countries’ forces do the
peacekeeping.
Otherwise some kind of deal will have to be struck
with the members of the self-proclaimed ‘‘peace camp’’ in
the Security Council, and with the European Union, the principal
potential international source of reconstruction aid.
This confronts the United
States with a problem the Bush administration is unwilling to
acknowledge.
The Iraq intervention destroyed
‘‘the reputation the United States has enjoyed for so long as a
benevolent power,’’ to quote Robert Pape of the University of
Chicago, writing in The Boston Globe.
Pape says that the United States broke the
rule ‘‘that democracies do not wage preventive wars’’ by
doing what no other democratic state has done in the more than 200
years of the American nation’s existence.
The government of George W. Bush has made it American
security policy to prevent any other nation from attempting to equal
the United States in military strength. This is unprecedented.
It has inevitably produced a fundamental change in
how other nations see the United States. It has caused some other
democracies to resort to classic countermeasures against a
government newly perceived as a potential threat.
These measures are not military but diplomatic and
economic, which are more relevant, and to which Washington is more
vulnerable. Thus France, Russia, Germany, Belgium and China used
diplomatic methods to isolate the United States on Iraq.
The same methods may be used again in the developing
controversy over a UN role in Iraq and over the contribution of the
international aid community to war reconstruction.
Pape notes that the European Union is now a
more powerful economic and trading power than the United States and
argues that if there were a concerted effort to require oil
suppliers to bill in euros rather than dollars, this would undermine
the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.
A move out of dollars by Asian or
European investors would contribute to making it impossible for the
Bush government to continue to run its enormous budget deficit. The
University of Chicago political scientist estimates that a fall of 1
percent or more in U.S. gross national product could result.
By renouncing America’s traditional foreign policy
and adopting one of global military domination, the Bush
administration has made a fundamental change in the international
balance.
It seems proud to have done so. It seems not to understand
that this has been to its own potential disadvantage and to the
American nation’s future risk.
washingtonpost.com > Moran Draws Fire With New Remark> Congressman Says Pro-Israel Lobby Plans to 'Take Over' Efforts to > Defeat Him By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, > April 10, 2003; Page B03 > A Jewish civil rights organization and some > Alexandria Democrats have criticized Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) > for suggesting at a recent party meeting that a major American > pro-Israel lobbying group will raise $2 million and "take over" > efforts to unseat him next year. > > In comments likely to prolong controversy over Moran's views toward > Israel and U.S. Jewish groups and constituents, the seven-term > incumbent said the American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC) has > begun organizing against him and will "direct a campaign against me > and take over the campaign of a Democratic opponent," according to > notes taken by a person in attendance and corroborated by three > others. > > AIPAC spokeswoman Rebecca Dinar called Moran's comments "ridiculous" > and said the organization "had no idea" what the congressman was > talking about. AIPAC, an influential and prominent Washington-based > lobby, is not a political action committee, by law cannot raise money > for candidates and by policy does not endorse candidates, Dinar said. > > David Friedman, D.C. regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, > said Moran's remarks were divisive and intended to isolate and > exaggerate the role of his Jewish critics: "This only confirms what we > already knew: that Jim Moran is a bigoted man who perpetuates age-old > canards and stereotypes about Jews." > > Moran appeared before the Alexandria Democratic Committee on Monday > night to disavow and apologize again for remarks he made last month at > a Reston peace vigil. At the vigil, Moran said that American Jews were > pushing the country toward war with Iraq and that Jewish leaders could > prevent the war if they chose to do so. In the ensuing controversy, > six Jewish Democratic members of Congress who had supported Moran > repudiated him for appealing to anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Moran > resigned a junior House leadership position. > > In an interview yesterday, Moran defended his latest statement, saying > he was speaking hypothetically about what AIPAC and its supporters > "could do" in a nomination fight. Anything could happen, Moran added. > For instance, he said, his would-be challengers -- Fairfax County > Board of Supervisors Chairman Katherine K. Hanley, state Sen. Leslie > L. Byrne (Fairfax) and former Gore campaign aide Jeremy B. Bash are > publicly considering bids -- could refuse to accept money from members > of AIPAC. > > Moran said he was simply "relaying what I had heard" from a fellow > House member about fundraising activity against him by AIPAC members > in Florida. "I don't know that's the case," Moran said. "I can't > verify it, but it is some cause for concern. It's conceivable." > > He added: "You'd have to be naive not to recognize that AIPAC is a > very important network of people organized around a cause. . . . It's > going to take time, a lot of effort on my part and sincere > communication with the Jewish community to heal this rift. But if I > have to run against a national network that I don't have the ability > to communicate with, it's going to be very difficult." > > In fact, the latest dispute seems likely to widen that divide and > further split local Democrats. > > Bash, a Washington lawyer who worked in AIPAC's public relations > office from 1993 to 1995 and is Jewish, said Moran "continues to > disappoint, divide and insult many of his own constituents with > remarks like these." The Alexandria committee condemned Moran's Reston > remarks, but reaction to his new comments was mixed. Committee > Chairwoman Susan B. Kellom declined to comment on the dispute, while > expressing pleasure that Moran entered a dialogue. > > But member Jerome Chapman, a lawyer and Moran critic who took notes of > his comments, said the congressman used AIPAC as a code word for > Jewish in fluence. "He regrets and repudiates his words, but he hasn't > altered his mode of discourse," Chapman said. > > Alexandria rabbi Jack Moline, who attended the meeting, said Moran > spoke in disregard of the truth about AIPAC and was playing with fire. > > "If it's fair game to run against the National Rifle Association, it's > fair to run against AIPAC. That's politics," he said. "But there's no > doubt that if he chooses to make AIPAC his opponent, he's going to > cause a whole segment of the population to line up against him . . . > whatever differences people have with AIPAC." >
New Statesman April 7, 2003 How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war
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Frenzy
Over Ali, But There are Thousands of Children Like Him
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by Kim Sengupta in Baghdad, the Independent
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"Why do you all want to talk to Ali? There are hundreds of children suffering like him, and we are getting more every day," said Moufak Gabriel, the hospital director, as we arrived to see Ali Ismail Abbas, the injured 12-year-old boy who has become the center of a British media frenzy. All around him at the Saddam General, the worst-equipped hospital in Baghdad, in its most violent slum, Saddam City, there was pandemonium. Staff were barricading the gates as dozens of people, some ill, some seemingly healthy, struggled to get in. The danger lay beyond them – groups of men with guns, knives and staves silently watching. Every other big hospital in Baghdad including Al-Kindi, where Ali was initially treated, had been ransacked by mobs of looters.So he had been transferred here and now he lay on a soiled bed, under a neon light, in a room with broken windows and water on the floor.
The pitiful pictures of Ali, his arms reduced to bandaged stumps and his body covered in burns, biting his lip in pain and grief, have been carried by newspapers around the world. He will become one of the enduring images of war. For millions of people around the world, Ali is already the face of this conflict. Perhaps one boy's tragedy is easier to comprehend than the enormity of grief and pain visited on an entire nation. Yet three weeks of war have certainly left scars on countless other Iraqi children. There are no reliable figures for the numbers killed, orphaned or maimed. Thousands will have been affected by contaminated water as the power supplies in cities such as Basra and Baghdad were bombed. The immune systems of these children were already depressed by malnutrition after years of sanctions. Even before the war, experts warned the UN that Iraqi children were already suffering "significant psychological harm" from the fear of bombing and death. The facts of what happened to Ali are as follows: an American missile smashed into his home in the village of Zafaraniya, 30 miles from Baghdad, as his family slept, just after midnight. He was severely burnt and both his arms had to be amputated. His father, Ismail, and mother, Azhar, who was pregnant, were killed. Ali has black curly hair and hazel eyes. His aunt Jamila and a nurse brushed away the flies. "If I had hands, I would shake your hand," he said. "They cut them off after the bomb. I want my hands." We stood there awkwardly. Rahim al-Kinani, the doctor treating him, said he had been told that newspapers in Britain had launched an appeal on his behalf and that he would have artificial arms soon. How much of this Ali understood was not clear. He wanted new hands, he said, but he definitely did not want to go to Britain. This may be a problem, for a number of tabloids are competing to raise funds for an airlift to have him treated at a London clinic. Ali cried a little and then, unprompted, began to say what happened that night. "We had all gone to bed and there was this loud noise and smoke. I felt very scared and I was in much pain. I kept shouting for my mother. I did not know at the time what had happened to her. "I do not remember much after that. I was taken to a hospital in Zafaraniya. After that they brought me here and the doctors cut off my arms." Ali has six sisters, aged from six to 20, and a 10-year-old stepbrother. They are now being looked after by an uncle. His favorite subject at school was, he said, geography. He has suffered third-degree burns over 60 per cent of his body. His chances of survival, said Dr Kinani, were 50-50. "The main problem we face now is septicaemia. Infection is a real problem and, as you can see," he added, "we are not exactly in the most perfect of conditions." "If he gets through the next phases, there will, in time, be skin grafts. But that is a very difficult process and I am afraid the boy will face pain for a very long time." His aunt Jamila used a corner of her chador to wipe the boy's eyes. "He cries all the time. There is nothing I can really say to console him," she said. "He has heard about these people in England getting him new arms. I do not know whether he understands what it means. But he is really building up his hopes." Two floors away, in another ward of Saddam General, lay 11-year-old Fouad Abu Haidar. He has lost his left arm, half his face is hidden by bandages and he may lose one of his eyes. He suffered his injuries during another air attack, 10 days ago, near Iskandiriyah, in the southern suburbs of Baghdad. A 14-year-old cousin, Karim, died when the missile struck their house just after nine o'clock in the evening. Fouad has not had anyone visit him from the Western media, and no promises that he will also benefit from the generosity of the British people. His father, Haidar Hussein, said he was glad to know about the concern of the British people but felt nothing but anger about what had happened. "No one has told me anything about any money from Britain. But this is a war by Bush and Blair. They did this to my son and other children, women, men. Why didn't the British and American people stop their leaders from doing this? What is the justification in bombing ordinary people? "Now the Americans are in Baghdad, and look what is going on here. There is looting and killing and the Americans are also killing Iraqis. What is their justification?" There are other wards and other young victims. A three-year-old boy with a fractured skull, and Jenan, a girl of nine with her foot blown off who has also had to be transferred from Al-Kindi. She said: "It hurts a lot, all the time. I do not think I will be able to walk again. I do not know what is going to happen to me. I feel very, very sad." Her grandmother, sitting beside her, started to cry. |
Feelings
by Edgar J. Steele
April 11, 2003
Feelings, feelings
Like I've never lost you
And feelings like I'll never
Have you again in my heart.
Feelings, for all my life I'll feel it.
---"Feelings," by Morris Albert, 1975
(Since established that Albert
plagiarized his single hit from "Pour Toi," by French composer
Louis Gaste.)
Here's a first: I'm at a loss for words.
I just don't know what to say about the senseless murdering rampage
that America, my America, has inflicted upon yet another all-but-
defenseless third-world country. So many already have said it so
well.
The internet is surging with condemnation and exposure of the
government/
media lies, from both ends of the political spectrum, from Michael Moore
to Joe Sobran. There really is nothing original that I can add to
what
already has been said so thoroughly by those more eloquent than I.
But I've never let that stop me before.
Picture Katie Couric sitting in my living room. "Well, Edgar,
you must
really be proud to be part of the liberation of Iraq from its
oppressive,
dictatorial regime, huh? Tell us how you feel."
Like my heart has been broken for the first time, that's how. Yes,
it
happened long ago and several times since, but this time in a totally
different place. A special place never before violated. The
place where
I have held a special pride for being part of the best of the best -
the best country, the best economy, the best people...you know.
It's like learning your father has just been arrested for raping and
killing the neighbor's ten-year-old girl and then seeing the pictures
on the front page of the morning paper. Followed by TV news
footage
of him beaming proudly and saying, "She was asking for it. It
was her
own fault. She made me do it."
That's how I feel.
How can I ever feel the same again?
The media propaganda barrage has been relentless and of one voice
with the American military. Those journalists out of step simply
have been fired, ejected from Iraq or killed. This is the first
war
in which the press corps suffered a higher mortality rate, as a
percent of its total number, than any of the combatants.
As one of the neocon Chosen, by and for whom this "war" was
prosecuted in my name, among so many other Americans, put it in
yesterday's New York Post: "(T)he antiwar movement consists
not of thinkers but of true believers; indeed, it's more akin to
a religious cult than a political cause, hoist on tenets of faith
rather than points of evidence...As the Iraqi people rise up to
cheer the American troops, the true believers will claim the scenes
are staged. As chemical and biological weapons are uncovered, the
true believers will claim they were planted. As an interim government
is established, the true believers will claim it's a puppet for
American interests. As the oil wealth of Iraq is translated into
prosperity for the people, the true believers will claim American
companies are hogging profits." Mark Goldblatt,
"Antiwar: Movement
or Cult?" New York Post, April 10, 2003.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/73100.htm
So - those of us who disfavor American imperialism are cultists, eh?
Presumably, then, only the clearheaded favor the dismemberment of
small children in pursuit of Pax Americana. This, from the very
people who demonstrated so vehemently against the Viet Nam war
(which, after all, was not in Israel's interest, was it?). And,
remember, I'm a right winger, like so many others opposed to this,
America's first war of pure aggression. For once, we stand
alongside
our leftist brethren, now that they have been deserted by those now
calling themselves neoconservatives.
Well, guess what - the scenes are staged:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2842.htm
When and if chemical/biological weapons are uncovered, they will
have been planted. Saddam would have used them if he had them,
after all.
The "interim government," already selected, is an American
puppet.
Actually, it is an Israeli puppet, but I repeat myself.
American companies are hogging the oil profits. In fact, many
of the contracts have already been signed, with Dick Cheney's
Halliburton one of the biggest pigs at the trough. Iraq's existing
contracts with France, Germany, Turkey and Russia will be voided,
as the administration has already indicated.
Typically, the wife of the convicted child molester/killer divorces
him on the spot and moves elsewhere for a fresh start. Frankly,
I am so disgusted that I would do the same, if there were someplace
safe in the world to which I could move - safe from America, that is.
But, as Bush the Second so eloquently put it, "Yer either with us
or
agin us." Anyplace "with" America won't be safe for
the foreseeable
future because of the mortal enemies now created throughout the
world. Of course, anyplace "agin" America might well
suffer Iraq's
fate. Given the rate at which American ire has been generated
against France, anything seems possible.
Russia, believe it or not, seems to possess the new wellspring
of personal freedom, liberty and opportunity and is one of only
two countries America dare not attack. American expatriates
living there report that, already, they have far greater freedom
than currently exists in the United States. However, I honestly
fear for Russia's future, bound up with the Muslim world as it is.
If America doesn't end up nuking it, you can bet Israel will.
Of course, this all presumes that WWIII has begun. What do
you think? I know what those in the Middle East think.
New America. An idea whose time has come.
-ed
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the
truth."
-
Morpheus
T
H E M U S L I M C O U N C
I L O F B R I T A I
N
11
April 2003
UK Muslims Reject Neo-Conservative/Zionist Plans For Iraq
Following the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's repressive and brutal ba'thist regime in Iraq, the Muslim
Council of Britain views with concern moves by the United States to
replace it with a pliant regime.
"The imminent US announcement stating that the pro-Israeli Retired
General Jay Garner is to head an interim Iraqi administration, coupled
with the crass threats against Syria and Iran from the most senior US
officials only serve to confirm the worst fears of those who assert that
the real objective of the war against Iraq was to promote US/Israeli
geo-political interests in the Middle East, and not freedom, democracy or
human rights," said Mr Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the
Muslim Council of Britain.
The MCB believes it is crucial that the Prime Minister Tony Blair ensures
that the United Nations - and it alone - is empowered to administer Iraq
for the shortest possible interim period and that full control is then
transferred to a truly representative Iraqi government.
"We do not want to see Britain being viewed in the Muslim world and
beyond as an accomplice to this neo-Conservative-Zionist design for a
post-Saddam Middle East," said Mr Sacranie.
The MCB considers that the responsibility for causing the tragic
humanitarian disaster unfolding in all parts of Iraq lies entirely with
the US and UK governments which launched this war in utter disregard of
world opinion.
We call upon the international community to give this tragedy their urgent
attention and we also call upon the US/UK governments to withdraw their
troops from Iraqi soil immediately. It is unlikely that the Iraqi people
will tolerate for long the replacement of a hated dictator with an
occupying force," added Mr Sacranie.
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For
further information please contact: The Muslim Council of Britain,
Unit 5, Boardman House, 64 Broadway, Stratford, London E15 1NT |
TARGETING THOSE ON ISRAEL'S
HIT LIST
Jewish warmongers now eye Syria
ŒNeo-cons¹ want
Syrian Œrégime change¹ By JOSEPH MILLIS
Jewish Chronicle,
London April 11, 2003 / 10 Nissan 5763 Shabbat
WASHINGTONA group of Bush Administration hawks,
many
of them Jewish, has begun openly portraying Syria as the next
candidate for ³régime change² in the Middle East‹though
making clear they do not envisage Iraq-style US military
intervention.
Widely described in Washington political and media circles
as the ³Neo-conservatives²‹³Neo-cons,² for short‹the group
includes deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle, a close adviser to Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld. Among other leading lights are William Kristol,
editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard, who is close to
Vice-President Dick Cheney, and the syndicated columnist
Charles Krauthammer.
Speaking on NBC¹s ³Meet the Press² at the weekend,
Mr Wolfowitz reiterated US allegations that the régime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been allowing military
equipment and fighters into Iraq to support its fight against
US and British forces.
³There¹s got to be a change in Syria,² he said. ³The Syrians
need to know Š they¹ll be held accountable.²
Emphasising what he saw as the longer-term impact of the
defeat of Saddam Hussein¹s régime, he said: ³I think a lot
of countries, including Syria, will eventually get the message Š
that it¹s much better to come to terms peacefully with the
international community, to not acquire weapons of mass
destruction, not use terrorism as an instrument of policy.²
Mr Perle said in an interview this week: ³You can arrive at
Damascus and ask a taxi driver to take you to one of several
terrorist organisations.²
But on the issue of possible US military action, he added:
³There are different ways to get people to change, and I hope
the example of Iraq after Afghanistan will prove persuasive Š
³We should be using all the instruments of US influence to
accomplish that purpose, and most of those instruments
are not military.²
Some in the Bush Administration were explicitly playing
down the prospect of direct US action against Damascus‹
and of possible links between the Syrians and Saddam
Hussein.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said there was ³no evidence² to support recent allegations
by Israeli leaders‹and some US intelligence officials‹
which suggested Iraq might have moved weapons of mass
destruction across the border into Syria.
<http://thejc.com/News.asp?Page=3&Type=4>
Operation Iraqi Chaos
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
For two days running, mainstream media has bombarded the
viewing public with the same images of Saddam Hussein's toppling statue,
filmed from numerous angles. Cheering Iraqis stomping on, ripping, or
burning pictures of Saddam seemed to portray that the war in Iraq had come
to an end; victory, freedom, liberty -- all at arm's reach. However, the real war, the true test of U.S. President
George Bush's and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's resolve is yet to come.
Ominously, the past two days of toppled statues showed
nothing of the carnage in Baghdad hospitals. The International Committee
of the Red Cross revealed that Iraqi hospitals were so overwhelmed that
the injured were lying bleeding in hallway floors awaiting treatment and
care. This is where the real war begins. "When the al-Kindi hospital, one of Baghdad's key
medical facilities, was attacked by armed looters, U.S. troops failed to
intervene, saying they had no orders to do so," said the BBC's Rageh
Omar in Baghdad.
The Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies have called
the collapse of the Iraqi health sector a "scandal."
Germany joined a growing number of voices calling on U.S.
troops to protect world embassies in Baghdad after looters ransacked and
tore down fixtures, window frames, door knobs, chairs, lamps, etc.
Al Jazeera TV showed looters fighting one another to stake
a claim on Uday Hussein's prized horses. The Al Jazeera cameraman managed
to capture scenes of one horse being run over by a pickup truck. It is
likely the horses will be slaughtered for their meat, a commodity hardly
savored by the downtrodden Iraqis of Saddam City.
In Basra, looters broke into a local bank. In the recently
"liberated" northern city of Kirkuk, looters broke into two
local banks and made off with anything they could find.
On Friday, Reuters reported that U.K. forces were fired
upon after trying to detain a number of armed looters robbing a bank. U.K.
forces engaged the looters and killed five.
Back in Baghdad, five government ministries and several
commercial buildings continued to burn well into their third night. No
local fire brigades were called in. The Ministry of Sport and Youth,
formerly headed by Uday Hussein, has been burning for two days.
In the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad, Iraqis began to
grasp the calamity of their situation. While they did make idle chatter
with U.S. Marines who are hoping to befriend the Iraqis, many Iraqi
citizens expressed concern that there was a complete breakdown in civil
order with no visible civil administration in control.
The Marines for their part admit they are not there to
play a political role.
A cook at the hotel said, "we have no electricity; we
have no bread; we have nothing."
On Friday, Agence France Presse reported that mobs in
Baghdad have looted Iraq's largest archaeological museum. AFP also
reported that there were dozens of bodies strewn alongside roads in the
city, some of paramilitary units, others of women and children: "The
putrid, fly-covered corpses were being buried in a mass grave along the
side of the road by volunteers whose noses were covered with scarves
against the stench, according to the photographer."
"If the price of freedom is this, we don't want
it," one Iraqi helping at the scene told the AFP.
BBC's Omar reports that "the Iraqi capital is prey to
gangs of armed looters who have raided government buildings, shops,
private homes and even hospitals."
By Friday night, the situation in Mosul was no different.
However, Mosul residents have banded together and formed street patrols
preventing any looters from escaping with their cache. All retrieved items
are being stored in local mosques.
On Thursday night, ABC Australia filmed a U.S. Marine unit
pummel a pickup truck with hundreds of machine gun rounds. Apparently, the
truck had come too close to the convoy carrying the Marines. ABC Australia
later reported that the pickup truck was carrying three civilians, all
dead.
However, chaos in Iraq was not limited to looting and
vandalism. In the holy city of Najaf, a reconciliation meeting went
horribly wrong as a crowd rushed and hacked to death two Shiite Muslim
clerics -- one a Saddam Hussein supporter, the other a returning exile who
had urged support for U.S. troops. Iraqi exiles claim this underscores the
inner upheaval within the Shiite community in Iraq.
Amidst the looting and lawlessness, Iraqis are beginning
to fear the specter of revenge killings and the settling of scores.
In a Friday Pentagon press briefing, U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed the international media for the looting in
Baghdad, claiming that it was not as widespread as cameras were showing.
"Stuff happens," he said, apparently irked by
some of the questions regarding White House planning to restore civil
order in Iraq.
[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism
and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of
experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the
telecom industry.]
Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: fatraqchi@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org
Unfortunately, the BBC reported early Thursday that looting had become so
rampant in Baghdad that Iraqi doctors were begging U.S. Marines to stand
guard outside local district hospitals and prevent armed brigands from
stealing vital medical equipment. The Marines failed to comply.
RED CROSS DENIES AID TO IRAQI CHILDREN
RIA Novosti
April 11, 2003
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3166567&startrow=31&date=2003-04-11&do_alert=0
MOSCOW, APRIL 11, 2003. /from a RIA NOVOSTI correspondent/. - At the
outset of the war in Iraq known Russian paediatrician Leonid Roshal came
forward with the initiative to establish a "green corridor" for
evacuating injured children from the war-stricken country. Now he accuses
the International Committee of the Red Cross /ICRC/ of the failure of his
initiative. It was the Red Cross that must have arranged the corridor,
but did not even make an attempt, the doctor said at a Moscow news
conference Friday. He believes the ICRC was scared.
The Committee offered weak excuses, according to Mr Roshal, saying the
kids should not be separated from their parents and should be given aid
in Iraq. The idea to evacuate wounded children worked perfectly well in
Afghanistan, recalled the medic. He insisted the Committee's arguments
were formal.
The Red Cross is doing a great job providing humanitarian aid /to Iraq/.
However, it appears to be afraid of taking certain decisions. Maybe a new
organisation of that type should be set up, employees of which would not
be scared to perform their duty, the doctor asked rhetorically.
Russia has not thus far received the ICRC's reply as to how many children
have been wounded in Iraq and what assistance they need, recalled Mr
Roshal.
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=3166567&startrow=31&date=2003-04-11&do_alert=0
U.S. Threatens Iraqi Scientists
Islam Online
April 12, 2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/article02.shtml
photos:
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic02.jpg
Iraqi scientists accused U.S. forces of encouraging looting of
universities
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic02a.jpg
Mrs. Ammash has been placed on the U.S. most-wanted list of 55
-----------------------------------
CAIRO, April 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Appealing to the
world community to protect them from the U.S. aggression aimed at
obliterating Iraq’s minds, a number of Iraqi scientists and university
professors sent an SOS e-mail complaining American occupation forces were
threatening their lives.
In their e-mail, a copy of which was sent to IslamOnlin.net Friday, April
11, they said they have dictated their message to a respected Iraqi
scientist in the Netherlands over phone, urging him to circulate it to
all parties concerned to protect them from the arbitrary inquires and
arrests by the U.S. occupation forces.
Iraqi scientists asserted that occupation troops demanded them,
particularly physicists, chemists and mathematicians, to hand over all
documents and researches in their possession.
The appeal message also said that looting and robberies were being taken
place under the watchful eye of the occupation soldiers.
The occupation soldiers, the e-mail added, are transporting mobs to the
scientific institutions, such as Mosul University and different
educational institutions, to destroy scientific research centers and
confiscate all papers and documents to nip in the bud any Iraqi
scientific renaissance.
The frantic scientists also underlined that some of them were placed
under house arrest and deprived of going to their laboratories and
universities.
Some of them were also approached by agents from the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to entice them away to foreign scientific
centers, the message cautioned.
The e-mail also noted that occupation forces had drawn up lists of the
names, addresses and researches of the Iraqi scientists to assist them in
their harassment tasks in light of the chaos and anarchy that sit in
after the toppling of the Iraqi regime on April, 9.
Reports Claim Scientists Fled To Syria
As part of the "concerted campaign" campaign against Syria, The
Washington Times newspaper claimed Saturday, April 12, that some of
Iraq's top scientists have already fled their country and are in Syria,
from where they may seek political safety in France.
Quoting U.S. administration officials, the American paper said there are
intelligence reports that Iraqi scientists are seeking safety in France.
According to the daily, U.S. officials declined to put a number on how
many Iraqi weapons scientists have entered Syria, but estimated it is
fewer than 10 at this point.
Among those claimed to have made it to Syria are Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash
and Rihab Taha, both top scientists in Iraq's alleged biological-weapons
program, said The Washington Times.
The two women are notable not only for their scientific expertise, but
also because they attained senior positions among the male-dominated
Ba'ath Party, the paper said.
Mrs. Taha, a British-trained microbiologist, is married to Iraq's oil
minister Amir Rashid Mohammed Ubaydi, on the American most-wanted list of
55.
The Times claims she ran Iraq's biological-warfare program at a research
lab in the town of Hakam beginning in the mid-1980s.
Mrs. Taha was not listed, although she is wanted for questioning.
Mrs. Ammash has been photographed at Saddam's Cabinet meetings, and at a
meeting with his son, Qusay, according the U.S. daily.
On Friday, April 11, Mrs. Ammash's picture and name were listed by the
U.S. Central Command as one of 55 “most-wanted” Iraqis.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has warned Syria several times
publicly to stop helping the Iraqi regime, asserting that some Iraqi
leaders had fled to the country.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/article02.shtml
Anti-war protesters march across Europe
ABC
Sunday, April 13, 2003
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s830952.htm
Thousands of peace campaigners poured onto the streets of Europe this
weekend, switching their focus from preventing war on Iraq to protesting
against the continuing US and British military presence.
Although US and British officials say the military operation is drawing
to an end after the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government,
activists said their concerns were as grave as ever.
"It is good Saddam has gone but we cannot forget this war is illegal and
without the sanction of the United Nations. It is setting a very
dangerous precedent of pre-emption," Pakistani politician and former
international cricketer Imran Khan said as he joined a mass rally in
London's Hyde Park.
"No country should have the right to be judge, jury and executioner. That
is the reason the UN was set up - to protect the weak from the strong.
But this war sets a precedent where might is right and undermines the
UN."
Organisers estimated 100,000 people marched through the city centre,
waving banners saying "No Occupation of Iraq" and chanting "Bush, Blair,
CIA, how many kids have you killed today?".
Police put the numbers at closer to 20,000.
In the Italian capital Rome, a march originally organised to call for an
end to the fighting changed its slogan to "No to an infinite and global
war".
"This war is far from over and anyway it will have terrible effects on
the Middle East and maybe on the whole world," university professor
Umberto Allegretti who joined the protest.
In Paris, about 11,000 people marched through the streets demanding an
immediate ceasefire in Iraq and the withdrawal of US and British troops.
Demonstrators, led by several prominent French Communist politicians,
carried banners reading "Stop the occupation in Iraq" and "Yes to a
democratic and independent Iraq".
In Berlin, about 12,000 protesters marched past the headquarters of the
opposition CDU conservatives, who have backed the US-led campaign,
shouting "peace not occupation".
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, tens of thousands burned effigies of US President
George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair while in Calcutta,
about 15,000 demonstrators formed a human chain around the US and British
consulates, shouting "Iraq will become another Vietnam for America".
Although the turnout in London was far below the roughly million anti-war
protesters who marched through the capital in February, organisers said
numbers exceeded their expectations.
"It shows there are still plenty of people still horrified by this
illegal war," said Andrew Burgin from the Stop the War Coalition, which
organised the event along with the Muslim Association of Britain.
"They have not found any weapons of mass destruction. It is an illegal
occupation in terms of the international community and it has been an
illegal war," he said.
Washington launched the war three weeks ago to destroy Iraq's alleged
banned weapons, but has not found any so far.
Most of Saturday's protests were peaceful and there were few arrests.
Iraq’s Liberation Front Attempts To Assassinate Chalabi
By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Cairo Staff
Islam Online
April 12, 2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/12/images/pic08.jpg
Iraqi opposition leader Chalabi escaped an assassination attempt
unscathed
CAIRO, April 12 (IslamOnline.net) - A number of armed people belonging to
the nascent National Front For The Liberation of Iraq (NFLI) tried
Friday, April 11, to assassinate Ahmad Chalabi, one of the prominent
exile leaders and head of the Iraqi National Council (INC), in the
southern city of An-Nasiriyah.
“They attacked a camp of Chalabi’s devotees, leaving a number of them
killed,” Abdul Amir El-Rakabi, an Iraqi exile, told IslamOnline.net on
Saturday, April 12.
“They narrowly missed Chalabi,” he added.
The NFLI released Friday a statement entitled "Aggression Ends,
Liberation Begins", a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net [see
http://islamonline.net/english/news/2003-04/11/article16.shtml ].
The statement said the new front “comprises local representatives of
armed groups and resistance brigades, some still manning positions in
Iraq along with Arab volunteer fighters.”
“The front also is regrouping a host of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard
units and special forces after being disintegrated. Iraq may lose the
war, but it would never surrender or die," underlined the statement.
As for the U.S. plans to install former army general Jay Garner in power
in post-war Iraq, the Liberation Front underlined that the “Iraqi people
will neither allow this Zionist general who is a personal friend to the
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to rule them nor the thief of Baghdad
Ahmad Chalabi.”
The front further rebuffed other prominent Iraqi exiles such as Nezar
al-Khazrgi, Nuri Abdul Razek, Mahdi Hafez, Adham al-Samra’I and their
“ilk, as well as CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Mossad (Israeli
Intelligence) agents.”
Opposition Leaders Flock Home
In the meantime, a number of the national Iraqi exiles came home to heal
the rift and help regroup Iraq’s mosaic powers to stand up to the
invaders and force them out.
Rakabi said that Mohammed Baqir An-Nasiri, a prominent Shiite figure,
came back to his home town of An-Nasiriyah, where he was given a welcome
reception.
“His comeback would definitely produce a ground-shaking effect since he
is one of Iraq’s national icons, who vehemently oppose colonialism and
the U.S. presence in Iraq. He would boost the morale of the Iraqis and
make them act in unison in the face of the occupying forces,” he said.
Was the destruction of the Baghdad Museum collection an intentional plot
by the The Regime against Iraq? The answer is yes.
Here's the smoking gun from the article below that indicates that the
Antichrist occupying the White House knew full well and far in advance
the importance of protecting the Baghdad museum from raiders:
"For weeks before the war, archaeologists and other scholars had alerted
military planners to the risks of combat, particularly postwar pillage of
the country's antiquities. These include 10,000 sites of ruins with such
resonating names as Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrud and Ur. Experts reminded the
Defense Department that after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, 9 of Iraq's
13 regional museums were plundered. The Baghdad museum was spared then
because the end of war had left the government still in power and
policing the city."
Despite this criminal outrage - a depredation against the whole human
race - don't expect to hear much more about this enormous loss to all
mankind other than a brief squeak or two from the western media. After
all, the 170,000 artifacts lost from the Baghdad museum are not nearly as
valuable as a couple of very worn-down Buddha statues in Afghanistan and
therefore won't be discussed endlessly for months as they were.
Art Experts Fear Worst in the Plunder of a Museum
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
New York Times
April 13, 2003
The looting of the National Museum of Iraq, a repository of treasures
from civilization's first cities and early Islamic culture, could be a
catastrophe for world cultural heritage, archaeologists and art experts
said on Friday.
"Baghdad is one of the great museums of the world, with irreplaceable
material," said Dr. John Malcolm Russell, a specialist in Mesopotamian
archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.
Though he and other scholars of antiquities were alarmed by the reports
of looting, they were not surprised. They said they feared the next
cultural target could be the important museum in Mosul, a northern city
that is also in turmoil. The Mosul museum holds many Assyrian artifacts
from the nearby Nineveh ruins.
Concerned archaeologists urged United States military leaders to take
more forceful steps to protect Iraqi's cultural treasures and to restore
control of them to the local Department of Antiquities. For weeks before
the war, archaeologists and other scholars had alerted military planners
to the risks of combat, particularly postwar pillage of the country's
antiquities. These include 10,000 sites of ruins with such resonating
names as Babylon, Nineveh, Nimrud and Ur.
Experts reminded the Defense Department that after the Persian Gulf war
of 1991, 9 of Iraq's 13 regional museums were plundered. The Baghdad
museum was spared then because the end of war had left the government
still in power and policing the city.
American archaeologists who studied the looting suspected that some of it
was driven by the illicit trade in antiquities.
At some remote and poorly guarded dig sites, Dr. McGuire Gibson of the
University of Chicago wrote recently that illicit digging in most cases
started as attempts simply to find something to sell to put food on the
table. "This work soon grew to an industry," he said, "financed from
abroad and engaging hundreds of diggers at some sites."
The reported museum looting that began on Friday in Baghdad would be the
war's first known plundering of Iraqi antiquities.
Reacting to the report, Dr. Philippe de Montebello, director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, said, "We can't conquer and
then shirk further responsibility by allowing anarchy in the cities and
allowing Iraq's ancient heritage to be pillaged."
Dr. de Montebello complained of the apparent lack of effective policing
by American troops. He said that he and other museum officials and
archaeologists had already held meetings to explore what must be done "to
help the Baghdad museum and Iraqi's antiquities authorities to restore
themselves."
By chance, the damage to the Baghdad museum came as the Metropolitan was
preparing a major new exhibition, "Art of the First Cities: The Third
Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus." It is to open May
8. About 400 rare works of art will be displayed, many of them from Iraq,
though no works from the Baghdad museum were available.
More than 230 scholars of ancient Mesopotamian history from 25 countries
have signed a petition to be delivered to the United Nations on Monday.
Drafted by researchers at Yale and Oxford Universities, the petition
urges military leaders and postwar administrators of Iraq to safeguard
cultural artifacts "for the future of the Iraqi people and for the
world."
American archaeologists said that they had lost contact with their Iraqi
colleagues in recent weeks. The last they had heard was that several
antiquities officials and researchers had barricaded themselves in the
Baghdad museum. They had hidden some of the most precious artifacts
elsewhere, and protected others with sandbags.
At last report, just before the outbreak of war on March 21, Dr. Russell
said that Dr. Donny George, the research director of antiquities who is
known for his heft, was seen to be thin and exhausted from the stress of
preparing to defend the museum.
Of the several thousand artifacts at the museum, Dr. Russell said some of
his favorites were the stone birds from Nemrik, north of Mosul. The site,
investigated in the last decade, is one of the world's first villages,
from about 8,000 B.C.
The museum's collection includes a cult vase from Uruk decorated with
some of the earliest narrative pictures from the Sumerian culture. The
pictures show fields and flocks and people making offerings to the
goddess Inanna, the Sumerian version of Ishtar.
"That's a beautiful, important piece," Dr. Russell said.
Pictures Of Bush Statue After Being Pulled Down
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1599620.php
Jubilant Crowd Dismantles Statue of Bush
San Francisco Residents Topple George W. Bush, Symbol of Oppression
Progressive Junta
April 12, 2003
http://www.progressivejunta.org/exploits/bushstatue/
SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 12 — In a visual moment that will go down in
history, a jubilant San Francisco crowd toppled a statue of George W.
Bush, a symbol of the illegitimate regime that had long oppressed the
American people. E
