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Hi, I answered a personal letter from a friend in America concerning the events of 11 Sep. She has asked me to make available to friends. I thought It is worth considering it as my personal view of the events. I am sure a lot of my people share the same sentiments. A copy of my letter is included for information. Regards Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar Baghdad, Iraq. ---------------------------------------- Dear Barbara Thank you for your "yesterday " e-mails. I do understand your sorrow to what happened Sep. 11 and your fears of reprisals for being an "Arab". I too felt very sorry for losing lives of innocent people whether in NY , Baghdad , Hilla , Basrra , Bet lehim, Gaza,....Bosnia.. the list is long. The aftermath of death of the innocent people will be long lasting. I personally have lost several innocent friends, relatives or just ordinary people I happen to deal with. They were murdered, in 1991, for absolutely no reason. Um Abbass used to make bread, Iraqi bread, so she can earn money to support her 3 children. She built a small "tin" house on a vacant plot of land not far away from where I lived. She used to make excellent bread and send to my house with Abbass for few coins. Every day I get my fresh bread. Suddenly some one in the American government decided that her "tin house" was a legitimate military target and was a threat to the world security so they bombed it. Um Abbass and her three children, God bless there soles, were murdered, in Baghdad, 800 Km away from Kuwait to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait !! I don't know if or where they were buried. If I find out I want to go to her grave and read a verse or two from the Quran to comfort her sole. I will tell her that even bread does not taste the same again even after eleven years. May God bless her sole every day. Our neighborhood had a very young and nice looking traffic policeman. We used to exchange greetings every time I pass the intersection. Some times we used to exchange few words while stopping at the traffic light. Some times he turned a blind eye if I run the stop sign. Some how we were friends even when we did not know each other's names. He was murdered while he was directing ambulances and fire fighting trucks to save lives of innocent people who were subjected to the harshest and the most cruel inhuman air bombardment in the twentieth century. My friend, like the NY police officers who were killed on Sep. 11, was doing his job protecting civilians. The only difference is that the world greatest government USA killed my friend while the NY policemen were killed by few radicals yet to be identified. To recount the horrors of the 43 days of hell (in 1991) would only open wounds that I have tried to desperately to block in my mind. I know that talking about it might help. I will need a lot more than 43 days of crying for my cousin Ahmad, his wife Layla, his sons Kamel 14 years, Shehab 12 years, and their 10 years old beautiful girl Shema. Probably I am fooling my self in believing that they were a sleep when the bomb hit their house. I want to believe that the died instantly without knowing what hit them else I go crazy. I will need a lot more than 43 days of crying for the more than 400 civilians, women, children, and old people, who were incinerated at Alameria civil defense shelter. To cry for the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians who died in 1991 because of the American terrorism acts against the civilian population of Iraq, and to cry for hundreds of thousands ( if not a million and a half) who died because of the sanctions is by far beyond any body's emotional capability. This is why I am blocking it IN , and not out of, my mind. The "civilized" west watched the massacre of Iraqi civilians on television with jubilation. The "victorious" army marched through downtown NY, probably pass the World Trade Center, with such fanfare. The best producers in Hollywood could not put any better show. Naturally America wanted every one around the world to watch this spectacular "victory" parade". They beamed it to every TV station in world. America thought that satellite television broadcast was the best way they have for "Cultural dominance" and to spread the American values. Every country in the world started at least one satellite channel most of them relying mainly on US and western produced footage. This marvelous innovation soon turned against the US For 11 years most of the world watched, through their TV, the destruction of Iraq and the hardship inflected on the civilian population of Iraq. Naturally Arab satellite channels devoted more time than the American media to the plight of Iraqi people. A lot of the satellite channels invited US officials to explain to the Arab masses the US policy toward Iraq. I am sorry to say that those, ideates, did more harm than good to the American image. The phone-in response, from the Arabs in the west and even Iraqi's abroad, was so anti US that made the presence of such ideates on the program so pathetic. 11 years ago the arab government were led, like sheep to the slaughterhouse, into believing that joining the American coalition against Iraq will lead to the settlement of the arab-Israeli conflict. The Americans talked about UN SCR 242, 338 and the return of the Palestinian refugees, land for peace and ... and. Only stupid people believed in American sincerity. Then came Oslo, Madrid, Camp David ..etc. After 11 years of piss talk, or is it peace talk, the Israelis were using F16 fighter planes, Helicopter gun ships, tanks, to attack stone throwing Palestinians. They destroyed hundreds of houses, orchid, schools, telephone systems.. just like America did in Iraq. Naturally "civilized America and the west" asked the Palestinians for restrain. Now after 11 years we no longer hear about UN SCR 242 or 338 but about Michael report and Tenet understanding. The free American and western media freely elected to ignore the plight of the Palestinians, they freely distorted facts, they freely and willfully demonized the Palestinians and Arabs. Yes you have a free press! We in the Arab world watched every day, on our TV, the shelling, the killing, the beating and the humiliation of women, children, and the elderly Palestinians. I need not to remind you that we also watched the massacres and the ethnic cleansing of Moslems in Bosnia who were under the protection by the NATO KFOR forces. During the sixties we were flooded by American films about the "liberation" of Europe from the German occupation. We saw Nuns, Priests, joining the "freedom fighters". We saw churches used to hide ammunition for the invading armies, or being a refuge to American or British saboteurs. We saw nuns and priests throwing hand grenades to kill German solders and in many cases killing innocent civilians. Even Hitler's propaganda did not call them "Christian" terrorist. During the sixties Archbishop Makarious fought the British in Cypress, he too directed attacks against the British which resulted in the killing of innocent people. No one in the west called him a "Christian" terrorist. I am sure that you could find other examples of the west "double standards" I think you agree with me that Hitler, Mosileny, Stalin, Melosovich, Karadich, ... and Sharoon have no connection with Islam. Between them, those western leaders have murdered millions of innocent people all around the world. Your history books may call them violins, dictators but never called them terrorist! The ethnic cleansing which the "civilized west" practiced in former Yugoslavia is never called terrorist acts. The "civilized west" has an infinite capacity to invent terminology to disguise its terrorist activities. To get rid of the Russians from Afghanistan the American government played the religious game. Since communism was equated with atheism then it was the duty of the Moslems to fight in Afghanistan. The American government created, trained, supplied, supported various organizations for the holy war "Jehad" against the atheist Afghan government. The Afghan-Arabs were the main fighting force in Afghanistan. They included such "freedom fighters", as the American called them at that time, like Omar Abdulrahman, Usama Ben Laden, Abuhamza Al-Musri. Once the Russians were driven out of Afghanistan those fighters turned their attention to what was happening in the Arab and Moslem countries. Ben Laden resisted the presence of the American forces in the Moslem's holiest place. Naturally the American and Saudi governments were not happy with him. I think it is foolish to expect him to accept the American presence in the Moslems holiest places when he spent years fighting to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. To add insult to injury Ben Laden watched, like the rest of the Arab world, what happened to Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, and Palestine, which further alienated him. He soon was transferred from " freedom fighter " to the most wanted "terrorist". One striking point in the Sep. 11 event is that the FBI within less than 24 hours announced the name of 19 people who were "responsible" for these suicide attacks, and presumed to have been killed. Few days latter some them appeared alive in Tunis or in Saudi Arabia. According to FBI reports the people who hijacked the planes are from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the strongest allies of USA, and possibly one from Lebanon and not from "rouge" regimes. The big question is why such wealthy individuals who are of the " Macdonald and the Pepsi generation" decided to attack the US the way they did? In my simple and probably naïve understand of thing is that American policy around the world and specially in the meddle east have alienated the people, not necessarily the governments, of this area. The world richest and strongest nation in the world, USA, may attack the world poorest, weakest, and most primitive nation in the world. You may drive them to the Stone Age, remember Jams Baker threat to drive Iraq to the pre-industrial age, but at what price? You may be able to kill Ben Ladden but how many Ben Laddens are going to be created. Don't forget we all are going to watch the massacres on our TVs and in colors!. Bush "put his foot in his mouth" when he declared the "Crusade" of the "civilized world" against terrorism. I know he latter withdraw this because it might be linked to the historic "Christian Crusade" against the Moslem Arabs specially sensitive when Jerusalem is occupied by the Israelis with the help and the blessings of America. The late Reverend Martin Luther King was murdered by a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, (WASP) , fanatic not a terrorist!!. If you believe in day of judgement you know that he, Martin Luther King, will meet Um Abbass, Abbass, my cousin Ahmad, Layla, Kamel, Shehab, Shema, and the other millions who are victims of terrorism. He will remind them that he once warned that America has Guided missiles but misguided people. The misguided people didn't like what he said so they killed him. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.