posted on February 3, 2003 07:39:05 AM new
Damned For The Wrong Choice!
WAR
Make sure you’re right!
Go forth and kill and pillage.
Take what you want.
After long and drawn out debate it seems obvious that at least the majority of AW members that frequently post on Round Table, do actually support a war with Iraq.
Their reasons have only just begun to be revealed by their admissions of self interest, and its past the point of telling LIES about wishing to Liberate the people of Iraq, and it’s a straight up admission of greed but with a claim of patriotism.
Your God will judge you!
If God's Judjement doesn't scare you, then perhaps you should wish that the richest fighter wins.
As I’m sure there ain’t too many lap tops reading this from Afghanistan.
Kiss your loved ones tonight, because soon they may not be able to see you or anything.
There's oil in them hills.
C’mon Bush, Howard and Blair, Bring on the Dogs Of WAR.
posted on February 3, 2003 08:16:08 AM new
Bear, What other tales but "doom, darkness and distress" can be told about war? Let's see,,,,Death of babies, women and men, both civilians and soldiers - both Iraqis and Americans. There will be hunger, thirst without water, illness without medicine, pain without medication...All because George Bush is a man who thinks and acts based on his "gut feelings" Sometimes, based on your posts, I believe that you resemble him.
posted on February 3, 2003 08:43:27 AM new
Helen.....Speaking as one who has been there, "War is Hell". No one who has been involved in an armed conflict WANTS to see it again. At times it is necessary to prevent a greater evil.
As for the remark about President Bush, thanks, I take it as a complement. I believe in him 100% on his stand on Iraq. And apparently so does the majority of our NATO allies, (France & Germany excluded)
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The Op-Ed Alliance The Wall Street Journal stands accused of committing journalism. We plead guilty.
Monday, February 3, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
The statement we published last week from eight European leaders in support of U.S. Iraq policy has caused much consternation, especially in France and Germany but also among American media ethicists. How delightful, and instructive.
Our sin seems to be that we assisted in exposing as fraudulent the conventional wisdom that France and Germany speak for all of Europe, and that all of Europe is now anti-American. Those ideas were always false, but they were peddled as true because they served the political purposes of those, both in Europe and America, who oppose President Bush on Iraq.
The notion that France and Germany speak for all of Europe is especially absurd, akin to assuming that New York City and Washington, D.C., speak for all of America. Down in the polls, German leader Gerhard Schröder barely speaks for a majority in his own country. The fact that France's Jacques Chirac threw him some anti-American political cover is news, but still a dog-bites-man story of Gallic hauteur. The vote in NATO on helping the U.S. in Iraq was after all 15-4 in favor, with the other opponents being the global powers of Belgium and Luxembourg.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003021
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The following is a note from a Gulf War vet, that I totally agree with.
The Case for Knocking the Snot Outta Him
"Yes, I feel sorry for the Iraqis. Their leader is a tyrant who is denying them the adequate food, jobs, and freedom they deserve. The state media are all controlled. There are no civil liberties as we know them. The crime of THEFT is punishable by DEATH. When you get arrested they don't read you your rights because you haven't any. The economy is paralyzed because Saddam won't comply with U.N. resolutions dating back to 1991.
"Never mind that Saddam's first job was as an assassin. Never mind that he participated in the attempted assassination of Iraqi leader Abdul Karim Kassem in 1959. Never mind that he staged a coup and removed his predecessor at gun point. Never mind that in 1987 and Iraqi jet launched two French-built EXOCET missiles, hitting the U.S. Navy frigate USS STARK and killing 37 American sailors. Only the heroic action of the crew saved the ship. Iraq said, 'Oops, sorry,' and we let him off the hook.
"Never mind that Saddam waged an eight-year war with Iran. He killed about
90 percent of the prisoners his army captured. Never mind that we know Saddam has trained terrorists and that terrorists with medical needs go to Baghdad for free treatment. Never mind that he killed hundreds of innocent civilians, the Kurds. . . . Saddam attempted to eliminate the entire tribe, men, women and children, with chemical weapons.
"...In August 1990, Saddam staged a completely unprovoked attack on his neighbor, Kuwait. . . . The Iraqi Army raped and pillaged its way across Kuwait. Thousands of Kuwaitis are still unaccounted for. We think they are all dead.
"When faced with war in 1991, from a coalition of allies south of Iraq, Saddam attacked Israel with SCUD missiles. This too was an unprovoked attack upon a helpless bystander. Saddam knew the president of the United States had persuaded Israel to stay out of the war.
"...The president of the United States is right: Saddam must go. Even if the U.S. needs to act unilaterally. . . . Saddam, as he now stands, poses the imminent threat. To America. To her neighbors, like Israel and Kuwait. And other freedom-loving nations. Iraq poses a clear and present danger. Saddam can place weapons of mass destruction on any doorstep. At any time. And that is intolerable."
- Desert Storm veteran John E. Carey, Washington Times, 2/2/03
Attack Australia?
Why would we do that?, the majority of the people (with SOME exceptions) use common sense when speaking. Others just talk just to hear themselves.
posted on February 3, 2003 10:02:31 AM new
Bear, I can't imagine a "greater evil" than a possible World war that could be prevented. There is no doubt that this is a war fought in order to achieve power and oil for the Bush administration.
We don't fight wars for the reasons stated in the Washington Times article by the Gulf War Vet.
We don't fight wars because we disagree with the leader of a country or because we feel that he is an unscrupulous man or we disagree with his criminal justice system.
We don't fight wars because countries engage in terrorism against their neighbors. We have engaged in a good amount of terrorism ourselves. Israel and Palestine are both engaged in terrorism right now.
We don't fight wars because a small country has nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. Although I agree that it's a good idea to keep such weapons under control, none has been found in Iraq. There is a bigger threat from Korea, for example, if Bush refuses to negotiate.
Israel has nuclear weapons and when Saddams back is to the wall, guess what's going to happen in that arena?. Pakistan is yet another unstable country with nuclear weapons ready to fire. BUT, Bush is scrounging around with Iraq? THAT, bear, is because Bush wants oil and power.
Saddam does not pose an "imminent threat" as your fellow states. Saddam will only pose a threat to their neighbors, if they are attacked by George Bush.
Bush is the guy that's "intolerable".
He whips up support with tax cuts. Saddam whips up support with food for the poor according to this writer.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 2 -- Once a month, Esther Yawo strolls to a neighborhood market to pick up groceries for her family of five. She usually returns with 180 pounds of flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil, white beans, chickpeas and tea, plus 16 bars of soap.
Total price: 60 cents.
In a colossal exercise in public welfare and social control, President Saddam Hussein's government distributes the same monthly provisions at the same low price across Iraq, a country of 26 million people. The handouts have kept food on the table for the Yawos and most other Iraqi families, who can no longer afford to purchase wheat, rice and other staples at market prices because of debilitating U.N. economic sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
posted on February 3, 2003 11:52:33 AM new
Helen, I respect your views as you present a calm rational thought process to your protest. But forgive me if I beg to differ.
I believe that what Saadam is doing is a front in an attempt to gain world sympathy. It isn't working for me.
Please read the following recount of an Iraqi citizen about the treatment of those citizens.
As war with Iraq draws closer, commentators, journalists, and policymakers frequently question whether the Iraqi people would really support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But that question has already been answered. Although Americans remember the Gulf war, many do not realize that, for a few momentous days immediately after it, much of Iraq rose up in open rebellion against Saddam's regime. In fact, 15 out of 18 Iraqi provinces rebelled. I was one of the rebels.
For over a decade, I have stayed silent about what I saw. But now, as the world considers freeing Iraq from Saddam's rule, I feel compelled to bear witness to the last time Iraqis tried to liberate their country.
In February 1991, I was living with my grandparents in Karbala, a city of roughly 350,000 an hour southwest of Baghdad. The Gulf war was raging, and my family and I often listened to Voice of America for news free of Iraqi-government control. We heard President George H.W. Bush repeatedly assure us that if the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam, the United States stood ready to help them. "There's another way for the bloodshed to stop," Bush had said, "and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." I was excited by Bush's words, but, after two decades of living under the brutal rule of Saddam's Baath Party, it was impossible for me to imagine we would ever be liberated. Even though millions of Iraqis dreamed of overthrowing Saddam, we were afraid to speak about it and doubted anyone would ever come to help us. I felt the world had abandoned us.
If an uprising was going to break out, I thought, it certainly wasn't going to be in Karbala, where security was unusually tight, even for a police state. Saddam had special reason to worry about Karbala. For centuries, Karbala has been a sacred place for Shiite Muslims, who are largely shut out from the upper levels of Iraq's secular, Sunni-dominated regime. Karbala is home to two sacred shrines that honor two of the key figures in Shiite history, Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas; many elderly Shiites retire to Karbala to spend the last years of their lives as "neighbors" to Imam Hussein before being buried in one of the city's vast cemeteries. Because of the shrines, Iran refrained from bombing Karbala during its war with Iraq, a decision that only made Saddam more suspicious of Karbala residents.
Because of the city's large percentage of Shiites, the Iraqi government has used every method possible to demonstrate its control of Karbala. Every year, on the anniversary of Imam Hussein's martyrdom, Shiites observe ten days of mourning; during this period, Shiites perform the Aza, a passion play that depicts events leading up to the imam's murder. When Saddam came to power, he banned public performances of the Aza. Saddam also left his mark on the shrines honoring Imam Hussein and Abbas, which were infiltrated by the secret police. Built around their two graves, the shrines were once elaborate constructions topped with golden domes, but now the gold tiles have been removed and replaced with counterfeit metal. Although the shrines remained open to worshippers, when I would visit them I saw rooms within the buildings that had been used by secret police for interrogation--signs the police were prepared to clamp down hard on any Shiite agitation.
Even by Iraqi standards, Karbala was claustrophobic--in Karbala, even more than in the rest of Iraq, you learned not to trust anyone. Though the secret police set up shop in the two shrines, they had a pervasive presence in all parts of the city. The city crawled with informers. Anyone you met--in the streets, in school, at the mosques--might be an agent of the secret police, whose ranks ranged from teenage boys to elderly grandmothers. At my high school, I felt enormous pressure to join Saddam's Baath Party. I was not allowed to receive my high school diploma unless I signed up for the party. I refused because I didn't want my name associated in any way with Saddam's crimes. The high school officials denied me my diploma and forced me to sign a document stating that if I joined any other political party, the regime had the right to kill me. This document was added to my school file, and I thereafter tried to keep a low profile because I felt informers were watching me.
n March 1, 1991, I was fasting and praying with other women in the shrine of Imam Hussein. That day, I was reading prayers for illiterate women, a custom I had performed since childhood. Suddenly, a woman ran into the mosque and announced, "Our army has pulled out of Kuwait."
I burst into tears--not out of regret for the Iraqi army, but because I had hoped Saddam's regime might fall while most of his military was in Kuwait. During the Gulf war, we frequently saw young men in the street who had deserted the Iraqi army in Kuwait and returned to their hometown. Now, I worried, with the war over, there would be less reason for people to desert the army, and the elite Republican Guard would return and increase Saddam's control over the country. My hopes of freedom seemed to fade.
I was still crying when I left the shrine. I was turning 20 the next day, and I suddenly understood that I had no future in Iraq. As long as Saddam ruled, I could not live as a free person. I had no diploma, I couldn't speak openly about my political and religious beliefs, and my relatives could--and did--disappear at any given minute. Iraq under Saddam was a dead end.
I cried all the way home. People stared at me on the street as tears soaked my hijab. It may be hard for non-Iraqis to understand why I was so distraught, why I could not imagine continuing to live under Saddam's rule. But the years of war with Iran, Kuwait, and now the United States and its allies, coupled with Saddam's brutal war against his own people, had sucked the life out of me. And the news that the army would be returning from Kuwait intact meant that my limited hope for freedom was now crushed.
Imam Hussein's shrine had always been my place of comfort, and, on March
3, I went back to pray. Walking along Shara'a Al Abbas, Karbala's main street, I noticed that the mood was tense. The street was filled with more secret police than usual. They stood around and talked nervously.
Afternoon prayers that day in Imam Hussein's shrine lasted only one hour, and then the soldiers immediately kicked us out. I had never seen the shrine shut down like this--the tension in Karbala was rising fast. As I left the shrine, I saw a tank and machine guns stationed in the center of the city. The moment I returned home, I tuned in to the Voice of Free Iraq, an opposition radio station that had started broadcasting out of Cyprus in January 1991, and learned that an uprising had started in Basra and spread north and east to the cities along the Iranian border. Evidently, people across Iraq had decided that now was the time to act, before all the troops could return from Kuwait. Here was a window to make a difference, while Saddam's army was still in retreat and the president of the United States was promising support. "This is amazing," I thought. "Will our turn ever come?"
wo days later, on March 5, as I was having breakfast, our neighbor Umali came to see us. Umali's family was originally from Iran, and, although Saddam had expelled many people we thought were of Iranian origin years earlier, she had paid a bribe to continue living in Karbala. "They are coming!" she told me. "Who?" I asked. "The uprising fighters. They have already liberated Basra and Najaf, and now they are coming to Karbala." I didn't know who exactly these fighters were, but, as I would later see with my own eyes, they were a loose coalition of regular Iraqis of all backgrounds--soldiers who had deserted, high school students, and older people who could still remember a time before Baath Party rule--who had risen up with little organization and now were moving across the area.
I jumped up and ran outside. The streets were filled with troops, secret police, and heavy weaponry. Guns were drawn. Soldiers were shouting into loudspeakers, ordering everyone to return to their houses and shut their doors. To my surprise, dozens of young men were defying the soldiers and urging people to remain outside.
When I returned home to change into pants and boots, my grandfather tried to stop me from leaving. "Come back!" he shouted at me. "Don't do this. This will not take you anywhere." My grandfather survived decades of Iraq's internal battles by refusing to get involved in politics. He knew that what was about to happen could lead to a bad ending.
Overcome with anger, I told myself that I had a choice. By joining the young men, I could show I wanted to live as a free person. A rebellion had begun in Karbala, and I made a conscious decision to be a part of it. As I left the house, I saw groups of men, mostly local Shiites, who had heard of the uprising in Basra and gathered in Karbala to join the rebellion. Many were teenagers, and they carried whatever they could find--sticks, axes, knives, even curtain rods. A few had guns. "God is great!" they shouted. "We swear by God, we will never forget [Imam] Hussein!"
I was the only woman in the street, surrounded by mobs of men. "Who are you?" they asked me. "What are you doing here? This isn't your place." "This is my fight, too," I told them. "I am with you."
With makeshift weapons and our own bodies, we began to confront the Iraqi soldiers who had entered the town in recent days yet who were already weakened by weeks of allied bombing, desertions, and the army's withdrawal from Kuwait. The soldiers started firing on the crowd--the first time I had ever seen live shooting. Caught up in the frenzy of noise and excitement, I didn't run for cover. Instead, I kept shouting along with the others, "Down with Saddam!" Years of anger within me came pouring out.
Even with its guns, the army was no match for us that day. The angry crowds surged toward the soldiers' trucks and jeeps despite the rain of bullets. They swarmed en masse all over the military's vehicles and forced the troops out of their cars so that the soldiers could not possibly shoot at all the waves of rebels. Many soldiers threw down their weapons and ran off down the street, chased by the crowd. Many were caught and some were beaten; most who were captured were taken to the Imam Hussein shrine, which became a makeshift headquarters for the rebels and a detention center for army troops. I saw one older soldier who escaped the crowds banging on my neighbor's door, crying. He asked to be hidden or at least given some civilian clothes that might save him.
With the army on the run, it became easier for us to get weapons. During the Gulf war, Saddam had stored many of his weapons in places the United States and its allies would never dare bomb: elementary and high schools. Guards who used to work at the schools began emptying the school storage rooms and passing us everything from Kalashnikov rifles to grenade launchers. The guns would be necessary: Though many of the soldiers had run off, I saw that some were still putting up resistance to the rebels, and they were increasingly joined by Baath Party civilian militias and members of the town's secret police. For the Baath members and the secret police, their existence depended on Saddam staying in power, so they holed up inside Karbala's city hall and other municipal buildings and fired into the crowds in the street, maiming and killing as many people as they could. Later that night, many attempted to flee but were killed or captured by the rebels.
By late afternoon on March 5, when the situation had calmed down a little, I returned home. My grandmother had been worried sick about me, but I told her not to worry. "If I live, I want to live in freedom," I said. "Otherwise, why bother?" "But," she argued with me, "none of this is organized!" I responded passionately, "Remember what President Bush said? If we rise up against Saddam, the Americans will help us."
I felt this was an historic moment for the Iraqi people, and I wanted to record it. So I grabbed my family's camcorder and started filming the scene in the streets, where people were dancing and shouting in celebration after many of the troops retreated. Cars honked, people handed out sweets, and women and children hugged and kissed. Walking around with the camcorder, I felt as if I were taping an enormous wedding celebration. Despite the joy, there were many people who had been killed and injured in the initial rush at the army troops. Wounded rebels, army soldiers, and Baath Party members lay in the streets. I told people to carry two of the injured men back to a mosque my family ran. But my grandfather, who wanted no part of the uprising, had taken the keys so that no one could bring the wounded inside. I went into our house, entered the mosque through a back passage, and opened the building's big blue doors. As they swung open, a crowd of what seemed to be hundreds of people rushed in, many limping because of their wounds. With the few supplies we had, we administered first aid. Some people suffered from severe chest and leg wounds and needed to go to the hospital, but nobody dared to drive in the midst of the persistent shooting.
s night fell and the city grew quiet, a great fear set in--a fear fostered by years of living in Iraq. We wondered who in the mosque was really with us and who was against us. Would someone burst into the mosque and try to kill us? Would someone amongst us turn on the group and inform the Baath Party members and other people allied with Saddam where we were? Most of us were strangers to each other. Some of the people in our group, of course, had worked for the secret police--with so many Iraqis in one room, some would have worked for the security services. I treated one secret policeman, Naji, who was shaking with fright as I touched him. He was convinced we were going to kill him as we tried to wrap his wounds. "Don't be scared," we told him. "We are not like you." Naji had expected us to act just like the Baath police. "May God protect you," he sighed in relief.
That night, I mobilized our family's servants to cook food, help clean up the blood in the mosque, and put out mattresses. I ran into the house, got pillows, and ripped the cotton out of them, which we used to dress the wounds.
All this time, my grandfather stayed in the house. Sometimes he would bang lightly on the mosque door and whisper, "Make them leave. This will be bad for you. Saddam will come back." What he was saying was logical, given Iraq's history, but I didn't want to listen. I was exulting in what I thought was a moment of freedom, and I pretended not to hear him and continued helping the wounded. Eventually he ignored us, and, when things got quieter, I sat with other members of the group in the prayer hall of the mosque while each person told his or her history. Soon we were telling jokes we recalled from the Voice of Free Iraq.
It may not sound dramatic, but talking together openly was a completely new experience for us. For years we had lived in a society of informers, where nobody could be trusted. Now, we were getting to know each other for the first time.
That first night of the uprising was the first time I ever saw Iraqis reveal themselves to one another and talk openly about who we were and what had happened to us and our families. Our neighbor, Said, a former army general, told us he had been jailed for ten years for refusing to join the Baath Party while he was in the military. I was shocked to find out he'd been in prison; I had always thought of him merely as our strange, aloof neighbor. Two of the injured men, Sami and Hazam, recounted their experiences. Years before, Sami had been jailed for no reason and had spent four years in prison. He described how prison guards had beaten him, tied him to a ceiling fan, and then turned it on. Hazam had also been imprisoned. He later joined the army to get out of prison but deserted when the military invaded Kuwait. Now he was hiding in Karbala.
That night, we also discussed some of our hopes and visions for the future of Iraq. A medical student named Ali, who had come to the mosque and volunteered to treat the wounded, joked, "When we capture Saddam, we'll charge five dollars to everyone who wants to spit on him." We all started laughing because previously nobody had ever dared to make jokes like this. Ali continued, "If someone wants to kick him, ten dollars. That's how we'll raise the money to rebuild Iraq."
We were sure it was only a matter of time before the Americans arrived, and we were already thinking about how to build a democratic society. We talked about all the people who had been thrown out of the country over the last four decades--Jews and Shiites. Many of these people had lived in Iraq for generations, but their property was confiscated when they were forced to leave. Some, of course, never even got the chance to leave--they were executed in Iraq. We spoke quietly so the injured could sleep.
n the morning, on March 6, we sent two men to get medicine from a nearby pharmacy and others to look for any ambulances that were still operating. Ali's sister was a pharmacist, and some men from our group smashed open her store, which had been boarded up as the uprising began, to obtain medical supplies. When they returned to the mosque, we were able to begin seriously treating the wounded and taking them to the hospital.
Despite our excitement, we could not forget our worries about the night before. While people were taking the wounded to the hospital, I made sure we cleaned up everything in the mosque. I told our family's servants, "I don't want there to be any trace of blood or any evidence that people were here overnight." After we scrubbed the floors, we gathered all of our makeshift bandages and burned them in our family's oven.
Later that morning, I walked over to the city jail. The front door was open, and most of the guards had fled, leaving the prisoners alone. At first, the remaining guards wouldn't let me in because I was a woman, but, when I insisted, they backed down. I explored the jail for over an hour. It was a huge building with many floors. People were wandering through the halls, and inmates were banging on the walls of their cells, yelling to be let out. There were prisoners from many countries--Kuwaitis, Saudis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and even a few Europeans who had been arrested during the invasion of Kuwait and shipped to Karbala. Although there were still a few cowed guards around, everyone was being freed by members of the uprising who had come to the jail over the past day. One man, a Kuwaiti, told me he had come to Iraq to check on his brother, a prisoner of war from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. He was arrested and held for three months; prison guards tortured him every day. "Get out of the city," I told him. "It's not safe." I pointed him in the direction of the U.S.-held zone in southern Iraq.
Some of the older prisoners didn't even know what year it was. Some prisoners no longer remembered why they were imprisoned in the first place.
As I wandered around the jail, some of the liberated prisoners gave us a tour. I saw huge meat grinders that fed into a septic tank and rooms I believe were used for sexual abuse. Instruction manuals on how to use torture devices were posted on the wall. A terrible smell was everywhere. Here before me was the dark secret of Saddam's Iraq. I felt sick but free. Now, I thought, these rooms will never be used again.
Walking out into the street, I saw that people were still celebrating, but they were also waiting for U.S. support, support needed to prevent the army from returning and to allow the uprising to move to other cities in the heart of Iraq. People became anxious, not knowing what to expect. The strange reality of the uprising, with its hope and joy, its danger and uncertainty, unleashed a mix of emotions. Many of the rebels were eager to destroy the people who had terrorized us for years, and they tried to kill as many soldiers and government agents as possible. There were revenge killings in which families murdered the secret-police agents who had killed their relatives. When I visited the hospital on the second day of the uprising to give blood, I saw the corpse of Jabbar, a well-known local informer, lying in the hospital's courtyard. A local man wanted to use his car to run over Jabbar's dead body.
Other rebels showed mercy, protecting some government workers and helping them hide from angry mobs. It seemed to me that some of the uprising fighters tried not to imitate the ways of our oppressors. Instead of using the police station as their base, they used the two shrines. Instead of summarily executing all of Saddam's soldiers, informers, and secret agents in town, they arrested some--though they also killed many. I saw people cooking in the streets and giving out food to strangers. I had never seen Iraqis standing together like this, but then I had never seen Iraqis experience any semblance of freedom.
s the conflict in Karbala wore on, our fear intensified. By the third day of the uprising, it was only a matter of time, we thought, before Saddam's troops arrived en masse to destroy us. Where were the Americans who had promised to come to our aid? Depression began to set in. We waited and waited--for the Americans, for international help, for food, for water, and for medical supplies. The hours grew longer and longer.
By the fifth day, March 9, regiments of the Iraqi army loyal to Saddam arrived on the outskirts of Karbala and started bombing the city from a distance. Under cover of artillery fire, they began sending deployments of soldiers into the city. When I returned home, I saw two soldiers trying to shoot my neighbor, Said. I yelled at him to be careful as shots hit his hand. One of the soldiers shot at me, and the bullet grazed my cheek. At first I didn't even notice it. But Said called out to me, "My daughter, something is coming out of your face." I touched my hand to my cheek and felt blood.
Around 4:30 in the afternoon, tanks from the Republican Guard, Saddam's most devoted troops, started rumbling down Karbala's main street. A group of us gathered outside as Said, the former general, assigned positions to the men. "I don't want to hear a single shot until all the tanks are in," he told us. "Tanks are good in deserts and open spaces, but they're terrible in the streets. Don't attack until all the tanks are trapped." Said had been in the army when it still had a strong British influence.
Said asked for volunteers to bomb one of the tanks. "Who will stay with me?" he asked. I stepped forward, but he was skeptical. "You've been shot and you're a woman," he told me. "But you need me here now, and you don't have anyone else," I replied. He reluctantly agreed to let me try.
I went up to the roof above the tank I was assigned to bomb. I watched as the other fighters down the street ambushed the tanks, one by one. Suddenly it was my turn. I pulled the pin and threw the grenade. The grenade hit its target. There were fires and explosions everywhere. There was a jolt through my body. For three hours I couldn't move and stayed hidden behind the wall; I just sat there praying. What had become of me? A 20-year-old woman, desperate for a future that was now slipping away, tossing grenades and vainly trying to hold off the tragedy that I realized was about to come.
By now, it was clear the Americans were not coming. President Bush had promised to help us if we rose up against Saddam, and we had believed him. But the help never arrived. American troops did not interfere as Saddam turned his helicopters and tanks against us, sending more and more regiments of his troops to Karbala. With no commerce and no help from the world, our supplies were running out, our energy was gone, and our momentum had disappeared. Troops loyal to Saddam began swarming through the city as the residents of Karbala fled. Within a few days, the uprising was crushed. Now it was about our own survival. We said goodbye, cried, and spread out on our own.
Saddam assigned the responsibility for Karbala to his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, who quickly made an example of the resistance fighters, having troops shoot on sight anyone accused of being in the resistance. Kamel also let the bodies of those rebels shot during the uprising lie untouched in the streets as a reminder to the populace of what happened to people who rose up. I saw stray dogs approach the bodies and start eating them.
To escape Karbala, 20 family members, friends, and I crammed into a car built for five. The son of an army general, who was a close friend, drove us out of Karbala through a hail of bullets. At checkpoints just outside the city, guards screamed at us, but, when the driver showed his army credentials, we passed through.
The next few months were difficult, as the secret police hunted uprising fighters across the country. People told me that they entered our home in Karbala and took everything. Friends in Karbala told me that secret police rounded up people regardless of whether they had fought in the uprising. One family friend returned home to his family in Karbala months later. The next day, the secret police took him to prison. Someone had told them he participated in the uprising, and he was tortured for 45 days, each day denying their accusations. One day a taxi driver knocked on the family's door. "Pull your son out of my car," the driver said, "because he can't move." In prison, the family friend had lost his mind. He stayed curled up, friends told me, crying like a baby and yelling, "I want my mommy!"
We could hardly get beyond Karbala's outskirts, so I hid in a small home outside the city, covering my face and sleeping in a secret room. All my hopes and dreams had seemed so close, but now they were crushed. The spirit had been sucked out of me, but, to keep from getting depressed while I hid, I spent hours writing poetry, waiting for the opportunity to escape. I kept thinking about the bizarre window of freedom I had just experienced: Iraq without Saddam's rule, the joy of liberation, the anger of many people after two decades of repression, the way in which we spontaneously organized, the feeling of being open with neighbors and complete strangers, the sight of the prisoners and the human meat grinders.
Eventually, the border to Jordan was reopened, and I seized the chance to flee Iraq. At the border, I had to bribe the border guard to ignore my name on a list of people who were not allowed to leave the country. I was out, but I felt dead inside.
he surviving veterans of the uprising scattered across Iraq and around the world. Sometimes I hear from a fellow refugee in California or Michigan who also participated in the uprising. But mostly there is silence. We thought if we forgot about the past--or at least stopped talking about it--it would go away. But now the weapons-inspection crisis has reached a boil. Could it possibly be that President George W. Bush will bring justice and liberation where his father failed?
America's showdown with Saddam has evoked all the emotions from March
1991 that I have tried so long to forget. They remind me of the diary I kept during the uprising. I made a point of writing in it every day because I believed we were making history. I wanted to preserve those moments so that I would never forget the first precious days of freedom. I wrote every day at noon, if I could, or at night, by candlelight. After the uprising failed, when I was on the run and cut off from my family, this diary was all that I had.
The night before I left Iraq, I burned my diary in an oven, page by page. Anyone caught with such a document would be killed. In all, I burned over
200 pages--full of details about what I had seen and done in Karbala. As the pages went up in flames, tears streamed down my face.
For many years, I have tried to forget what I wrote in those pages. But I can never erase those memories. Sometimes I feel I am back in Karbala. We are waiting for the Americans once again.
ZAINAB AL-SUWAIJ is executive director of the American Islamic Congress
(www.aicongress.org).
posted on February 3, 2003 12:58:23 PM new
What I find amusing is that Bear and other Warmongers on here feel that "if you ain't an American - SHUT UP!" Like as if our little War doesn't affect everyone else in the world!
Since Australia "Down Under" IS going to back us up if we go to War with Iraq, then austbounty has every right to speak his or her mind about the subject here in the RT!
And even if Australia were to withdraw their support, STILL austbounty or anyone else would have an equal say-so, because our Wars affect nearly every country and person in the world!
This is another example of what is wrong with being misinformed and uneducated on the situation.
I read your story. I also read a report about the gassing of the kurds over 15 years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam has been a ruthless leader. But in my opinion, a pre emptive strike on the people of Iraq now will not alleviate their situation but instead worsen it. Thousands of people will be killed and if the battle is fought in the city, millions will be killed.
The story that you posted does not add any moral or legal justification to preemptively start a war with Iraq.
posted on February 3, 2003 02:59:16 PM new
OK Helen, then comment on this:
The Left-Wing Case for Freeing Iraq In London's Guardian, Julie Birchill, who describes herself as having been "born and raised to be anti-American," takes on the left's pro-Saddam arguments:
Julie Burchill Saturday February 1, 2003 The Guardian
In the mode of Basil Fawlty, I've tried not to mention the war. I know that Guardian readers are massively opposed to any action against Saddam Hussein, as are 90% of the people I love and respect both personally and professionally. But I am in favour of war against Iraq - or, rather, I am in favour of a smaller war now rather than a far worse war later. I speak as someone who was born and raised to be anti-American; I know that, even in my lifetime, America has behaved monstrously in Latin America, Indo-China and its own southern states. I was against the US because, whenever people sought autonomy, freedom and justice, it was against them. But that narrative is ended now and a new configuration has emerged.
The new enemies of America, and of the west in general, believe that these countries promote too much autonomy, freedom and justice. They are the opposite of socialism even more than they are the opposite of capitalism. They are against light, love, life - and to attempt to pass them the baton of enlightenment borne by the likes of Mandela and Guevara is woefully to misunderstand the nature and desires of what Christopher Hitchens (a life-long man of the left) described as "Islamo-fascism".
When you look back at the common sense and progressiveness of arguments against American intervention in Vietnam, Chile and the like, you can't help but be struck by the sheer befuddled babyishness of the pro-Saddam apologists:
1) "It's all about oil!" Like hyperactive brats who get hold of one phrase and repeat it endlessly, this naive and prissy mantra is enough to drive to the point of madness any person who actually attempts to think beyond the clichés. Like "Whatever!" it is one of the few ways in which the dull-minded think they can have the last word in any argument. So what if it is about oil, in part? Are you prepared to give up your car and central heating and go back to the Dark Ages? If not, don't be such a hypocrite. The fact is that this war is about freedom, justice - and oil. It's called multitasking. Get used to it!
2) "But we sold him the weapons!" An incredible excuse for not fighting, this one - almost surreal in its logic. If the west sold him the weapons that helped make him the monstrous power that he is, responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Iranians, Kurds, Kuwaitis and Iraqis, then surely it is our responsibility to redress our greed and ignorance by doing the lion's share in getting rid of him.
3) "America's always interfering in other countries!" And when it's not, it is derided as selfish and isolationist. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
4) "Saddam Hussein may have killed hundreds of thousands of his own people - but he hasn't done anything to us! We shouldn't invade any country unless it attacks us!" I love this one, it's so mind-bogglingly selfish - and it's always wheeled out by people who call themselves "internationalists", too. These were the people who thought that a population living in terror under the Taliban was preferable to a bit of liberating foreign fire power, even fighting side by side with an Afghani resistance. On this principle, if we'd known about Hitler gassing the Jews all through the 1930s, we still shouldn't have invaded Germany; the Jews were, after all, German citizens and not our business. If you really think it's better for more people to die over decades under a tyrannical regime than for fewer people to die during a brief attack by an outside power, you're really weird and nationalistic and not any sort of socialist that I recognise. And that's where you link up with all those nasty rightwing columnists who are so opposed to fighting Iraq; they, too, believe that the lives of a thousand coloured chappies aren't worth the death of one British soldier. Military inaction, unless in the defence of one's own country, is the most extreme form of narcissism and nationalism; people who preach it are the exact opposite of the International Brigade, and that's so not a good look.
5) "Ooo, your friends smell!" Well, so do yours. We may be saddled with Bush and Blair, but you've got Prince Charles (a big friend of the Islamic world, probably because of its large number of feudal kingdoms and hardline attitude to uppity women), the Catholic church
(taking a brief break from buggering babies to condemn any western attack as "morally unacceptable" and posturing pansies such as Sean Penn, Sheryl Crow and Damon Albarn.
Oh, and we've also got Condoleezza Rice, the coolest, cleverest, most powerful black woman since Cleopatra, and you've got the Mothers' Union, with their risible prayer for Iraq's people, a prime piece of prissy, pacifist twaddle that even Hallmark "Forever Friends" would reject as not intellectually or aesthetically rigorous enough.
So, all in all, and at the risk of being extremely babyish myself, I'd go so far as to say that my argument's bigger than yours. Of course, you think the same about your side. And we won't change our minds. Ever. So let's do each other a favour and agree not to rattle each other's cages (playpens?) until the whole thing's over. Free speech and diversity - let's enjoy it! Even though our brothers and sisters, the suffering, tortured slaves of Saddam, can't. Yet. Still, soon.
[b["There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of
weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful
instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war." --George Washington[/b]
[ edited by bear1949 on Feb 3, 2003 03:11 PM ]
posted on February 3, 2003 03:12:11 PM new
>WONDER HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE WANTED OUR FRIENDSHIP AGAIN.
With the way that they spit on us already, I doubt that it would be much different. Look at North Korea's Bush who is blackmailing the USA right now into giving more aid. Clearly, money-giving and aid is a short-term fix and is not the long-term answer.
Also on that list of misconceptions is that by toppling dictators you create peace and stability. Little wonder that most people in the world know better than to fooled by that idea! Some even post on here in the RT about it.
You know what we really need is to come up with a plan for regime change that works. Simply putting another bloodthirsty dictator into power that is friendly to us after toppling the bloodthirsty dictator that hated us never works. Oh, We the People may not hear about the atrocities for years or decades, but rest assured, every time we put someone in place of the last bloodthirsty megalomaniac, the locals always suffer tremendously. So we can't keep on going about the way that we have been and the Bush Doctrine of "Kick Over The Ant Hills and Run" won't work either.
Clearly, we have to think things through. Every nation that we are going to topple has its own unique history and make-up of cultures and customs to consider. The French and the British loved to use rivers and mountain ranges as natural borders and re-wrote them to suit their tastes. This has caused long-term civil wars and strife to come about. That example means that we must do our homework first before toppling a current regime.
I am not an expert, but as a history buff, I would suggest that if we go into a country to topple the government that whatever system that we put into place should incur us with a minimum of a one-hundred year commitment to support and to defend the system. That is so that no one alive would remember the Old Ways and teach the Young to resent the new system. We would need massive re-education programs for the populace to help newer generations to change the old ways that promote anarchy and chaos. We would need to modernize the country; education, infrastructure, sanitary conditions, modern agriculture, transportation systems - the works! By the time that we were done, no one would want to go back to the Bad Old Days of lawless dictatorial regimes.
Speaking of regimes, we would have to create a system of government that allowed all segments of the population a voice in internal matters. A six-year term as President is too long and four years is a much better number. Limit to two terms for the same reason that we discovered it. And so forth. We would be there to ensure that the entire populace was heard.
Of course, the Bush Regime has no intention of getting this involved. By going over there and kicking over the Iraqi ant-hill, they want to run away and let their country fall apart into civil wars and total chaos and misery. How Satanic a plan that is!
When Bush can come out and give us the "Marshall Plan" for the full recovery of Afghanistan and Iraq which must include a minimum one-hundred year commitment of direct support for Iraq, only then would I support our going over there to change the regime.
First, she implies that her audience is anti-american and pro-Saddam apologists. I hold neither of these beliefs.
Then she addresses the ever changing justifications for this war. Do you notice that she doesn't mention Weapons of Mass Destruction which has been HER MANTRA since the terrorists hit the WTC and the Pentagon? Actually it was on the agenda several years before these events. NOW, she finally recognizes that it is about oil -just a little bit though- along with FREEDOM AND JUSTICE. If you beileve the newly added goal of "freedom and justice", bear, she probably has some swamp land to sell you. ( as she said, multitasking. HaHaHa )
Now, she leaps to the wierd concept that since we indirectly made it possible for Saddam to gas the kurds by supplying the gas and helicopters that it is our responsibility to get rid of him now, 16 years later??? Do you share my belief that she is speaking nonsense, bear?
Why is it our responsibility to liberate the Afghanistans from the Taliban and the people of Iraq from the Saddam government???
Finally, she states that no one will change their minds based on her argument So, she suggests that since we are not likely to change our mind, that we should just shut up, stop protesting and sit back and enjoy the war.
What a piece of sh't.!!!
Sounds like Onion material to me.
posted on February 3, 2003 04:31:06 PM new
twelvepole... YEAH!
eauctionguy... read your other post.. and yes! Panama loves us. Friends just got back from there just 2 weeks ago... hotter then h*ll, but the people loved them
posted on February 3, 2003 05:00:25 PM new
Helen, my point in her artice was explained in the preface of the item:
The Left-Wing Case for Freeing Iraq In London's Guardian, Julie Birchill, who describes herself as having been "born and raised to be anti-American," takes on the left's pro-Saddam arguments:
--------------------------
It now seems that some of the anti-American
anti-war left wing liberals have awakened to the danger of Saadam.
But, on the other hand, I might just move to Iraq (what a Country!). These are great prices.
---------------------------------------------
"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 2 -- Once a month, Esther Yawo strolls to a neighborhood market to pick up groceries for her family of five. She usually returns with 180 pounds of flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil, white beans, chickpeas and tea, plus 16 bars of soap.
posted on February 3, 2003 06:43:52 PM new
Darn ... war rations?!?!
And I had my bags packed. Oh well.
------------------------------------
The PEOPLE of Iraq will be BETTER OFF after the Liberation. I wonder if the French wished we had not gone to war and kicked Hitler out?
Also, Hitler was also well on his way to having the Bomb before we moved in. Wouldn't that have been fun?
Hussein is right out of the same mold as Hitler and Stalin. I am sorry but he has to go.
What other tales but "doom, darkness and distress" can be told about war? Let's see,,,,Death of babies, women and men, both civilians and soldiers - both Iraqis and Americans. There will be hunger, thirst without water, illness without medicine, pain without medication...All because George Bush is a man who thinks and acts based on his "gut feelings".
Oh, yes.....while the world [UN] decision was 15-0 that IRAQ is the one in violation....let's blame Bush for insisting they disarm.
By the way, Let's don't attack Australia. No....let's don't attack Australia....don't want to interrupt those who are busy continuing to attack your own country's policies. But sure....support those from Australia who come here to bash your own country.
Here's an opinion piece from Peggy Noonan that I agree with.
Anyway, I think the Democrats have been tied in knots, and they're showing their desperation with their latest talking point, body bags. American invasions mean dead Americans. This is a matter of the utmost seriousness, of course, and yet it dodges the issue. American invasion means dead Americans, but if Mr. Bush is right then refusing to confront Saddam and his weapons now may well mean a future Iraqi- supported or Iraqi-executed attack on our soil. Which could result in hundreds of thousands of dead American civilians. And body bags.
[ edited by Linda_K on Feb 4, 2003 01:26 AM ]
posted on February 4, 2003 06:16:35 AM new
Bear,
Amen
austbounty. Calm down before you blow a gasket. Nothing's ever settled in a fit of rage. No matter what you write, there will be people that disagree. that's life.
"Since Australia "Down Under" IS going to back us up if we go to War with Iraq, then austbounty has every right to speak his or her mind about the subject here in the RT!"
Amen:
FIRST THING WE SHOULD DO IS GO TO NY AND TELL THE UN TO GET THE HELL OUT...
I agree. The UN is worthless, a joke. If nothing else it should be in another country. We've supported it for too long.
War Sucks to say the least. It's the last straw. I don't believe in turning the other cheek. You only get hit on the other side. We've done all in our power to work with Sadaam and Iraq to no avail.
I doubt you'll find anyone on this board that really wants war. Many may say they do but I doubt any really want it. It's a Necessary Evil. One we should (the US) helped with in 1938 instead of waiting. Just think there may have been 16 million people saved.
Amen,
Reverend Colin
posted on February 4, 2003 09:22:31 AM new
"I don't understand those who want to wait until the threat [from Iraq] is imminent. Do we wait until the missiles are launched, until the smallpox is in the country? The consequences of error could be catastrophic."
- Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat, to the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes
I can't beleive it, a dem supporting Pres Bush. Someone has come to their senses
---------------
"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." --Frank Outlaw
posted on February 4, 2003 12:06:54 PM new"I don't understand those who want to wait until the threat [from Iraq] is imminent. Do we wait until the missiles are launched, until the smallpox is in the country? The consequences of error could be catastrophic." - Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat
With this kind of reasoning, we would have had major wars with Russia and China in the past. And could have wars with any number of countries in the future. It's actually a very old line of reasoning: shoot first & ask questions later...
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 4, 2003 12:25:50 PM new
"It's actually a very old line of reasoning: shoot first & ask questions later... "
May be an old line but in this case, it works for me.
Truth is, your statement has nothing to do with the present situation.
We've gone out of our way to work out the problems with Iraq. Should we just turn out backs and walk away? Give him a few more years to build a better arsenal? You can't be serious. WWJD.? He'd kick their A**es just like he did the money lenders. There is no Peace if you aren't willing to fight for it.
All this BS from the Leftist and peaceniks about this being "Just for the Oil" What was W.W.II for? Was it the oil? Germany didn't bomb the US. Japan did and paid the price.
As far as Russia goes, we figured out they weren't much of a problem in the 1970s They had more internal strife to take care of. China on the other hand will be the next major financial power. I believe they will be our Ally again with the North Korea problem.
posted on February 4, 2003 12:33:09 PM new
(to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"
"Bomb Iraq"
If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky, Bomb Iraq.
If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,Bomb Iraq.
It's "pre-emptive non-aggression", bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me
'Cos it's all the proof I need Bomb Iraq.
If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad), Bomb Iraq.
If your corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy, Bomb Iraq.
Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason, Bomb Iraq.
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 4, 2003 04:57:04 PM new
bunnicula,
Did you make that up yourself? It's catchy.
In the late 60's everyone blamed everything on the Military/Industial Complex. That was catchy too.
Every movement needs catchy slogans to get the Sheeple involved. It's easier to quote a few slogans and have your new friends smile and nod their heads than to investigate for ones self.
posted on February 4, 2003 05:35:00 PM new
Colin, I like that "Sheeple". Masses & masses of sheeple, thinking that everyone that disagree with them are Baaaaaaadddddddd and they don't know where the flock they are.
[ edited by bear1949 on Feb 4, 2003 05:41 PM ]
[ edited by Twelvepole on Feb 3, 2003 02:24 PM ]