Letters to the Editor, April 24, 2004

Dear Friends -

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign has launched a petition for presentation to the Irish Government, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union.

We want the Irish Government to come off the fence and mobilise opposition in Europe to the Apartheid Wall which Israel is constructing on the West Bank. This is urgent as we need all signatures in by END APRIL.

Could you please publicise our petition on your network? The petition can be accessed directly at URL :
http://www.petitiononline.com/WBWall01/petition.html

or by clicking the link (Campaign 2) on our website : www.supportpalestine.org

Thank you.

Caitlin ni Chonaill
Secretary
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Belfast.

Babies of Hunger! Thirst!

On this planet no child ever hunger, nor thirst, nor hurt.

The N. American dollars spent in war preparedness, and actual wars that we fight each and every day in the name of terrorism, and 'democracy' alone would feed, clothe every baby on this planet. The TRILLION dollar war budgets around the globe, from every county boggles the mind.

Should every country set aside a very minute percentage of their budgets in armaments for one year,( that are allocated to kill) , and spend those dollars, ruppees, dinars, marks, etc....on the living, we would see a major difference in this world.

In this day and age, there is NO REASON for any of 'Our Babies' to cry out in hunger or pain, no matter where they live on this globe.

If, as grandparents (which I am), and parents, do not speak, (nay scream )out, for the babies of the world ,our legacy for them is.....?

We cannot let any 'government' nor 'religious' stripe spend one more cent on 'war machines'

Enough is Enough!

When are we going 'to grow up', and be responsible 'parents'

Killing/war is not the answer of mankind's ilk!

I say here, and now, ...(as adults)

You can pick up a gun, try picking up a baby bottle.!

Our babies need us...

They are our future, our blood, our hearts and our souls ... For tomorrow.

'LET'S GIVE THEM A CHANCE!!! .....for us and for our children.

Dave S. Rupert

Dorchester, On Canada

Portents of a major tragedy in Iraq

The world should take urgent notice that the US occupying forces in Iraq are planning a major human tragedy in Faluja and Najaf. Thousands and thousands of innocent civilians men, women, children may die in the collective punishment that US is hell-bent in inflicting on Iraqi people in the same manner that Israel has been practicing in occupied West Bank, in a preferred asymmetrical response to resistance by independent fighters on their own volition, without any sanction from the majority of people.

The world cannot afford to sit back and watch in silence, while Bush tries to change the whole set of international relationships that have proven success of half a century of relative peace till the conspiratorial Zionists got their seedy ‘New American Century’ game-plan co-opted in the name of reorganizing the world through force, no matter how much innocent blood flows through the Euphrates.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, Mumbai – India

In her very insightful essay on the face-off between West and the so-called Islamic fundamentalism, Sandhya Jain at first accuses both Christianity and Islam to have spread out around the world with the help of brute force. However, at the same time, she warns the West, that the threat from Islam is not physical but more of an ideological nature that could create an internal crisis due to their own civilizational incoherence.

Sandhya will have to make up her mind about Islam and Muslim revival. Is it the force of ideas or force of suicide bombers that characterizes Islam? If West is flexing its brute power to fight Islam, under false pretexts and unjustified terror tactics, there is every chance, its own society will revolt and make peace with Islam. In every Western country, the cross currents of ‘for and against’ arguments are at the moment raging as they had never before. West takes pride on its intellectual brilliance. If it finds some merit in the Idea of Islam, it can overthrow all bigotry and come over clean. In history, the Mongols after destroying Baghdad, they themselves accepted Islam and became Islam’s most ardent though not always exemplary protagonists. History may repeat itself.

Even in India, more level headed Hindutvadis grudgingly admit, though in private that Islam is more than Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar or Mughals and Sher Shahs. Advani and company had succeeded in demolishing an undefended Babri Masjid in a moment of uncontrollable insanity, but they have long way to go, if they think they can demolish Islam from India. Islam has a way of charming through penetrating the hearts and minds of even its most virulent detractors.