Tadbit
03-22-2003, 02:21 PM
I got this in an email. These are not by any means, my words but I found it interesting to read and see anothers point of view. Just thought I would share it with anyone who would like to read it.
Letter from an Iraqi-American
All,
Before anybody decides to go out and join more protests, maybe it would be fair to provide an alternate view. I, as you may have gleaned, am an Iraqi-American. Actually Assyrian-Iraqi-American. Most of my family was in Baghdad during the first Gulf War--some were in Kuwait. My aunt Margaret tells me that during that war, they would wait until night and go sit on the rooftops and cheer the bombing. The American attacks were so concise, she said that they would bet on which government or utilities building would be hit, and were more often than not correct. Civilian targets were always accidental. Think about it: what military objective would be served by hitting a civilian hospital, when the opposing army is surrendering en masse (not fighting and getting injured)?
For the last six months on al-Jazeera television, Iraqi defectors have been appearing on talk shows begging--literally, begging--the other Arab nations to support the US in this war, to finally free the Iraqi people. Without fail, their counterparts from other nations stated that they preferred Hussein to the USA.
Here are some figures. Since taking power officially in 1978 (although he was the functional leader since 1971), Hussein has executed somewhere in the range of 3m political prisoners. He launched chemical weapons against Assyrians and Kurds in the North. He drained the marshes in the south,which the Shi'ites need to survive, causing a "famine-on-purpose" in the style of what Stalin did to Ukraine in the 30s. Every day in Iraq, 2,500 children die from malnutrition and lack of medicine, because Hussein has been kicking out UN (not US) inspectors for 11 years. Two thousand five hundred children die every day. So do not dare, for one instant, to protest this war on behalf of the Iraqi people. To do so is to spit in the face of the millions of people who yearn for freedom from his regime. Hussein is not Castro.
Uday Hussein, his son, is the head of athletics in Iraq. He owns a football club. For years, whenever they wouldn't perform to expectations, he would bring them to his personal prison and torture them ruthlessly. He maintained a harem of hundreds of women whom he would rape, defile, and murder. The few hundred Iraqi civilians who may die in the bombing raids are a pittance compared to the millions Hussein has killed as well as the appalling number of children who die every day due to his arms program stubborn-ness. How many more can die so a bunch of addle-brained do-gooders can get on TV waving placards?
It is hypocritical and worse irrational to oppose this war on behalf of the Iraqi people. They don't know the desires of the Iraqi people, or the apalling suffering of the Iraqi people. The only reason to protest the war would be because you are opposed to any and all war, opposed to sending US troops anywhere, ever. In which case kudos to you, I suppose, for returning to the turn-of-the-century style isolationism that indirectly lead to the horrific casualties of World War I and II. The world depends on superpowers to lend coercive power to international regimes.
The best are those signs that say, "No Iraqi Blood for Oil." How about,"No More Iraqi Blood for French Interests," since the French opposed this war solely because they have hundreds of billions of dollars tied up with the Iraqi regime, money they will lose if Hussein is oustered because international regimes stipulate that a nation is not responsible for the debts of a deposed, illegitimate regime. The same goes for the Russians and Germans. The Russians have invested billions in Iraq's nuclear program.
And to answer those who argue that the US is only engendering more hate among out European allies: Whose fault is that? Ours? Bush is an inept, almost moronic leader who angered many when he imposed a steel tariff, pulled out of the Kyoto protocol, and so forth. But in this case, the US is trying to remove an unpopular, ruthless, Stalin-esque dictator and free a nation of people who live every day in terror (see Samir al-Khalil's book "Republic of Fear"). Should we allow him to continue to kill ruthlessly so that the French will like us? Keep in mind that Chirac is a Gaullist, and like a true Gaullist, his opposition to the United States is not predicated on any ideal, but rather on the desire to enhance French prestige--as the "alternative" to the US.
Oh, the protestors are so cute with their "F**k Bush" signs and slogans and thrift-store clothes and un-informed opinions about international
politics.
However they are also wrong, dead wrong. There is nothing more painful for people with real experience of the Iraqi regime than to see young kids mugging for television cameras and their peers, waving signs that purport to support the Iraqi people. It is truly painful to see that when the victory of the Iraqi people is so close at hand, a group of pseudo-intellectuals prefer playing pretend--pretending to be politicos--to rejoicing with us and supporting the liberation of a nation of 22 million. Protest this war and you are naive, willfully ignorant, or enraptured by yourself and your "fight for freedom."
Foul; base; cruel; evil; wicked; vain; these are the only words that can describe you.
yours all
*Name removed fearing more harrasment.*
Letter from an Iraqi-American
All,
Before anybody decides to go out and join more protests, maybe it would be fair to provide an alternate view. I, as you may have gleaned, am an Iraqi-American. Actually Assyrian-Iraqi-American. Most of my family was in Baghdad during the first Gulf War--some were in Kuwait. My aunt Margaret tells me that during that war, they would wait until night and go sit on the rooftops and cheer the bombing. The American attacks were so concise, she said that they would bet on which government or utilities building would be hit, and were more often than not correct. Civilian targets were always accidental. Think about it: what military objective would be served by hitting a civilian hospital, when the opposing army is surrendering en masse (not fighting and getting injured)?
For the last six months on al-Jazeera television, Iraqi defectors have been appearing on talk shows begging--literally, begging--the other Arab nations to support the US in this war, to finally free the Iraqi people. Without fail, their counterparts from other nations stated that they preferred Hussein to the USA.
Here are some figures. Since taking power officially in 1978 (although he was the functional leader since 1971), Hussein has executed somewhere in the range of 3m political prisoners. He launched chemical weapons against Assyrians and Kurds in the North. He drained the marshes in the south,which the Shi'ites need to survive, causing a "famine-on-purpose" in the style of what Stalin did to Ukraine in the 30s. Every day in Iraq, 2,500 children die from malnutrition and lack of medicine, because Hussein has been kicking out UN (not US) inspectors for 11 years. Two thousand five hundred children die every day. So do not dare, for one instant, to protest this war on behalf of the Iraqi people. To do so is to spit in the face of the millions of people who yearn for freedom from his regime. Hussein is not Castro.
Uday Hussein, his son, is the head of athletics in Iraq. He owns a football club. For years, whenever they wouldn't perform to expectations, he would bring them to his personal prison and torture them ruthlessly. He maintained a harem of hundreds of women whom he would rape, defile, and murder. The few hundred Iraqi civilians who may die in the bombing raids are a pittance compared to the millions Hussein has killed as well as the appalling number of children who die every day due to his arms program stubborn-ness. How many more can die so a bunch of addle-brained do-gooders can get on TV waving placards?
It is hypocritical and worse irrational to oppose this war on behalf of the Iraqi people. They don't know the desires of the Iraqi people, or the apalling suffering of the Iraqi people. The only reason to protest the war would be because you are opposed to any and all war, opposed to sending US troops anywhere, ever. In which case kudos to you, I suppose, for returning to the turn-of-the-century style isolationism that indirectly lead to the horrific casualties of World War I and II. The world depends on superpowers to lend coercive power to international regimes.
The best are those signs that say, "No Iraqi Blood for Oil." How about,"No More Iraqi Blood for French Interests," since the French opposed this war solely because they have hundreds of billions of dollars tied up with the Iraqi regime, money they will lose if Hussein is oustered because international regimes stipulate that a nation is not responsible for the debts of a deposed, illegitimate regime. The same goes for the Russians and Germans. The Russians have invested billions in Iraq's nuclear program.
And to answer those who argue that the US is only engendering more hate among out European allies: Whose fault is that? Ours? Bush is an inept, almost moronic leader who angered many when he imposed a steel tariff, pulled out of the Kyoto protocol, and so forth. But in this case, the US is trying to remove an unpopular, ruthless, Stalin-esque dictator and free a nation of people who live every day in terror (see Samir al-Khalil's book "Republic of Fear"). Should we allow him to continue to kill ruthlessly so that the French will like us? Keep in mind that Chirac is a Gaullist, and like a true Gaullist, his opposition to the United States is not predicated on any ideal, but rather on the desire to enhance French prestige--as the "alternative" to the US.
Oh, the protestors are so cute with their "F**k Bush" signs and slogans and thrift-store clothes and un-informed opinions about international
politics.
However they are also wrong, dead wrong. There is nothing more painful for people with real experience of the Iraqi regime than to see young kids mugging for television cameras and their peers, waving signs that purport to support the Iraqi people. It is truly painful to see that when the victory of the Iraqi people is so close at hand, a group of pseudo-intellectuals prefer playing pretend--pretending to be politicos--to rejoicing with us and supporting the liberation of a nation of 22 million. Protest this war and you are naive, willfully ignorant, or enraptured by yourself and your "fight for freedom."
Foul; base; cruel; evil; wicked; vain; these are the only words that can describe you.
yours all
*Name removed fearing more harrasment.*