My Letter to the Senators: Against Attacking Syria

Click on the link after the letter to send your own through The Nation Magazine.  They made it simple, you can change it into your own words...their words were different than mine!

I agree that it is not acceptable to ignore such action by any political leader on their own people and such an action is plainly against international human rights justice.

I too have seen horrible injustice in times of conflict and war, being a war photojournalist in the Middle East for almost ten years.  The evil than man is capable of is unbearable.  I have walked in regions of utter poverty, hunger, and social inequalities where those is power are full of both greed and pride allowing others to suffer in extremes without blinking an eye.

However, it is my deepest hopes that the United States of America waits just a bit to gather global and national approval through the UN before we fly one plane, drone or take one step upon Syria's soil.  After living and working in war torn area's and analyzing conflict worldwide, I am highly concerned that this action will greatly harm hundreds if not thousands of innocent people.  It will put our country and American's on foreign soil at high risk for their own safety.  If we do not wait the few weeks that it takes to gain allies at this time, we will not only increase our security concerns but gain many new enemies who were once allies.

Not only is our security at risk, but also our national debt.  This may sound cruel, but in the name humanity should we not first spend the billions for our own people who are downtrodden and sleeping in cars, behind bushes and under bridges or those who work full time at an unsustainable living wage, or those who cannot get medical care when they are diagnosed with cancer?  Are we not then like the other countries who spend their nations wealth making themselves and others more wealthy while their citizens die of hunger?

Are we not then becoming the global police who ignores international law and does as we please?  It is time to show the world that we are not like that, we are patient to wait for the pieces to be put into place to have the ability to have the support of the rest of the world and the courts use just cause for the crimes that Assad has committed.  We are just to adhere to international protocol before jumping into action.  It is our chance to undo the damage that was done during and before the incursion in Iraq.  It is our chance as a nation to shine and become the example that we presented during the Vietnam war and WWII.

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A Letter from Iraq from an Iraqi

While I was reporting from the Middle East, I gathered a large local network. After I left, my friends continued to write to me to tell me their stories. Below is a small email from Sahal in Baghdad:

hithat word mean life is better you see aleasha mean life or our every day life ,ahsan mean better this kind of _expression we say in iraq to tell others that ok life good not great but good.

To understand what Sahal is saying is: the Arabic word “aleasha” is the everyday life, “ahsan” is an Iraqi expression that says, life is ok, not great but good. It is a form of expression.

He later sends me this email:

you can see the letter i send on lack of medicain in iraq ,i know my styell is need alot of work and i have speeling problems but iam working on itiam from baghdad and work out sid it in hosptial in the country thats why i see the real suffering of poor people and i hop to find any one how can help themwhats happen to iraqies donot differ to what katrina victums suffer and i feel pain to both sides suffering no one should face evacuation and hunger or disease or death just becouse he live in plce threaten by war or natural disaster and any person how suffer must geat help and compation and mercy in spit of his couler nationalty or relagion
thank you

A Home of Our Own

December 31, 2004

"We're Still Waiting for a Home of Our Own

A View from Syria on the Palestinian Right to Return

By FARRAH HASSEN

"We travel in the chariots of the Psalms, sleep in the tents of the prophets, and are born again in the language of Gypsies/Ours is a country of words: Talk. Talk/Let me see an end to this journey."

Mahmoud Darwish, "We Travel Like All People," from Fewer Roses, 1986 The 21st Century began as a world filled with war and refugees, words that can deaden one's emotion. Occasional newspaper stories refer to refugee camps, the plight of refugees, and obscure issues like "the right of return." I, like most young people who become gradually insensitive to suffering when the words to describe it anesthetize rather than sensitize the reader, could not picture how refugees really lived, what their "camps" looked like and what the right of return actually meant.

Then I realized my own "right to return." I visited Syria, my father's birthplace, in 2003. It took a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus to bring to my mind the agonized voice of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish-whose village of birth the Israeli Army destroyed in 1948: "we travel like everyone else, but we return to nothing" ("We Travel Like All People").

He captured the unresolved abyss of the weary-eyed, long-time inhabitants of Palestinian refugee camps scattered throughout the Middle East and their more energetic, but equally dejected offspring. I returned home to a place where generations of my family had retained the culture and traditions; indeed, it showed me that there was merit in striving to maintain a "Syrian-American" life.

It also dramatized the significance of Article 13 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the one that sanctions my freedom of movement. I admit this didn't cross my mind while I visited the ancient Roman ruins at Bosra, south of the Jordan border, or drove past the Aleppo home where my mother grew up. Then I visited the Jaramana refugee camp near Damascus, housing around 5,000 registered Palestinian refugees (of the total 500,000 that reside in Syria), mostly displaced after the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars and some one thousand who fled southern Lebanon in 1982 following the Israeli invasion. Instantly, the euphoria associated with returning to Syria to meet new relatives, savor syrupy baklava and carry on a conversation in Arabic disintegrated into shame.

Shortly after I entered one of the country's ten official camps, an elderly Palestinian woman originally from Jericho reminded me of how I took for granted what for her epitomizes the core of human patience: "we're still waiting for a home of our own." Rows of decaying "homes" slightly larger than the size of office cubicles lined the streets, juxtaposed by the newly constructed roads and oncoming traffic traversing the camp. The flurry of young children playing tag, teenage boys riding rusty bicycles down the cramped streets and the commanding shriek of babies channeled some brightness into Jaramana, a camp otherwise dominated by the grayish hues of the stone edifices and smoke emanating from the burnt trash. An aging man with deep set, expressive eyes talked to me in front of his home.

His covered wife and three children surrounded him, framed by light and dark shadows that invoked a Rembrandt portrait. "I'm from Hebron," he informed me. "I haven't seen my brothers and sisters who had to stay behind since 1948. Other members of my family have already passed away." "How do you expect me to feel?" Mohammed snapped. He paused, lit up a cigarette and then widened his eyes. "This separation makes me feel very angry and bitter." Across the street, a middle-aged woman who wore a white hijab sat on the doorsteps of her residence to take advantage of the light breeze, a rare break from the sweltering July heat that felt exaggerated at the densely populated camp and that emphasized the prevailing scent of burnt trash, cigarettes and cooking oil. Her young daughter leaned against her and seemed pacified by the piece of candy that she quietly chewed.

The mother managed to muster some optimism about being a Palestinian refugee in Syria. "Here, we live fine, but we'd be more comfortable living in our own homes," she said, alluding to the fact that Palestinians in Syria are still able to enjoy more or less the same rights as other Syrians, including attending schools and universities, competing for the same jobs and owning businesses. Jaramana's residents, however, mainly find work as street sellers or in the informal sector, as drivers, cooks and domestic workers.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid, 1.3 million of the over 4 million registered Palestinian refugees still live in 59 recognized refugee camps across the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In an early effort to respond to the Palestinian refugee crisis following the establishment of Israel, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948-a day after the world body approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations."

Article 11 of Resolution 194, likened by one Jaramana man as "the heart of our legal defense" despite its repeated rejection by Israel, declared that the Palestinian refugees "wishing to return to their homesshould be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property." Supplementing GA Resolution 194 and carrying the force of law, Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967 reaffirmed "the necessityfor achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem" (Article 2b), although the political will to do so on the part of Israel, the US government and other Middle East peace brokers still remains elusive. "What's the use of having international law on our side when it's not upheld by the ruling powers?" questioned one man in his early 20s, wearing a traditional Islamic white robe and matching kufi (prayer cap).

A small group of elderly men gathered around this new face of the 21st Century Palestinian refugee, some nodding in agreement and others looking wistfully at the impassioned young man whose generation would inherit their decades-long struggles for justice. "I'm just as cynical about the Roadmap peace process that your president supports. Will it allow me to return back to Palestine?" he chuckled. Certainly, the majority of refugees I met that day viewed the latest Roadmap initiative backed by the so-called Quartet (U.S., UN, EU and Russia) as an empty effort, so long as their "right to return" remained left off of the negotiating table and reduced to a "final status issue"-as obscurely phrased in the 1993-94 Oslo Accords and the stagnant Roadmap agreement.

As I departed the camp, I asked Ibrahim, a gray-haired refugee from the 1967 war selling colossal-sized watermelons, if he had a message for President Bush. "I'd like Bush to examine the Palestinians' plight without spinning lies into truths and truths into lies. We are living in pain," he implored, raising his tired-looking hands into the air in vain. Less than a year after my Jaramana visit and realization of my "right to return," President George W. Bush turned a blind eye to the refugees' own dreams of returning back to their former homes and the international laws that protected their right, not to mention longstanding US policy.

He declared in an April 14, 2004 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "a just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel." Complicating matters for Palestinian refugees, the continued Israeli settlements built throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in violation of the Oslo Accords and the construction of a 650 kilometer long wall-declared "contrary to international law" by the World Court in July 2004-deviating from Israel's 1967 Green Line border beg the same question that one despondent Jaramana refugee had contemplated, "in reality, would we ever return back to historic Palestine?" Indeed, upon completion of the wall itself, which Sharon has justified as a "means to assist in the war against terror," the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including around 1.5 million refugees, will live on only 12% of historic Palestine (Al Ahram, April 16, 2004). After PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat died on November 11, the Palestinian refugee issue made a brief return to the newspaper headlines.

On December 9, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and the new PLO chairman and presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas met with thousands of Palestinian refugees on a campaign-like visit to the Al-Rashidiah camp in southern Lebanon. Ahead of the January 9 Palestinian elections, Qurei reassured the crowd-who have no say in the upcoming election-that the post Arafat PLO leadership would "never abandon" their right to return, reported Agence France Presse. This rhetoric flew in the face of more serious words by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a December 16 conference. Sharon, who has steadfastly refused to even open the right of return as an issue in the peace talks, nevertheless called 2005 "the year of a great historic opportunity" in the Middle East. Addressing the Palestinians, Sharon simply lied. "We do not want to rule over you, or to run over your lives," the 'man of peace' said as Israeli troops continue to occupy Palestine and run Palestinians' lives, such as by enforcing draconian checkpoints and according to the UN, demolishing at least 1,686 Palestinian homes in the Rafah refugee camp during the past four years.

Palestinian leaders cannot address the right of return issue by themselves. Indeed, Arafat bore responsibility for sacrificing the right of return by signing the 1993 Oslo Accords. The ink on that document speaks louder than words to the disheartened refugees at Jaramana and their counterparts. In September 2004, I again exercised my right to return to Syria. A middle-aged Palestinian man named Nabil, who worked as a driver for a well-to-do family, taught me how to use Damascus' tricky version of a public transportation system. Like the other Syrians that I met, he relied on humor to deal with the daily realities of life, which I needed while we waited on a street curb under an unforgiving sun for the white microbus (a small van) to arrive. "Does it normally take this long for the bus to arrive?" I wondered aloud, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity. "Remember, we're on Syrian time," he smiled. "The trick here is to be patient. Take it from me, I'm a Palestinian!" he joked, instantly reminding me of the Jaramana refugees that I had met a year earlier and their patient-defying wait to experience their own right to return.

Once we boarded the packed microbus, Nabil practiced the few words of English he knew to make us forget about the bumpy, stomach-churning ride through the mid-day traffic. "Welcome to Syria," he liked to declare, as the other passengers watched in amusement, followed up by "Have you questions?" When I reached my stop, I thanked Nabil for helping me become more "Syrian" in his adopted home and not willing to reconcile with the improbable, assured him that I'd show him around California if he ever visited. "Sure," he winked, "I'll take the first flight out from Palestine." Farrah Hassen, a Political Science graduate from Cal Poly Pomona University, was the associate producer of the 2004 documentary, "Syria: Between Iraq & And A Hard Place," with Saul Landau. She recently spent 2 months working for the United Nations Development Programme in Syria. She can be reached at: FHuisClos1944@aol.com 

Full Text, Bin Ladens letter to America

Full Text, Bin Ladens letter to America
Online document: the full text of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people", reported in today's Observer. The letter first appeared on the internet in Arabic and has since been translated and circulated by Islamists in Britain .
Sunday November 24, 2002  The Observer In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, "Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" [Quran 22:39 ] "Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan."[Quran 4:76]
Some American writers have published articles under the title 'On what basis are we fighting?' These articles have generated a number of responses, some of which adhered to the truth and were based on Islamic Law, and others which have not. Here we wanted to outline the truth - as an explanation and warning - hoping for Allah's reward, seeking success and support from Him. While seeking Allah's help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans: (Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you? Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you? As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. a) You attacked us in Palestine : (i) Palestine , which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel . The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily. (ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine , as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this. When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) - and we make no distinction between them. (iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone. (b) You attacked us in Somalia ; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya , the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir , and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon . (c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis; (i) These governments prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so. (ii) These governments give us a taste of humiliation, and places us in a large prison of fear and subdual. (iii) These governments steal our Ummah's wealth and sell them to you at a paltry price. (iv) These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine , acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people. (v) The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Ummah, to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine . And our fight against these governments is not separate from out fight against you. (d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world. (e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures. (f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down. (g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Under the protection of your weapons, Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, to pollute it as a preparation to capture and destroy it. (2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!! (3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake: (a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want. (b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan , the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine , the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf , and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq . These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates. (c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us. (d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us. (e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us. (f) Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs. The American Government and press still refuses to answer the question: Why did they attack us in New York and Washington ? If Sharon is a man of peace in the eyes of Bush, then we are also men of peace!!! America does not understand the language of manners and principles, so we are addressing it using the language it understands. (Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you? (1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. (a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. (b) It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it. (2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you. (a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest. We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached. (b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: (i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives? (ii) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against. (iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them. (iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object. Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations? (v) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich. (vi) You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women. (vii) You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it. (viii) And because of all this, you have been described in history as a nation that spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention. (xi) You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and*industries. (x) Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy. (xi) That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan , even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom? (xii) Let us not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All*manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and one for the others. (a)The freedom and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you call the 'American friends'. Yet you prevent them from establishing democracies. When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture them - a new lesson from the 'American book of democracy'!!! (b)Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you consent to, such as Israel , then they are allowed to keep and use such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you take military action against them. (c)You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the wall with the full support of America . (d)As for the war criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for - you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However, history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in Japan , Afghanistan , Somalia , Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame that you will never be able to escape. It will suffice to remind you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan , in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than 1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah alone knows how many people have died by torture at the hands of you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies, looking for anyone remotely suspicious. (e)You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse. In America , you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer, harsher laws. What happens in Guatanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces - you hypocrites, "What is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?" (3) What we call you to thirdly is to take an honest stance with yourselves - and I doubt you will do so - to discover that you are a nation without principles or manners, and that the values and principles to you are something which you merely demand from others, not that which you yourself must adhere to. (4) We also advise you to stop supporting Israel , and to end your support of the Indians in Kashmir , the Russians against the Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippines . (5) We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins. (6) Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington . (7) We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual, theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters for you. If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The Nation which is addressed by its Quran with the words: "Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people. And remove the anger of their (believers') hearts. Allah accepts the repentance of whom He wills. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise." [Quran9:13-1] The Nation of honour and respect: "But honour, power and glory belong to Allah, and to His Messenger (Muhammad- peace be upon him) and to the believers." [Quran 63:8] "So do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be*superior ( in victory )if you are indeed (true) believers" [Quran 3:139] The Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life: "Think not of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive with their Lord, and they are being provided for. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them from His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve. They rejoice in a grace and a bounty from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers." [Quran 3:169-171] The Nation of victory and success that Allah has promised: "It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it victorious over all other religions even though the Polytheists hate it." [Quran 61:9] "Allah has decreed that 'Verily it is I and My Messengers who shall be victorious.' Verily Allah is All-Powerful, All-Mighty." [Quran 58:21] The Islamic Nation that was able to dismiss and destroy the previous evil Empires like yourself; the Nation that rejects your attacks, wishes to remove your evils, and is prepared to fight you. You are well aware that the Islamic Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises your haughtiness and arrogance. If the Americans refuse to listen to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy. This is our message to the Americans, as an answer to theirs. Do they now know why we fight them and over which form of ignorance, by the permission of Allah, we shall be victorious? Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Who Served

Who Has Served
I don't think we can determine the character of our 'leaders' by whether they served in the armed forces or not, but we can certainly see who the hypocrits are who have sent us off to this terrible war. Please read and post  Greta
November 2004
Subject: RECOGNIZING THOSE WHO SERVED! Democrats  Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71 David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72 Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72 Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971, army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade. Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam. Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-'47; Medal of Honor, WWII. John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V Purple Hearts. Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea. Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, Vietnam. Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-1953. Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74. Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91. Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII, receiving the Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons. Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Soldier's Medal. Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit. Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart. Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V. Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star. Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57 Chuck Robb: Vietnam for two years Howell Heflin: Silver Star George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWII Jmmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy. Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953 John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and Air Medal with 18 Clusters. Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg. Wesley Clark: U.S. Army, 1966-2000, West Point, Vietnam, Purple Heart, Silver Star. Retired 4-star general. John Dingell: WWII vet John Conyers: Army 1950-57, Korea Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received 311 John Edwards: did not serve Republicans  Dennis Hastert: did not serve. Tom Delay: did not serve. House Whiip Roy Blunt: did not serve. Bill Frist: did not serve. Rudy Giuliani: did not serve. George Pataki: did not serve. Mitch McConnell: did not serve. Rick Santorum: did not serve. Trent Lott: did not serve. Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage. John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business. Jeb Bush: did not serve. Karl Rove: did not serve. Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism. Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve. Vin Weber: did not serve. Richard Perle: did not serve Douglas Feith: did not serve Eliot Abrams: did not serve Richard Shelby: did not serve Jon Kyl: did not serve Tim Hutchison: did not serve Christopher Cox: did not serve Newt Gingrich: did not serve Phil Gramm: did not serve JC Watts: did not serve Antonin Scalia: did not serve Clarence Thomas: did not serve Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as aviator and flight instructor George W. Bush: six-year Nat'l Guard commitment (incomplete) Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies Gerald Ford: Navy, WWII John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross Bob Dole: an honorable veteran from WWII Chuck Hagel: two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, Vietnam Jeff Sessions: Army Reserves, 1973-1986 G.H.W. Bush: Pilot in WWII. Shot down by the Japanese Tom Ridge: Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam Pundits and Preachers  Sean Hannity: did not serve. Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.') Bill O'Reilly: did not serve. Michael Savage: did not serve. George Will: did not serve. Chris Matthews: did not serve, joined the Peace Corps Paul Gigot: did not serve. Bill Bennett: did not serve. Pat Buchanan: did not serve. Bill Kristol: did not serve. Kenneth Starr: did not serve. Michael Medved: did not serve.

I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war; on Iraq occupation

I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war; on Iraq occupation
And soon we will exercise our right of return, on Palestinian right of return Don't Forget and Simona are two poems by Yahya Abdul Rahman and Ehab Lotayef
Don't Forget by Yahya Abdul Rahman
Don't forget Qibya Don't forget Jenin Don't forget Sabra / Shatila Or the murder of Shiekh Yassin It's been said by some he's a man of peace But in fact the "Bulldozer" is a destructive beast He killed our people He robbed our lands And history testifies he has blood on his hands We will not forget In our memories these facts will burn And soon we will exercise our right of return by Yahya Abdul Rahman - Sept 17, 2004 Simona * By: Ehab Lotayef You stretch your hand to a weeping kid to save him from the burning pit I stretch my hand to help you out I see you not I reach you not I'm trapped inside my own despair suffocated by this hopeless war You long for peace I long for peace We pray for a world that kills no more -- Ehab Lotayef Montreal , September 17, 2004 *Praying for the safety of both Simonas and their coworkers in Iraq .

Arrogance and idiotness!

Viewpoints: Below a letter from an Iraqi woman and her feeling on the female prisoners, US administration and the Iraqi (unedited) A sample of the arrogance mixed with the childish, useless, baseless propaganda is below in the news. It is evident that the Americans are keeping in prison two respectable Iraqi ladies. USA, has the most amount of all chemical wepons that can kill everyhuman on earth several times. Calling a lady these baseless names, like Mrs. Anthrax, etc, just remind us those stupid names that Americans used against the leaders of the 100,000,000 native Indiands that they killed, which was followed by another million annualy since then, from everywhere around the globe. Another point, this stupid policey in Iraq is messing up everything and causing a lot of disturbance to the Iraqi society, and to selective pockets in the USA. U.S.: Iraqi Prisoners Won't Be Released 23 minutes ago By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s leader and U.S. officials moved quickly Wednesday to squelch the idea a top female germ- warfare scientist for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) would be freed soon, after a senior Iraqi official said the decision had been made to release her. Iraqi militants who beheaded two Americans have threatened to kill a Briton unless female detainees are let go. After the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said there would be no immediate release of either of the two women in U.S. custody, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said there were no immediate plans to free the detainees. Allawi's statement disputed an earlier statement by his Justice Department (news - web sites) that a decision was made to release one of them. Allawi told The Associated Press that his government has begun reviewing the status of its detainees, including the two female scientists known as "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" for their involvement in Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programs.

Pacifism in the Palestinian case is...

Pacifism in the Palestinian case is
>  total surrender and voluntary Palestinian transfer
>
> Dear Friends
>
> We have some who call them selves "Palestinians",
> but they condemn other Palestinians who are well
> aware that the problem is that the ball is in the
> Zionist side of the field, and they don't compromise
> even though they are the invaders and the
> oppressors. They want all of Palestine without its
> Palestinian Arab indigenous population. They don't
> compromise to keep at least one square inch for the
> Palestinian Arab land, in their claimed "promised
> land". They invaded Palestine thousands of years ago
> and on this pretext, and the myth of a divine order
> to execute every soul on the Palestinian land, which
> they are repeating today.
>
> If there are  rejectionists on the Palestinian
> arena, they are the Zionist racialist, and we don't
> claim that every Jew is a Zionist. Some Jew are
> fighting for Palestinian rights.
>
> Even though I am not Moslem, and I don't agree with
> fundamentalist ideas as being secular, and believe
> in the separation between nationalism and religion
> (the church/mosque and the state), but we cannot but
> recognize the contribution that such organizations,
> namely Hamas, to counter Zionist aims of trying to
> force total submission on not only the Palestinians,
> but all the Arabs.
>
> Palestinians have been fighting against Zionist
> terrorism for over six decades and half, and that is
> what stops in the face of the Zionist aim of to
> complete the transfer of every Palestinian from his
> land. There are too many examples in history that
> prove that national armed resistance against very
> strong occupiers cannot but win. To name some are:
> French resistance against Nazi occupation, Algerian
> resistance against French occupation, Vietnamese
> resistance against French and American occupation,
> South Yemeni resistance against French occupation,
> Egyptian resistance against Israeli/French/British
> occupation in 1956........................ and
> presently Iraqi resistance against the American led
> coalition occupation, The Lebanese resistance
> against Zionist occupation starting with Beirut and
> almost ending with south Lebanon............ and
> don't forget Palestinian resistance which is not
> submitting to the Zionist aim of imposing total
> Palestinian submission and exodus!!!
>
> Pacifism against racism don't work.
>
> There are ex-Palestinians who voluntarily quit their
> land and want the rest to follow them!!!
>
> Adib S. Kawar

More Battles

After the War...?
Accounts from a woman in Baghdad Posted Sept. 3,2004
Last night, with another appartment full of visitors, another 6 or 7 mortars or rockets took off and the sirens went off again. We decided that it was a clever tactic of the Mahdi Army. There are no 'on the ground' fighters in Kerrada, so the military cannot really attack the area. By day Kerrada continues as always - you would never guess that at night the area has been used a a launchpad for attacks on the Green Zone. And the BBC is busy report that 'lawless' Sadr City is where the attacks are being launched from. Popycock!!
The Mahdi Army could never hit the Green Zone from Sadr City and they would not even try - what utter rubbish! And we certainly would not hear the bangs or see plumes of smoke from here - Sadr City is around 10 kilometres away. Each night we have heard much more gun fire and more gun battles with return fire than usual - although it is very difficult to say exactly where it is coming from. Yesterday Ali (with the smile) visited us. We were so happy. We had not seen him for 3 or 4 weeks and we have been so worried about him. We did go looking for him, but to no avail. Tha day after we last saw him, he was due to come back and get some new clothes. He did not come. Instead, he had bumped into some old friends who were living in the House of Mercy Childrens' Home in Al Rashad in Bagdad and he went there with them and stayed there. He has his own room, cupboards and lots of clothes and is being fed well. This we can see for ourselves - he has honestly grown taller and, apart from a nice big black eye he had got from crashing into the goalpost while playing football, he looked wonderful. He now worked collecting scarp aluminium by day and the sheikh at the Chidrens' Home collects and saves the money he earns for him and any other child that works. There seems to be more freedom, trust and responsibility for their own actions given to the children here than in Al Wazerya and it seems to suit our Ali well. He could not stop smiling and he wanted nothing, just to see us - he had been to see us several times before, but we had been out. It was fantastic to see him. We asked him how things were in Al Rashad. Ali told us how the House of Mercy was situated next to a US Army Base in Al Rashad. The Mahdi Army was attacking this base nightly with RPGs, mortars and AK47's. Then the Americans would set off flares which stay in the sky lighting up the area for 5 minutes in order to be able to see the Mahdi Army fighters so that they could counter attack. When the flares die, the Mahdi Army attack again and so it goes on and on. Ali said that all the children in the House of Mercy were terrified and were unable to sleep at all. Howza (Islamic Pressure Group) run this childrens' Home and in order to register to live there, a child must first go to Sadr's (Moqtada's deceased father's) office in Sadr City . Ali had been to the office yesterday for something else and had seen 2 US tanks destroyed and burnt out from fighting with the Mahdi Army the night before. When we heard about the curfew in Sadr City , my translator became very concerned about his friends who live there. Some of them work as guards at the Paelstine/Sheraton complex and we wondered how they would be able to leave and return from work if the area was under curfew. Indeed, many of the guards that protect US/coalition interests in Bagdad , are Shia and live in Sadr City . Would these places end up with no guards? So last night Wejdy rang Ali to check if he and other friends were okay. Yes, thankfully, they were - the fighting has not yet reached their area of Sadr City - the area we visited last Monday. And they had not experienced any trouble leaving Sadr City to get to work. As the boys spoke, there was a bang from Kerrada as a rocket was fired off. A second later, Wejdy could hear commotion and shouting from Ali's end of the phone. The checkpoints at the Palestine/Sheraton had come under attack - the rocket we had heard leave had hit the first checkpoint on Abu Newas Street which protects the rear of the Bagdad Hotel - casualties so far unknown. We are very concerned about the safety and well-being of our friends during this trying time. Although they work as guards for the coaltion, they fully support Moqtada Al Sadr and the Mahdi Army.

Fruits and Vegetables on the rise in Iraq

After the War...? Fruits and Vegetables prices rise in Iraq
Accounts from a woman in Baghdad Posted Sept. 3,2004
And we are also concerned about the reports of Iraqi Police and ICDC ( Iraq Civil Defence Corps) being used in the front line against the Resistance in Nagaf, Sadr City and other places. Is this America trying to create tension, strife and civil war - not between Sunni and Shia (that didn't work), but between the Resistance and government/coalition employees? Today we bought some fruit and vegetables, and in yet another example of how the ordinary Iraqi suffers, we found that the recent upsurge in Resistance has caused prices to rise.
Tomatoes, eggplants, onions, grapes and water melons had all gone up in price (and that's just what we checked). Tomatoes and water melons had almost doubled in price from 10 p a kilo to nearly 20 p a kilo. This is because 'Jamila', the main wholesaler for all the food in Bagdad , situated in Sadr City , has had to shut down due to the fighting. The shopkeepers are now having to travel out of Bagdad to Mahmoudya or Yusefia for example (30 and 40 kilometres away respectively) to obtain their wares. The travel and time costs are then passed onto the customer, just as the taxi drivers have to charge more when they end up sitting in a petrol queue for one day a week instead of earning money working. Where will all this end, I don't know? But I feel certain that if America pulled out and went home, the situation would be sure to improve. A Muslim peacekeeping force may work here, but NOT if it works under or with the Americans. If they do this they will become America 's canon fodder - just as the Iraqi men in the Iraqi Police and ICDC are now.

American Administration Behavior in Iraq is...

American Admin Behavior in Iraq is childish and irresponsible!

Viewpoints: A letter from a person living in Iraq (Unedited) The Am Admin proved to be working in Iraq like a group of childish minded unstable group of teen gangesters. The dissolution of the Iraqi army upon the occupation.. The dissolution of the Iraqi police upon the occupation The dissolution of all the Iraqi government establishments which were employing 85% of the workforce in Iraq The inhuman treatment to the Iraqi citizens The hurridly performed random emprisoning of people. Any one who was present near a conflict would be imprisoned. The endless trials to establish conflicts betwen Iraqis. It could work good in Africa, or elsewhere, but it did not work in Iraq. It just caused more troubles to the occupants The Bombing of houses and streets by war planes to destroy any site that is reported to cause problems. This is a simple job that should be carried by police. The propaganda titles like the "Sunni Triangle", never made any credit to the occupants. All these childish actions and more, caused more scorn of the Iraqis to American occupants. The Abu Ghirab events was in fact an end to any good relations with the occupants. The unwise behavior of the Americans in Iraq is going from bad to worse. And all this is causing severe damages to the Iraqi people and country. On the other hand it is causing deep wounds to some American members and families, and it is also ruining any possibility of establishing any good relations between the two nations in the future.

Dual Loyalities

Dual Loyalities
By Eric Walberg
Many readers have written me to express concern about my safety and/or reputation since I have spoken out frankly on the horrible Likud policies of stealing Palestinian lands and brutalizing them with occupation. I'm not a babe in the woods, and I know very well that saying these things is taboo in American political culture. In fact, whenever anyone comes on a cable television news show and is anything but hostile to the Palestinians, he or she is made by the interviewer to denounce terrorism. It is an outrageous implication, and not the job of a news interviewer. But pro-Israeli speakers are never made to denounce land theft or state terror.
I received a very weird phone call from a prominent Jewish-American investigative journalist the other night. He kept muttering about bias against Sharon and how the Israeli security wall is no different from the wall near the Rio Grande (which isn't true: did the US annex Mexican land to build that?) He kept hinting around that he thought I must have some link to some hate group, or to the Ford Foundation, which he coded as linked to "hate groups," which in turn seemed to signify for him Palestinians. It was all very conspiracy theorist oriented. I tried to have a straightforward conversation with him, but it was probably a mistake, since it seems fairly obvious he intends to do some sort of hatchet job. I finally had to end it when his paraphrases of what I said became more and more outrageous and inaccurate. Another journalist named Eli Lake has now begun coming after me, as many readers predicted, using innuendo to suggest that I am to the right of Pat Buchanan and that it is irresponsible of American media outlets to have me on television and radio. One of his charges is that I am accusing the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon of "dual loyalties." That is true, but not in the way Lake imagines. I believe that Doug Feith, for instance, has dual loyalties to the Israeli Likud Party and to the U.S. Republican Party. He thinks that their interests are completely congruent. And I also think that if he has to choose, he will put the interests of the Likud above the interests of the Republican Party. I don't think there is anything a priori wrong with Feith being so devoted to the Likud Party. That is his prerogative. But as an American, I don't want a person with those sentiments to serve as the number 3 man in the Pentagon. I frankly don't trust him to put America first.  Political dual loyalties have nothing to do with any particular ethnicity. It is natural for Armenian Americans to have a special tie to Armenia , for  Greek Americans to have a special tie to Greece , for Iraqi Americans to feel  strongly about Iraq . For them to take pride in the achievements of their  homeland is right an natural, and unexceptionable. There is no reason on the face of it to even bring up their ethnicity with regard to public service. But if a Syrian American is a strong devotee of the Baath Party, would you appoint him Undersecretary of Defense?  The Likud Coalition in Israel does contest elections. But it isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath. The Likud brutally occupies 3 million Palestinians (who don't get to vote for their occupier) and is aggressively taking over their land. That is, it treats at least 3 million people no better than and possibly worse than the Syrian Baath treats its 17 million. The Likud invaded Lebanon in 1982 and killed 18,000 or so people, 9,000 of them innocent civilians. This is, contrary to what Bernard Lewis keeps implying, just about equivalent morally to the Syrian Baath's crushing of the Islamists in Hama the same year, which killed an estimated 10,000. Many in the Likud coalition are commited to "transfer," or the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. At the least they want to keep Palestinians stateless and without basic human rights and dignity. The vast majority of Palestinians has never commited an act of violence, but Likud propaganda justifies their expropriation on the innuendo that they are all terrorists. Likud aggression is invisible in American media, and the way in which it provokes violence is off limits for discussion. So I don't see a big difference between having a fanatical Syrian American Baathist as the number three man in the Pentagon and having a fanatical Jewish American Likudnik. Lake wants to suggest that I am a racist, and that the implication of my argument is that there should be an ethnic litmus test for public office. There is no point in replying to such slurs. Anyone who tries to defend himself from charges of being a racist just looks silly. I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited to the interests of the United States , rather than to the interests of a foreign political party. So my position implies a political litmus test for high public office. And, of course there is such a litmus test. Why bother to have Congress confirm or reject appointees otherwise? Of course, Lake 's salvo is only the first of what will be a campaign to vilify me and misrepresent my views, and to ensure as far as possible that I am silenced. So, why do I do it? It is September 11. It is obvious to me that what September 11 really represented was a dragooning of the United States into internal Middle East political conflicts. Israel 's aggressive policies in the West Bank and Gaza have poisoned the political atmosphere in the Middle East (and increasingly in the Muslim world) for the United States . It is ridiculous to suggest that radical Islamists don't care about the Palestine issue. Now, if it were a matter of Israel 's simple existence causing trouble for the U.S. , then I would say, "Too bad! We stand with our friends, and won't allow you to harm Israel ." But if it is Israeli expansionism and aggression that is causing trouble for the United States , then my response would be to put pressure on Israel to get used to its 1949 borders, which are its only legal ones. Unless the Israeli Palestinian issue is resolved, there will be more September 11s on US soil. So they should resolve it already. And, it is resolvable. If there were a Palestinian state with leaders who would certify that they are happy with Israel , then 99% of Muslims would accept that. It can't be resolved as long as the Likud Party has an aggressive colonialist agenda. It cannot be resolved as long as the United States government is afraid to say "boo" to Ariel Sharon. The taboo erected against saying what I have been saying is a way of ensuring that the Likud gets its way without American interference, even if it means America suffers from the fall-out of Likud aggression. In addition, what the Likud government is doing is ethically wrong. It has put hundreds of thousands of colonists into the West Bank , stealing land, water and resources from the Palestinians there. It has made the Palestinians' lives miserable with a dense network of checkpoints, highways, and other barriers to ordinary commerce and movement. And what possible claim could the Likud have on the West Bank of the Jordan ? The original Zionist colonizers put almost no settlers there. It was not the part of Palestine that the United Nations awarded Israel in the partition plan. The United Nations Charter, to which Israel is a signatory, forbids the acquisition of territory by warfare, so the mere fact that the West Bank was conquered in 1967 gives Israel no rights in it. Sharon and other Likudniks keep demanding that the Arabs "recognize" Israel 's "birthright" to the Holy Land . This language is bizarre. First of all, "peoples" don't have "birthrights" to "land." There are no peoples in the 19th century racist sense, and there is no link between Land und Volk the way the Likud imagines. Israel should be recognized because its people deserve to live like everyone else, not because of any superstitious and frankly racist "birthright." (Population geneticists have shown that the entire human population becomes related over 50 generations, so Isaac and the other Patriarchs are by now the common ancestors of us all. If the birthright is genetic, then it is in everyone by now. If it is based on halakhah or Jewish law, well that didn't exist in Isaac's time. Abraham probably wasn't even really a monotheist in the contemporary sense of the term.) You can't break down taboos unless you challenge them. Of course, there is the danger that if you challenge them, you will be attacked, and destroyed politically or marginalized. Perhaps it is even likely. But our country is in dire danger from the conflicts in the Middle East . If I had been a younger man (I am 51) I would have gone to fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan . The very least I can do is to speak out about the dangers, and urge solutions of the problems generating the terrorism. What good is freedom of speech if we don't use it?

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?

Four More Years in a Bush Whacked Palestine ?
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
Four more years Under a Bush Sponsored And funded Peace negotiation Promises more Israeli Peace barbs Experimental rockets Gasses, bullets Exploding Palestinians Ripped to shreds By Israeli flachette Warhead missiles Over three score Times fifty killed Tens of thousands Wounded over Twenty eight Thousand Made Homeless Farmlands Ground to dust In a wasteland Existence Bleaker than A moonscape Waiting For a rocket Honeymoon Ride to the next World Dismembered Into three parts Gaza is truncated By troops amassed For a dawn raid North and South School children Await execution Of the next atrocity Five weeks to Register to vote In Palestinian Elections may Not be sufficient Time with Palestine Closed for a month Due to Israeli Atonement For transgressions Amassed near the base Of their conscience But unable to penetrate Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom means Peace Promises to rid Palestine (But never say Goodbye) Of its President And Prime Minister In advance Of the election Arafat’s days Are coming To a close In advance Of Israel’s Planned Extinction Of Palestine This could happen Under four more Years of AIPAC Likud Zionist American Rule Want to see?

An Open Letter to Most Americans

You've Lost Your Alibi! By OMAR BARGHOUTI Dear Americans (I am here addressing only those of you who are rationally choosing to prolong the suffering of the human race for 4 more years): Just this past week, Iraqis had the equivalent death toll of 9/11. In fact, they have one every week or two, on average, thanks to your sickening and utterly irrational support for the neo-con gang at the helm of power in Washington. I, and I bet most people around the earth, cannot take it any more! The pictures from Iraq are gruesomely clear: your armed forces are committing awful war crimes, killing Iraqis in a wedding party (1); killing Iraqis dancing around a burnt out Bradley (2); killing Iraqis in custody by beating them to death (3); killing Iraqis sitting in their homes, sleeping on their roofs to escape the heat, or walking down the streets; just killing, butchering with impunity, brutality and nauseating repetitiveness. And when they are not murdering, your proud soldiers are shattering souls and trying to efface human dignity. They torture prisoners with a barbarism that was thought extinct. A 14 year-old was "bleeding from his anus" after your soldiers raped him with a metal object (4). Two more children were terrorized by dogs "for the purposes of a game between the two dog teams to see ... if they could get their bowel or bladder to move."(5) Another child was raped in detention, while older inmates were "ridden like animals" or "forced to eat pork and drink alcohol in contravention of their religion."(6) A teenage girl was "repeatedly raped" by your servicemen, while older female prisoners were paraded "naked in front of male prisoners."(7) Prisoners were put on dog leashes, stripped naked for days on end, severely beaten, bruised, made to lie "in their own faeces."(8) A prisoner was sodomized with a "chemical light," others with a "broom stick."(9) Simply put, Iraqi detainees -- held without due process, without charges or trials -- were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses," as US general Taguba, who investigated the Abu- Ghraib torture, wrote.(10) Your leaders who issue the orders to those soldiers(11), who free them of any obligations before international law (12), and who create the racist environment conducive to their unforgivable behavior, have stopped perceiving Iraqis as humans a while ago. But lately they themselves seem to have lost any semblance of human behavior; they've lost whatever claim to morality or human decency they ever had. And when you mourned the death of more than 1,000 of your fallen soldiers, those brainwashed killing machines, you were apathetic towards the estimated 37,000 Iraqis who were killed (13) as a result of your illegal war and even less legal occupation. Are you still capable of recognizing them as fully human? I hope so, for failing to do so would entail a corresponding failure on your part to recognize the human in yourselves. Your intrinsic human trait of feeling compassion for fellow humans seems to have been deeply corrupted, blunted or tranquillized. We, Arabs and/or Muslims, simply do not show on your radar of relevant humans. You've lost your alibi! In a democracy, the majority deserves no better than the leaders they elect. No better. No worse. You seem to have chosen Bush. You deserve no less a menace to everything humane, civilized or ethical than him. Barring an unforeseeable turn of events, Bush seems to be comfortably heading towards a second term, this time he will not need a mediocre court ruling to instate him; he will democratically win a valid majority of American votes. After four years of having the almost perfect, nearly credible alibi, "we did not really elect him," come November, you shall have to finally look the entire world in the eye and defend why you've chosen as your leader a time-tested racist, ruthless, semi-intelligent, religious fanatic who has committed enough war crimes to warrant being locked up for life at the Hague. I used to wonder how Israelis had lost their patent PR genius when they elected for prime minister Ariel Sharon, their most hideous, certified war criminal who orchestrated the Sabra and Shatila massacre of more than 2,000 Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982. Now it seems you've been infected with the same virus. Your lives are legislated by an Israeli-occupied Congress -- this euphemism is not even funny any longer. Your White House is infested with dual- loyalty characters -- how do you define a 'spy' given such an Israel-first dominated government? And, on top of it all, you are blessed with a president who, in four more years, is liable to turn Sharon, in comparison, to the "man of peace" that he once labelled him. But, unlike Israelis, you genuinely do not give a damn about world opinion. You fail to attach any significance to those beyond your empire's gates. Have you learned anything from history? After November, I assure you, the rest of the world will accuse you of complicity. For four years now, you've enjoyed the world's benefit of the doubt about your intentions, your true moral stance on the crimes committed in your names, your continued, peaceful membership in the community of nations. In November, this goodwill will have expired. You will have lost your alibi. In all likelihood, you shall stand guilty of renewing the mandate of Bush and his militant regime, effectively allowing them to continue battering, pillaging, ruining, dividing and hating the world, while erasing whatever is left of your civil and economic rights on their way. You've chosen that path, no question about it. But then again, you did not have much of a choice, really, given that other plastic, spineless, lobby-corrupted and just mildly less immoral candidate. No one envies you for such a choice between a witless yet ruthless emperor and a clinically confused emperor-to-be. Isn't it utterly pathetic that a major subject of competition between the two is military service in Vietnam? Vietnam was without doubt a solid case of genocide. Your leaders ought to be ashamed of, not to mention put on trial at the International Criminal Court for, having anything to do with it. That is probably Bush's only moral bright spot: that he was too much of a coward to actually take part in your savagery against the Vietnamese, another sub-human species from your perspective at the time. Imagine German candidates for Chancellor competing on who participated more actively in the Holocaust! Nevertheless, I want to make myself perfectly clear about how I think the world should treat you after November. I am categorically opposed to terrorism in any shape or form, regardless whether it comes from your government -- as is the case most of the time -- or from any of your many victims seeking revenge. Terrorism is criminal, immoral and illegal, period. Rather than seeking justice and redress, it is a fundamental transgression against the essence of being human, and, therefore, is never justifiable, irrespective of the context, as important as the latter might be in understanding its root causes. You chose empire. You are therefore guilty by association or by being an accessory to crime. However, most of you are to be blamed more for ignorance than for conscious participation in premeditated crime. One is obliged to differentiate between conscious builders of empire and the unconscious majority that is spirited along. Empire will never serve most of you, unless you are in the oil business, the military industries, the Israel-first lobby, etc. Did German workers gain anything by supporting Hitler? Did Italian masses benefit from standing firmly behind Mussolini? But, in a democracy, the responsibility for ignorance ultimately falls upon the shoulders of its citizens. You are responsible for suffering under a silly, periodic exchange of power between two versions of the same anachronistic, stupefying, comic and hubris-filled circus: the Republican and the Democratic "parties." They are parties alright, and very raunchy at that! You remain the world's greatest democracy, not a third-world junta-controlled tyranny, as much as one is tempted to believe otherwise, of late. No one can forever suppress your right to establish alternative political parties that represent your diverse interests if you have the will to exercise that right. Despite that, moral consistency necessitates distinguishing between you, the voters for and enablers of empire, whether conscious or not, and the significant minority of Americans who have opposed it. And pragmatically speaking, this is not any minority. This is the only remaining hope that empire will one day be defeated. We all know that our chances of success in our resistance to empire are slim without the courageous support of progressive Americans. Based on the above moral and political considerations, the world outside empire will be urgently called for after November -- after your emperor defies law, logic and ethics to sit again in the oval office -- to initiate or enhance already existing international campaigns of boycotts and sanctions against your industries, especially the weapons sector, and against your militaristic cultural products, such as G.I. Joe-type toys, RAMBO-like movies, your death- emanating "music," your racist video games, your health-busting sodas, cigarettes and fast "food," your genetically modified craze, your IT monopolies, etc. The United Nations ought to be moved soon to any neutral city, perhaps Stockholm or Durban. Investments should be withdrawn from your global finance machine and reinvested in China, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, India, just any place outside the immediate grasp of empire. Oil should be sold in a combined basket of currencies (as has been suggested by some analysts lately), where the dollar gradually loses its untouchable prominence. Governments should be most pressured to avoid buying your weapons -- perhaps they'll do well not to buy any weapons! Let those gigantic manufacturers of death go to hell to sell their firepower. Bright minds should seek education anywhere outside your borders. After all, in four years' time, Orwell would be horrified by the controls and intrusive watch mechanisms Uncle Sam will have deployed over them. It is high time for a reverse brain drain. The world ought to exact a just, legal and morally sound punishment against you. That's how hoodwinked, obedient subjects of empires learn to question authority, to challenge arrogant xenophobia, to reject relative humanization of the rest of the world, and to jealously guard their rights in harmony with international law and universal moral principles. It is a cold shower of sorts, if you will. Perhaps you shall need four more years of Bush to wake up and smell the injustice, to see through the dense fog that has clouded your vision and your moral compass alike. I do not say this lightly, I must add, as I can only guess in unreserved horror what price the rest of us will be made to pay for you to have this soul-searching four-year experience. It will feel like an eternity to Palestinians suffering under Israeli apartheid and colonial oppression; to Iraqis praying for your smart bombs to miss them; to Africans still struggling to escape the historic legacy of slavery manifested in AIDS, abject poverty and despondency; to Latin Americans dreaming of life without your well oiled juntas, death squads and economic mafias; to south Asians striving to escape the grinding axe of your inhumane globalization; to those Europeans who are hoping to shed their colonial heritage, to fight the reemerging national chauvinism in their midst and to promote a dialogue of civilizations; to most Americans who are losing their livelihoods, their children's education, even the remnants of their already abhorrent health services. Rather than finding another alibi, please take a stand against empire. Make this coming sacrifice worth our collective while. ___________________ (1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3741223.stm,  http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524671  (2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303127,00.html  (3) http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact  (4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1304042,00.html  (5) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1291089,00.html  (6) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=523724  (7) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1308346,00.html  (8) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303296,00.html  (9) http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact  (10) Ibid (11) http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1303105,00.html  (12) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1303296,00.html  (13) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=563620  Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian political analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms" was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian. He can be reached at: jenna@palnet.com

A song to my brother

Song to my Brother
Tanya C. Hsu   2002
Do you remember When we first played together? When you first came to our land? We welcomed you We lived in peace.
We played together   We grew up together   We tilled the soil and shared our food.   We sang our songs.   Three thousand years we lived not as neighbours   But as brothers who sang to a different tune.   And then your foreign cousin came to stay.   He bullied your friends   He demanded our land.   He said he was staying because he had been picked on at home.   So he picked on us.   Then he said that he must be on our land because God told him it was so.   I told him that God spoke to me too   But this was news to me - please explain.   Your cousin said it was not necessary to tell me more   Because he was Chosen   And that was enough.   So I gently asked him to please leave now   Because I am at peace with my God and do not want to debate you   Or invite you back to force your God on me.   He said no. I am Chosen and that is that.   Please go now, I replied, and stay with your cousins.   There aren't many left, he replied, so what does it matter?   Politely I begged of him, please leave my land.   I think I will stay forever, he said,   They don't want me anywhere else.   I wonder why, I thought. I extended my hand and I gave him my bread.   He took it and kicked sand in my face.   I asked you, my lifelong friend, why your cousin was behaving so badly   No one likes him, you explained.   He is staying here now. Will he live with you, was my question to you,   And you said that you hoped not, because your God is loving   Your cousin is demanding.   He is political.   He inflicts pain.   Your cousin took my bread and hurt me, I said.   He will be back for more.   But I did not ask him.   Ah, you told me, but he thinks he has the Right of Return.   He can bring his brothers and take your bread at will.   And your land.   And your crops.   And your water.   Be careful.   The grey cloud above became heavy and black   And lightning struck down   And marked a line in the sand   Between you, my lifelong friend, and me.   Your cousin laughed in the distance.   He came back.   And he took my land, my crops, and my water.   Then he took my home.   And then he tried to take my dignity.   He demanded I leave   Because he was growing fatter and needed more room   To grow.   I had nowhere to go.   I did not want to live with my aunts and uncles   As they liked different songs and ate different foods   Their flowers were of a different perfume   And they had their own children. I asked the Wise Men and Elders to decide.   They told me to be a good son, and share.   God will reward.   So I went back   To the big foreign boy   Asked for my land back   And said we should share the crops, the water, the food. But he kicked me again   And laughed   And curled his angry fist in to a ball   And pushed it in to my face.   So I picked up a stick.   When I was down, he kicked me.   So I picked up a stone.   He ran away.   Peace?   The next day he returned with a gun   So I picked up a rock.   He ran away.   Peace?   Then he returned with his friends   Who carried missiles upon their shoulders.   So I found a gun.   They ran away in tears and cried to their Elders, their aunts, their  uncles.   He said that I hated him and told him to fall in to the sea.   I went to my Elders and said   Why does he hate me?   Why does he think I want him to drown in the sea?   I shared my bread with him   I just want him to move away from my house.   The Elders talked and agreed that   The big foreign boy must take his foot   Off my land now   And they left. But your cousin did not.   He put both feet on my land instead   And pointed to the sky.   He grinned as his new toy circled above   The jet with the bomb hanging low   Looking for me.   I cannot move.   If I move my foot away from this land   I will lose my home. I will lose the breath of my ancestors   Who worked the soil with their hands   Their sweat   Their tears   Their joy   Their bones   Their souls.   And now I am surrounded by your cousin and his friends   Who are angry and hungry   Tanks, rifles and jets   Shadow the olive trees.   So I put down the stick.   I put down the stone.   I put down the rock.   I rest the gun. But I will not move my feet from my soil.