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[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] dear tony i depart for Iraq next tuesday. most of my colleagues are already in Iraq and have done much work with Iraqis from inside Iraq - based primarily on university campuses since we are all students or young professionals. some colleagues are helping quite extensively with the reconstruction efforts, in addition to all this. best wishes Yasser Alaskary Iraqi Prospect Organisation http://www.iprospect.org.uk ----- Original Message ----- From: Aswed@aol.com To: mali@gw.hackney.gov.uk ; asceptic@freenetname.co.uk ; ya1980@hotmail.com ; soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 10:02 PM Subject: Re: [casi] Mass Graves dear mali and other iraqi "patriots" i have a very dear iraqi friend, long an established american educator, who has a fortnight ago left her american family, a husband and two young sons, to go to iraq and help in the reconstruction. it was not what i wished she should do because my perception and experience tell me that what will be set up under western occupation will surely be rejected and dismantled once that occupation is ended. she saw the occupation as a nightmare and was against the war that you and your friends welcomed, but felt the need perhaps to help alleviate in some measure the pain and suffering , this ongoing misery of her people. although i wished srtongly to implore her to change her mind and not provide de facto aid and comfort to the occupiers, i fully understood that i, not iraqi, could not and should not voice that plea to her. at the same time, perhaps in frustration over her generous decency i would lash out against other iraqis who, more youthful and less constrained by family ties, would exercise the luxury of first finishing their degrees in medicine in the west and in time, comfortable and convenient to themselves, return, perhaps, to their suffering people. i disdain this convenience, this selfishness, this cynicism, this conditional humanism of those folks. i implore them to hasten their return and ease some pain even within this colonial nightmare. i am astounded at your misunderstanding of what some of us represent in our discussions. perhaps you can cerebrate sufficiently to consider that some americans do not welcome the rapid evolution of their country into a militaristic juggernaut that has adopted a policy of preemption to arrogantly invoke a pax americana on the rest of the world, iraq is merely a step in that march. some americans strongly believe that 'american interests' need not be overarching and mutually exclusive of other peoples interests and aspirations. some americans are appalled that the words of their extraordinary declaration of idependence and their constitution have been made hollow indeed by this arrogance of power and its predation. this newfound american will to subjugate and dominate, the rejected colonialism of the 20th century, is finding a disturbingly new home in the american psyche. no my friend , it is not iraqi interests that drive american policies...do not flatter yourself as a people with "soft woolens" (arabic saying that you well understand) that those in power in the united states wish to rescue. i also reject the cynical argument that you wish to make , and have made, that you do not care about the american aims as long as they provided the means to remove the heinous saddam . i wish to point out a mirroring cynical argument presented quite seriously to me by a history professor at an elite university in new york to the effect that he favored the war because bush will make such a mess of iraq in the aftermath that he will lose credibility at home and will therefore not be reelected. in either case it is clearly "damn the iraqi people" as long as george and saddam are gone . what dearth of morality and humanism. what you fail to understand is that the ends do not justify the ongoing extraordinary suffering. no i do not wish the americans to help you in your moral misadventure for, indeed, i do not speak in your name, nor do i wish to. it is, as it should be, your fight your struggle. yet you insist and welcome that the americans and brits wage war IN YOUR NAME. perhaps you and your friends welcome colonialism. i do not wish to exercise it. may you grow to understand it. i do, for i have lived through its dehumanising dictates. cordially, tony _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk