Readers' Letters and contributions, June 18, 2003

Readers' Letters and contributions, June 18, 2003 Al-Jazeerah.info

Dear Editor, Aljazeerah:

I have just read with interest, on your website, June 15, 2003, the correct and appropriate response of Hassan El-Najjar about who is the aggressor in Israeli wars against the Arabs.

However, to answer more accurately as to who planned and initiated the 1967 June war, it is appropriate to examine Israel's own leardes' words which confirm that they planned and effected this war, and it was not as claimed to be a pre-emptive war, in response to threats by President Nasser. These statements are included in my letter below in response to a Zionist claim. I think the media should be enlightened with these facts. With all modesty, I have been making these facts public in North American media.

Yours sincerely,

Ismail Zayid,M.D.

http://izayid.tripod.com

The Editor,

OUTLOOK.

Dear Editor:

Abraham Arnold, in his review of Michael Oren's book " Six Days of War ; June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East", in the Jan./Feb. issue of "OUTLOOK", says that President Nasser's 'bellicose remarks and provocative actions' and 'Syrian provocative attacks' were developments that led to the 1967 war. This is contrary to fact, as best enunciated in Israel's leaders' own words:

Yitzhak Rabin, chief of staff of the Israeli army at the time, stated :" I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." {Le Monde, Feb.28,1968}.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol stated :" The Egyptian layout in the Sinai and the general military build up there testified to a military defensive Egyptian set-up, south of Israel" [ Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Oct. 18,1967].

Modechai Bentov, an Israeli cabinet minister at the time, stated: " All this story about the danger of extermination [of Israel in June 1967] has been a complete invention and has been blown up a poseriori to justify the annexation of Arab territory" [ Al Hamishmar, 14 April 1972, and quoted in Le Monde, 3 June 1972].

Menachem Begin, a cabinet minister in June 1967, stated, while prime minister, addressing Israel's National Defence College, on Aug.8,1982, : " In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with our selves. We decided to attack him" [The N.Y.Times, Aug.21,1982].

As to " Syrian provocative attacks", let us let Moshe Dayan, Israel's Minister of Defence at the time, tell us the facts as reported by Serge Schmemann [ The N.Y. Times. May 11, 1997 ]. : " He [Moshe Dayan] said he regretted not having stuck to his initial opposition to storming the Golan Heights. There really was no pressing reason to do so, because many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...... I know how at least 80% of the clashes were started. We would send a tractor to plow some area, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. and then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that is how it was".

This tells us who planned this war and who were the provacateurs, and let history tells it as it is.

Yours Sincerely,

Ismail Zayid, MD.

Hi,

I am writing to you regarding the US occupation of Iraq's People's
National Stadium in Baghdad and was wondering if you could help us and ask the US forces to move their tanks and forces to another area of Baghdad, not anyway occupying Iraq's national stadium (Al-Shaab)

Any help to generate publicity or even a comment from the White House, would be greatly appreciated.

All the best

Hassanin Mubarak

WWW.IraqSport.com

Here is an article I wrote and also a copy of my letter to the US
President,

Ammo Baba tells US to get out of Al-Shaab Stadium

Hassanin Mubarak (IraqSport.com)

The much-loved former Iraqi national player and coach Ammo Baba has told occupying US forces to leave the Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad with their tanks.

The stadium, known as the People's National Stadium has been used as an Army base since US-led forces entered the Iraqi capital in April. The stadium was inaugurated in 1966 after a match between a Baghdad select team and Portuguese club Benfica led by the great Eusebio and 4 other World Cup players from Portugal's successful 1966 team.

"I went to the Americans at Al-Shaab stadium and after half an hour the person in charge came and I asked them to leave, I told them that this stadium is a training center for young poor children for the ages of 8-13"

The Leader's Cub Center was founded by Ammo himself for the training of children aged between eight and 13 and inaugurated outside Baghdad's main stadium in February last year.

The small facility has a grass pitch and a single building used as an auditorium for the children to watch and learn from recordings of international matches.

Around 270 children were coached at the center three times a week by Ammo Baba and many other qualified coaches like World Cup midfielder Natiq Hashim before the US-led invasion, but presence of occupying forces have stopped day to day running of the center.

"I told them, you destroyed it, the only thing I want in my life is for you to leave this stadium" pleaded the 69 year-old Iraqi legend.

"They did not give me an answer"

"They are still there," he says with despair.

But it is not only the Al-Shaab stadium that the US tanks and forces are occupying.

"Nearly every stadium in Iraq is being occupied by US forces and tanks... there are tanks in the streets and even between people¢s houses"

We at IraqSport.com call for US forces and tanks to leave our national stadium immediately

BBC report on Occupied Al-Shaab Stadium

by Tristina Moore

Iraq’s national football team is getting ready for their first friendly match since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the team is due to take on Barcelona in Spain at the end of the month but the players are travelling to Spain without their coach Bernd Stange, a German, he left Baghdad before the war. The team doesn’t have a national stadium either as Americans troops have taken it over.

Saddam isn’t here and the Americans are defiantly making themselves at home at the Al-Shaab stadium in Baghdad, hundreds of soldiers are camping out on the pitch, they’ve been here since the war and they don’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.

"When we first came into the stadium in early May, there was trash everywhere, looted pretty bad, there was destrution from some of the bombings" commented Captain Katherine Jackson.

Tristina Moore: Do you think it’s quite strange that you’re taking over this stadium?

Captain Katherine Jackson: "No, were not taking over the stadium were just living here temporally until we can help the Iraqi people transition to their new government.

But more military hardware is pouring into the stadium, its now being used as a major logistic space for US-led coalition forces.

During Saddam’s regime there would be a match here three times a week, the Shaab stadium would be absolutely packed and members of Saddam’s family including his son Uday would be spotted here.

Players have been free to talk about the punishment that was meated out to them by Uday Hussein when he was president of Iraq’s Olympic committee but the players want more than justice now they want their stadium back

Some of them have ended up training here down the road at a smaller stadium Iraq’s top players gearing up for their first friendly match against Barcelona later this month

"The Americans forces must leave the stadium, they came to Iraq to liberate us from Saddam not occupy the country" says defender Haidar Jabar.

It’s a view shared by the Iraqi football federation. Ahmed Radhi, the chairman of the Iraqi Football Federation "They can use another place, you know this is for sport, for the football and this time we need it because we don’t have a big stadium like this"

The team are still without their coach, he left Iraq when the war started, he’s due to meet the players in Barcelona and their hoping that before that, the Americans will move out of their stadium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39162000/rm/_39162454_iraq_football12_moore_cue_vi.ram

Here is my letter to the US President

Dear Mr.President

I know the President himself will be too busy to read this, but I hope one of his aides or advisors will read this and hopefully pass on this message.

I am writing to you regarding the occupation of Iraq's People's National Stadium in Baghdad, which has been surrounded by tanks and is currently being used as a base for US forces. The local population have time and time again asked them to move and with Iraq's Olympic team hoping return to international competitions, the US presence at the stadium has disrupted training for the current players, who since the war have not train or participated in any matches.

Emmanuel Baba Dawud, one of Iraq's greatest sportsmen personally went to the stadium to ask US forces to leave and spent half an hour trying to persuade the forces to move to another base but he got no answer. The 69 year-old Emmanuel Baba, known fondly in Iraq as Ammo Baba started and still runs a small sports facility known as the Leader's Cub Center for the training of children aged between 8 and 13. It was built by Ammo himself and has been running since February 2002. Majority of the children using the center are poor and underprivileged and we would greatly like you to ask the commander of the US forces to relocate immediately. Ammo, who is a diabetic and has suffered many years of torture and imprisonment under Saddam's son Uday, is currently in hospital in the United Arab Emirates receiving treatment and in the many interviews he conducted over the last month in Baghdad and outside, he and many other sportsmen has called for the remo! val of US tanks and forces from the Al-Muthana bin Harith Ashaibani Street, where the Al-Sha'ab (People's) Stadium is situated.

The stadium itself is an important historic part of Iraqi sport. Built in 1966 from the donations of Armenian oil tycoon Gulbenkian "Mr.5%" and inaugurated after a soccer match between a Baghdad team and European club Benfica of Portugal. The stadium, which is in need of desperate repair since the current war holds allot of history for the people of Iraq and the image of Iraq's People's Stadium being occupied, portrays a strong image of the land of Iraq being 'occupied by invaders'. The stadium is an important part of Baghdad for its people and its sports fans. Many sportsmen have been unable to train at the arena due to US presence; the current Iraqi Olympic Soccer team was not able to use the stadium for its training sessions, preparing for their qualifier against Vietnam, which will be played soon. Iraqi sportsmen and all Iraqis are trying to return back to their lives but with US forces and tanks obstructing their path and for the sports! men their stadium being occupied, how would Americans feel if their sports stadiums were being occupied by foreign forces, this is what is happening in Iraq.

I call for the US forces to relocate their forces to another position that is not in anyway occupying the Iraq's People's National Stadium in Baghdad, known in Iraq as Maala'b Al-Sha'ab.

Thank you for taking time to read my letter, I hope some change comes of it.

Yours truly,

Hassanin Mubarak

Liars - Bush, Blair, Straw

By Sydney Bernard Smith

you lied in word, in deed, & by omission:

you blamed Saddam for things that you had done

& failed to do - the Shia insurrection,

incited, left to founder - sorry son!

with VX, sarin, stuff for nuclear fission -

you armed him, supplied anthrax by the ton,

you egged him on to fight Iran, then ditched him...

& now you cannot find the smoking gun?

too long past their use-by-date. oh? fine!

(don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.)

you lied about "eviction" of inspectors

whom the UN "withdrew" - you wanna bet?

phials, anti-poison-gas injectors,

antidotes to dangers to be met,

& posters: how to cope with radiation

were hailed as "proof of clear & present threat."

duty-bound to free a captive nation?

ever think of rescuing Tibet?

oh. it’s unfair to hold you to that line...

don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.

there’s some bad bastards, but it’s no use fretting -

ex-Soviets Belarus & Kazakhstan.

our hatred of dictators could not threaten

Suharto, Burma, Saudi, Pakistan.

adjust the odds, it makes for safer betting;

where standards are too high, let down the bar.

for Chile we strained the rules, left Pinochet in;

Somoza, Marcos, Franco, Salazar,

we backed; who claimed their right to rule divine,

& never did say sorry, nor resign.

Afghanistan: "we’ll never walk away!"

you left them unexploded cluster bombs

like food parcels - they go off every day! -

to add to 20 million Russian mines.

& all the billions that you said you’d pay

keeps war lords ruling as in former times.

the bulk of it is mis-spent, gone astray,

they don’t add up, the economic sums.

damage limitation? not this time.

don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.

you lied about the poison factories;

lied about nuclear capacity;

on links to Al Qaida came a freeze -

Bush yes, Blair no (gulp gulp); it took audacity...

45 minute standby - there’s a wheeze -

imminent threat! in coping with this facet we

might have bypassed other forgeries -

uranium from Niger? sheer mendacity!

you’ve been found out, you’ve overstayed your time,

so do what Denis Healy said: resign

you lied. you said it wasn’t about oil.

you bellowed this until your face turned blue.

& yet, available to any literate child:

what Goldstein said to Bush’s cronies whom

cringing, - see *footnote - we will not imbroil

after the war the inverse will be true.

blatant: the Wall Street Journal - your blood boil?

mine does. we all could read it! so could you.

maybe you did; it chanced to slip your mind?

don’t even promise. do it now. resign.

[*The Wall Street Journal reported on January 16 2003 that officials from the White House, State Department and Department of Defense have been meeting informally with executives from Halliburton, Slumberger, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips to plan the post-war oil bonanza. But no one wants to talk about it. Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation told the Journal, "If we go to war, it's not about oil. But the day the war ends, it has everything to do with oil." ...]

Regards,
Sydney Bernard Smith
Dundalk, Ireland

www.esatclear.ie/~littleredhen

Feel Like you’re the only person

who doesn’t want to re-elect George Bush?

You’re not alone-come meet more of us

What: Potluck Picnic

When: Friday June 20, 6-9 PM

Where: Riverview Park

Barton Ave and Dorchester Rd

Why: As an alternative to the Bush 2004 campaign fundraiser at Mayor Corker’s house, to participate in the process of reclaiming the White House from the right-wing rich. Their dinner is $1,000-a-plate, ours is potluck.

Who’s Invited: Independents, Democrats, Libertarians, even sensible Republicans;

Anyone dissatisfied with the current administration’s

fiscally irresponsible "borrow and spend" economic policies

dangerous doctrine of pre-emptive warfare

unabashed corporate graft

threat to women’s reproductive rights

suspension of civil liberties

What to Expect: Good food, rational political discussion, and information about potential Presidential candidates.

Bring a dish, come alone, bring a friend, bring ten friends. The point is to be proactive. The sooner we start, the better chance we have of taking back the White House from the big corporations and the very wealthy and the better chance we have of returning it to an office for the people and by the people.

For more information email riverview-potluck@comcast.net <mailto:riverview-potluck@comcast.net> or call 423.821.1501

Lying as an art form: America gets double-teamed by Clinton AND Bush

"I'm going to sue the Supreme Court for violating the Tenth Amendment, interfering with States' Rights and sticking America with George Bush," I told the tourist lady next to me on the steps of the Supreme Court building in Washington DC last week.

Said tourist lady gave me a dirty look. "I suppose you want to have Bill CLINTON back in the White House," she replied -- pronouncing "Clinton" as if the word "SATAN" had just crossed her lips.

Actually, when it comes to lying to America, Clinton and Bush are pretty much comrades-in-arms; Dubya started up where the Big Dog left off. The only difference between the two that I can see is that George now has mainstream media backing up his alibis. Plus while Clinton was a clumsy liar, our George has turned lying into an art form.

Let's put someone in the White House who is worthy of its dignity and historic majesty. Let's make "I cannot tell a lie" a requirement for being President. And let's do it NOW.

PS: While I was touring the Supreme Court, I also talked to a staff member there. He said, "Supreme Court justices should be ruling on the CONSTITUTIONALITY of laws, not on their personal feelings about what would be nice. The way that they interpret the Constitution now is like someone going out, robbing a bank and then claiming for his defense that, even though the act itself was illegal, it became legal for HIM because he thought robbing banks was a nice idea." Let's just go back to just defending the Constitution, guys -- and give up interfering in Florida politics as well (Remember the Tenth Amendment?)

Best regards, Jane Stillwater, Berkeley, CA

"The men that American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest the most violently are those who try to tell them the truth" -- H. L. Mencken

LAROUCHE IN TURKEY AS `PRESIDENT IN THE WINGS'

``I guess Wolfowitz and Perle will not dare to come back here
after that,'' said one of many delighted Turkish listeners to one
of Lyndon LaRouche's major media interviews, who called up the
group that invited him to Turkey. Turkish leaders and activists,
generally upset or outraged by the way those Straussian
chicken-hawks have insulted Turkey since last year, are greeting
Lyn for what he is, the sole American leader capable of reversing
the neo-cons' coup and restoring to the United States its real
world leadership.

The event that caused such reactions in the country was
Lyn's tough and straight talk in a two-hour, 45 minute live TV
interview that began at around midnight Saturday night, June 14
on the capital Ankara's A-TV channel. The exhaustive interview
covered his Presidential-candidate assessments of everything from
the global economic collapse (few countries have it worse than
Turkey) to Leo Strauss and the neo-con cabal, the 9/11
Reichstagsbrand, the Eurasian Land-Bridge recovery strategy,
and--importantly--the personal risks involved in Lyn's current
role as both opposition Democratic leader and ``President in the
Wings.''
Lyn and Helga had travelled to Ankara from Istanbul, where
at mid-day on Saturday, he had keynoted a conference, at a city
cultural center, attended by more than 400 political activists,
professors, and students--and many media representatives, with
four different TV channels filming at the event. After Lyn's
keynote and comments on it from two professors, there were hours
of questions.

Sent by Glenn Mesaros

Even though Muslim Personal Law Board has brushed aside Shahi Imam Ahmed Bukhari's call to the Board, that it should not monopolize negotiations on Babri Masjid issue, Shahi Imam's stand does have some merit, given the nature of the issue involved as well as the limited representation of the Muslim cross-sections in the Muslim Personal Law Board, ---- mainly because its prime objective of protection of Muslim interests in legal and legislative arena needed a highly specialized religious and legal membership that essentially had remained restricted.

The issue of Babri Masjid goes much beyond the legal and the religious. As the Babri Masjid issue was politicized by L. K. Advani and his storm troopers and Babri Masjid was finally demolished, resulting in communal rioting all over the country in which thousands were massacred for protesting against a crime against their religion and there was widespread destruction of properties and large scale incidence of ethnic cleansing; the scars of the tragedy touches millions and a restricted representation comprising of a few localized organisations, will not get the kind of consensus that will ensure peace within the community.

It is therefore necessary, that after Shankaracharya has given his written proposal, the proposal should be open to full public scrutiny and a larger conference should be constituted, so that any decision coming out of such a conference should have full stamp of the approval from the whole community.

The Babri Masjid Action committee of a dozen people who are increasingly being seen as a closed coterie of insiders, formed by Muslim Personal Law Board, though capable and sincere, cannot command full support from the cross section of all the 200 million Muslims of India. The repercussions of any decision on such a crucial community issue, specially that requires Muslims to compromise on their legal and constitutional rights, could be very serious and could damage the whole fabric of Muslim society and would even bring in international opprobrium for all concerned, including even the government.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, MUMBAI , INDIA

What Is Happening in America?

By Eliot Weinberger

[This article, one of the best short analyses of the

Bush administration's policies, was written for

"Vorwarts," the official magazine of the German Social

Democratic Party.]

http://www.icujp.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=News&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0064

I couldn't agree more!

Tim Stinson

Miami, Florida

SOLOMON: Britain -- Not Quite a Parallel Media Universe

By Norman Solomon, AlterNet

LONDON – The people of Britain and the United States are living in parallel, yet substantively different, media universes. Bonds of language and overlaps of mass culture are obvious. But a visit to London quickly illuminates the reality that mainstream journalism is much less narrow here than in America.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16153

Nigerian State Sticks To Islamic Law Despite Pressures

By al-Khedr Abdul Baqi, IOL Nigeria correspondent

Islam Online

June 16, 2003

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-06/16/article13.shtml

BBC and Guardian cover up US role in Iraq looting

By Ann Talbot

World Socialist Web Site

June 14, 2003

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/loot-j14.shtml

Sniper Kills U.S. Soldier in Latest Iraq Ambush