Letters to the Editor, December 17, 2003

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Editor: Thanks. It takes few seconds to download. It's worth hearing something about W and his loser liar in London.

I just visited your site as I do most evenings and tried (with great delight to see the name "Anne Gwynne" again) - to read the story from Nablus. I keep getting a broken link for that. hope it can be fixed,

Editor: Thanks Henry. It's been repaired now. I urge readers to report any broken links so that they can be repaired.

These things
I used to love to do
Put away hats
Find a lost shoe
Piles of clothing
Stacks of dumb stuff
Knick-knacks
Dust catchers
Small bags filled with fluff
Items I cherished
Would not throw away
Sure that eventually I'd see the day
I would need them again
And there they would be
Cobwebbed and dusty
Waiting for me.

Important to catalog
These bits of our lives
Snippets and tidbits
Of husbands and wives
Mud covered children
Tracking in mess
Making me clean
Once again for our guests.

Bulldozers came
My home disappeared
A lifetime of memories
Gone with the schmear
Of the soldier's wet self
Left behind in the rubble
Right where he laid me
His face, itchy stubble.

These things
I used to love to do
Bake fragrant cookies
Cook savory stew
The flesh of a lamb
With best olive oil
Listen carefully
It can simmer
But don't let it boil
In the time when the water
Flowed from the tap
Before they decided
To make a new map.

These things
I once believed my own
Children, husband
Native soil
Now crusty and dusty
Blood mixed with ground bones
Of my children, my husband
Who never left home.
Many years of evil, hatred, deceit
Gave us strength, to clutch hope, hold back defeat
For this place where my ancestors
Once laid their heads
Is the place where we'll stay until we are dead.
They can rape us, beat us, and say we're not free
But we'll go down protecting our last olive tree.

I like to read your website to show the other side to what US corporate media reports - I don't necessarily agree with you all the time. I am curious if you think that nationalism/Islamism will increase as long as the US/UK remain in Iraq. Iraq as I recall used to be considered a secular Islamic country and fairly westernized prior the first Gulf war - it seems to changing Islamic/nationalistic nation - will this benefit it or cause it to lose faith in the US/UK as occupiers/colonialists?

Editor: Just read the daily opinion and news articles. There's no one simple answer. There's a natural inclination for people to resist invasions throughout history.

La politique envers l' Irak des USA , UK et ses alliés (Israel, Espagne, Portugal, Pologne, etc.) c'est une honteuse action de domination d'un pays et domestication de ses peuples ayant en vue la conquete des puits de petrole de cette région du monde.

Il faut partout les moyens denoncer publiquement cette perfidie hypocryte de la defense des droits de l'homme au Irak, quand les memes agresseurs dans la base de Guantamano et dans l'Irak même violent tous les jours les droits de souveraineté et d'independence des citoyens et des peuples.

Leur but s'est domestiquer les peuples rebels a leur economie du Coca-cola et de McDonnald's (fast-food).

La politique capitaliste financiere et petroliere yankee-sioniste, mets tout le monde soubmit, domestiqué.

Denonçons et Luttons contre la globalisation de la politique de soumission au capital yankee-sioniste et de domestication des peuples arabes et islamistes..

US politics of domestication

The politics towards Iraq of the USA, UK and their allies (Israel, Spain, Portugal, Poland, etc.) is a shameful domination action of a country and domestication of its people after having the visibly conquered oil wells in that region of the world.

It is necessary everywhere that the average person denounces publicly this hypocrite rhetoric about defending human rights in Iraq, when in Guantamano base and in Iraq itself the US violates everyday the sovereignty rights and independence of the citizens of that country.

Their goal is to domesticate the Iraqi people to the Coke Cola and McDonnald's fast-food economy.

The US political, financial, and oil capitalist interests aim at making Iraqis submissive and domesticated.

Politics of globalization and domestication of Arabs and Muslims should be denounced.

Brotherly,

eurocitizen

I've been reading numerous Arab oriented websites since before the recent war with Iraq. I'm fairly conservative, so your ideas and most of those expressed on these sites don't match mine.

However, I find reading them are a great source of knowledge and perspective on the region and the thoughts of supporters of the Arab cause. This is especially important because the mainstream U.S. media does such a poor job of reporting on the Middle East.

This particular article seemed especially over the top in terms of conspiracy theories, but there was one sentence that struck me as particularly funny and enlightening.

"I've been talking to other like minded people, and we all seem to have come to the same conclusion."

Just for future reference, if you spend all you time talking with like minded people, it's very likely that you will all come to the same conclusion. :-)

The way to test, and ultimately prove, your ideas and theories is to talk and debate with un-like minded people.

The Jews you mentioned in your article are liberal Jews and not conservative or pro Israel at all, especially Dan Shorr who was quoted today as saying that the viewing of Saddam Hussein getting examined by a US Doctor was a " violation of his human rights." Please know who the real enemy of Israel is in our country: AFL-CIO, anti-defamation league, all rights organizations, viacom, mtv, NPR, liberals, cnn and the aclu who want to tear our country apart, we need to be thankful that Gore is not president. Thank God for September 11th, it woke up those who were sleeping.