TheBanyanTree: Mohammed . . .

[Blue Feather]

From: Jim Miller 

  To: TheBanyanTree at remsset.com 
  Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 3:18 AM
  Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf . . .


  I'm sorry you have such a jaundiced view of the world and it's inhabitants. 

  Next time, may I suggest, before you rant in my space, you at least support a minuscule fraction of your outrageous claims with definitive evidence. Without absolute proof, these are simply more vitriolic myths spread to a gullible Internet.



I'm glad to see you're up and about again, Jim, you had us all a little worried for a time.

I wasn't aware that I was ranting in your space about anything. Rather I was expressing an opinion in my own space - it is your or any other subscriber's decision whether to listen or not, to respond or not.

We don't have a television. My 'outrageous claims' as you term them come from 2Mb of reports filed on a website independent of governmental influence and pressure. The reports cover the progress of the US-led invasion of Iraq in all its gory and factual detail; the sources include:
Norman D. Livergood/Hermes Press
Amnesty International
The Independent
John Pilger/The Independent
William Safire, The New York Times
Catherine Taylor/The Christian Science Monitor
Nezavisimaya Gazeta which on 5 apr 03 leaked the information that a Russian naval task force including three nuclear subs was on its way to the Gulf
Antonia Zerbisias/The Toronto Star
Anthony Shadid/The Washington Post
Robert Fisk/The Independent
Sky News
The Hindustan Times
Ellen knickmeyer and david crary/Associated Press
Andrew Ellson/The Guardian
Gideon Levy/Haaretz Daily

The URL is www.iraqwar.ru

 There was a time when I thought the people who lived worked and died in Middle Eastern countries were poor uneducated unskilled lesser-than-me heathens. Then in the late sixties the Royal Air Force gave me the opportunity of seeing them in a different light, one which shone very poorly upon my own country. 

The Iraq that the US-led coalition invaded is a sovereign nation just as the United States of America is a sovereign nation - and 'invaded' is the truth by any interpretation of international law as a trip to the nearest library would confirm.

Iraq is a country of 25 million people, more than 50% of whom are children under the age of 15. Why such a high proportion of children? Because many adults have been eliminated in previous conflicts.

Its people invented irrigated farming 12,000 years ago. (They have become very good at it. They had to - only 1% of the land is pastoral. With the exception of wheat, its farms have produced enough food to sustain its population throughout all the sanctions imposed since Desert Storm.)

They invented writing - worked out how to tell the time - founded modern mathematics - invented the first legal system that protects the weak, the widow and the orphan - were the first occidental people to build cities and live in them.

Abraham, the father of Israel, the father of Islam, the father and 'model' of Christian faith, was from Iraq.

Genghis Khan and his descendants, including Kubali Khan, were not the first despotic rulers of Iraq. The nation from which the 'modern' human race is believed to have sprung, has since antiquity been ruled by dictators - some benevolent, some not. (It should not be forgotten that it was the USA that put Saddam Hussein in a position to become the ruler of Iraq in the first place.) 'Genghis Khan' means Universal Ruler - he went on to create the largest empire the world has ever seen, one which encompassed those countries we know as China and Russia as well as the Middle East - one hopes George Bush does not have the same colonial imperative.

Now Sachet said:

If I'm not willing to direct my efforts either in support or opposition,  to where my actions can have a realistic impact, than hot air is all I'm producing and no one needs that blowing in their face. If I've chosen to do these things, then I have to decide whether or not my friends, neighbors and relatives wish or need to hear my viewpoints. Especially in places or situations that do not lend themselves to debates or pontificating.

I have made no secret of my personal opposition to 'the war' and I have used every legitimate means to voice it. Whether TBT is a place where these actions can also have a 'realistic' impact is a matter of opinion. Mine is that they can, because TBT is a community of thinkers and writers, therefore a community of people who should not be afraid to look at two sides of the same coin and be prepared to make realistic decisions on the evidence presented. 

I agree war is not pretty, I have seen it first-hand. I agree that the 335,000 coalition soldiers in the Middle East, many of whom are nowhere near Iraq, are not there by their choice but by their government's. I agree that the soldiers personally need our support, but that does not mean I have to agree with them being there. I do not blame Private Nick Boggs for killing a ten-year old boy, or the marine who killed a woman because she happened to be standing next to a man in a uniform and then said "I'm sorry but the chick got in the way" (John Pilger/The Independent) ." No, I blame the system that has allowed that to happen, the governments which created that scenario, and the powers behind those governments. Only the world community can curb those powers.



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