11 Indian Muslims, taking religion as their excuse to show t

by **Dorothy** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 2:14 am

As the countdown to the Iraq war begins, about a dozen Indians are preparing to leave for Baghdad to act as human shields, an Islamic scholar said Tuesday. 

\"We are fully aware of the consequences. We are even carrying the (funeral) shrouds with us,\" said Suhail Rokadia, secretary of the Raza Academy, a socio-religious organisation based in Mumbai. 

Rokadia is not alone in his zeal to express solidarity with the Iraqi people. He is part of a group of 11 aged between 30 and 60. Most of them are Islamic scholars while two are businessmen. 

The men have applied for visas and are hopeful of getting permission by the weekend to go to the battle zone. \"It\'s for a good cause, it\'s for humanity,\" said Rokadia. 

The men are fired by religious considerations. \"Iraq is very sacred to us. It has many saints. So, the place has immense religious significance for us,\" Rokadia told AFP by telephone. 

Iraq is home to the grave of the Prophet Mohammad\'s grandson Imam Hussain, who was martyred in the seventh century. Muslims across the world observe his martrydom as Muharram Day -- which this year occurred last Friday. 

The religious passion is also reflected in the way the families of the potential martyrs are supporting what they see as a holy cause. \"My wife says \'don\'t come back alive\',\" Rokadia said.
 
Rokadia\'s said he is not worried about his three young children, aged between two and eight. \"The Almighty Allah will take care of our children.\"
 
The scholar and his companions plan to go first to the Iraqi capital Baghdad to pay their respects at the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, a great Muslim scholar and saint.
 
From there, they will join the 135 others from other across the globe who are already camping in Iraq to act as human shields.
 
Religion apart, the Muslims also want to show their support for Iraq and its people. \"America could have forced Saddam out of power even without waging a war. But it has chosen to target the Iraqi people instead,\" Rokadia said.
 
\"Indian Muslims see the Iraq war as a war for oil, for Israel. It\'s a big imperial game,\" said Zafarul-Islam Khan, editor of The Milli Gazette, a fornightly newspaper.
 
\"Iraq is already disarmed. It\'s a fight between an elephant and an ant. Muslims all over the world are very, very angry.\"

by **devi** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 2:29 am

How come they find Iraq sacred in spite of such killings by this dictator!!? Where did their humanity go when all those innocent people were being gassed? In fact, I was recently watching on MSNBC, the footage of the bodies of those hundreds of children along with those of the others\'... It was so saddening to see it. Saddam deserves to be thrown out - on second thoughts, along with Musharraf. But, I do not understand this aspect of USA, though... How come Musharraf is being given kudos along with billions of dollars while Saddam is being given the final ultimatums, in spite of the 2 being similar dictators?

by **Sreenu** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 2:37 am

Devi, this news item could be of use for you to understand certain aspects of India/Pakistan/iraq, that you have raised... 
As the US and the UK ready themselves for their coming military intervention to overthrow the Saddam Hussein government in Iraq, the attitude of India and Pakistan on this subject needs careful analysis.
 
The Indian policy has been tactically correct and strategically calculating. It is correct in the sense of keeping in step with the prevailing opinion in the so-called non-aligned world, which supports the deprivation of Iraq of any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which it may still have, under the UN auspices, but opposes any externally engineered regime change and any unilateral intervention by the US and the UK bypassing the UN.
 
At the same time, it is strategically calculating in the sense of seeing long-term benefits for India by not overplaying its opposition to an unilateral intervention by the US and the UK.
 
An anxiety to keep the improvement in Indo-US relations, which has gathered additional momentum under the Bush Administration, sustained and futher accelerated and a hope, bordering on wishful-thinking, that the US, after depriving Iraq of its WMD, might turn its attention to Pakistan\'s WMD capability underline this policy.
 
Pakistan\'s policy too is tactically correct in the same sense as India\'s, but the underlying factor behind its strategic calculation is a fear that India might succeed in adding to the fears of the US over Pakistan\'s WMD capability.
 
There is a convergence of fears between the military-intelligence establishment and the religious fundamentalist parties on the dangers of the US turning its attention to Pakistan\'s WMD capability after it has disposed of Iraq\'s and they have not hesitated to give open expression to these fears.
 
Gen Pervez Musharraf did so while talking to a group of intellectuals at the Governor\'s House in Lahore in January. His significant address to them was analysed in four installments by Jang, the Urdu daily (Jan 21 to 24).
 
Some of his remarks as cited in the analysis need to be quoted: \"Our people are saying that if Iraq is attacked, then we will fight for Iraq. Before saying such things, we should see whether such commitments are in the interests of Pakistan. We should give priority to our interests over all other issues. Instead of sentimental statements and slogans we should behave sensibly. We should think over how we can protect ourselves from the possible effects of US policies. We can choose a path of confrontation. Whenever we disagree with the US, we can adopt an inflexible and aggressive stand, but would it be in our interest? The other way out is that we should follow prudence, far-sightedness and a cautious approach... Our nuclear capability has become a matter of concern for many countries and we should try to protect our nuclear assets. By adopting a sentimental course, we should not provide an opportunity to others to destroy our nuclear capability.\"
 
Similar fears and the consequent need for caution can be seen in the statements of some of the leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist parties despite their support to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and despite their virulent rhetoric against the US presence in Pakistan and its policies on Iraq.
 
For example, Lt Gen (retd) K M Azhar of the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Pakistan (JUP) says in a statement cited by the News, the prestigious English daily, of Feb 20, 2003: \"The countries where the masses are holding protest rallies are economically strong and are not dependent on the US. There is a general impression that Pakistan would be the next target of the US after Iraq. That is why the religious parties are behaving realistically and cautiously. The US administration is already displeased with the role of the religious parties in Pakistan and is terming them fundamentalists. Any unwise decision of religious parties could cost the country its nukes and security. The USA changes its behaviour once it achieves its purposes. The religious parties and the Government should adopt the same policy keeping in view the solidarity and security of the country.\"
 
This desire and advice for caution were largely responsible for the initial hesitation of the religious parties to organise any mass street demonstrations against the US.
 
As Yahya Mujahid, a leader of the Jamaat-ul-Dawaat, the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a member of Osama bin Laden\'s International Islamic Front, said: \"The masses in Europe are holding street marches against the war because they would not be its (the USA\'s) target. The people in the Muslim countries would be the target of the US-led coalition and so they are avoiding reaction.\"
 
This caution of the religious parties came to be taunted by their political detractors as one more evidence of the fact that they were the surrogates of the military-intelligence establishment. Their rank and file too started expressing their unhappiness over this cautious approach of their leaders. It was only then that they decided to organise huge demonstrations against the US in different cities, starting with Karachi on March 2, 2003.
 
To borrow an expression from a Pakistani analyst, Gen Pervez Musharraf\'s mind, in this matter, is with the US, but his heart is with the religious fundamentalist parties. He has three objectives _ first, to protect Pakistan\'s strategic WMD assets and to ensure that they do not cause fears in US mind similar to those caused by Iraq\'s; second, to make Pakistan an economically strong power; and, third, to force India to the negotiating table on Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) by continuing to maintain in a high level of terrorist violence there, which he perceives as a freedom struggle, through the jihadi cadres of the fundamentalist organisations which are allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
 
To achieve the first objective, he needs the continued confidence and trust of the US and for the second he needs its continued benevolence. Both would depend on his continued co-operation with the US in its war against Al Qaeda, his responsiveness to its concerns over Iraq and his ability to ensure that the anger of the religious parties against the US does not exceed permissible limits and become the object of concern to the US.
 
To achieve the third, he needs to continue to resist the US pressure for action against terrorists operating against India and close his eyes, to the extent possible, to the complicity of the religious parties with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar\'s Hizbe Islami which has joined hands with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
 
The task before him now on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, as it has always been since 9/11, is how to marry the contradictory objectives of collaboration with the US and complicity with the religious fundamentalist parties.
 
Thus far, he has succeeded in doing so without suffering any damage to the goodwill of the US. Would he continue to do so? He seems to be confident, he would.

by **jag** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 8:22 am

Yes, you are correct in your analysis. A massive attack on the people of Iraq is wrong. The same end of disarming Iraq of WMD can be achieved through peaceful means if we were to show some restraint and a lot of patience.
US interest in going after Iraq is not at all related to \'terrorism\'. The US stood by Saddam when he was \'gassing his people,\' etc. Biological agents were sold to Iraq by the US when the US supported Iraq over Iran during that war. 
Pakistan is a dangerous and failing state; however, the US used Paksitan and Islamic fundamentalism to further its ends during cold war caring very little about the monster it would be creating. As those old \'freedom fighters\' (that is what Reagan called the Mujahadeen forming in Pakistan/Afghanistan) were left to the ISI after the Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan. The ISI and Pakistan with the intention of strategic depth against India actively supported the Taliban and sponsored the al-Qeada until after 9/11. If there is one country which was the primary underwriter of terrorism it was Pakistan with financial support from Saudi Arabia. The nexus with terrorism and fundamentalism which was actively encouraged and \'managed\' by the US with Pakistani complicity in the early 80s spun out of control and eventually culminated in incidents on American soil. This \'blowback\' as it were ruffled the rather complacent American public opinion which is neither informed nor cared about their policies in far away lands as long as it did not directly affect their daily life. 
The demonization of Saddam leading to an all-out war against Iraq is simply to divert from the fact that the war on terrorism is going nowhere and Osama is still inaccessible to the US and being protected by the ISI. Pakistan might be willing to hand him over as soon as the price can be negotiated to the nearest billion. 
It is unpredictable what the consequences will be of the adventure in Iraq; the perception in the Muslim world that this is an attack on Islam is most likely to strengthen the hand of the more \'fundamentalist\' forces to the detriment of progressive voices in Islam.

by **Neeraja** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 12:47 pm

Hi dorothy, it could be a fight between an elephant and an ant, but you know that an ant can easily kill the elephant? 

America is just playing a fast game this time also, like it played with Vietnam and Philippines. But not any more, friend - they are going to repent for Bush\'s arrogant action... They might be a superpower now, but Saddam\'s people will fight in the streets - every single one of them - to guard their country, while the US soldiers have no morale. They fear death, while Saddam has been fighting for the last so many years and is prepared for any ultimatum while the US can\'t withstand. God Bless US.

by **an Indian American** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 1:37 pm

A message by an Indian American:

Since our purpose today is to try to shed some light on America\'s imminent invasion of Iraq, let\'s look at the situation together – honestly – and try to separate reality from fantasy and foolishness.

The first and biggest reality we need to face is that, barring a truly dramatic and unexpected turn of events – such as Saddam Hussein dropping dead or going into exile and voluntarily relinquishing the reins of power in Iraq – there is going to be a massive military invasion. Count on it.

As one of the most-read news sources in the world, WorldNetDaily has access to intelligence sources all over the globe. And our sources in the military, in the intelligence services, in government, in the Persian Gulf, in the Mideast and elsewhere virtually unanimously predict an invasion of Iraq very soon. And, as a matter of fact, that\'s pretty much what the Bush administration is saying or indicating as well.

So, we can debate and argue all we want about the war today, but that\'s point No. 1: It\'s going to happen.

Why is it going to happen?

Let\'s talk about 9-11 for a minute. On that truly dreadful day, the U.S. was thrust into a new world. We suffered a national trauma of indescribable magnitude. We\'d never seen anything like it before. Demonically inspired Islamic terrorists commandeered four American passenger jets and turned them into gigantic, fuel-laden missiles, flying three of them into giant buildings containing thousands of innocent Americans. Some 3,000 people perished in those attacks..

As with Pearl Harbor a half-century before, America had been attacked on her own soil, and was thus catapulted into a war not of her own choosing.

Nine days later, President Bush addressed a nation in intense and profound grief:

\"Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,\" he said. \"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. ... From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.\" And he added, pointedly, \"The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it and destroy it where it grows.\"

One place where terror grows big-time is in Iraq.

The imminent liberation of Iraq, like the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban, is a continuation of the war on terror. And pretty much everyone is on board with the war on terror.

Afghanistan had no weapons of mass destruction – only terrorists. That was enough to justify invasion, and very few of us had any problem with that military campaign. Now, finally, we are capturing some of the big al-Qaida operatives – and hopefully Osama bin Laden\'s days are numbered.

We all know Osama is a terrorist, but what about Saddam? Let\'s consult one of the world\'s most respected experts on terrorism, and particularly on Osama bin Laden. Yossef Bodansky was director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the author of eight books on the subject, and has been the U.S. Congress\' foremost expert on terrorism. In his book, \"Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,\" Bodansky shows in great detail how Saddam has supported al-Qaida for over a decade. Bodansky names names, dates, times and places for that support.

What kind of support?

On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 hijackers commandeered four planes without guns – using only box cutters. Those carefully choreographed terror attacks required a lot of training and practice. Well guess what, it\'s been widely reported now that Saddam Hussein provided terrorists a Boeing 707 fuselage in which to practice airline hijackings. Commercial satellite photos show the body of a Boeing 707 at Salman Pak, where the Iraqis maintain terrorist training camps. Iraqi defector Sabah Khalifa Alami says Iraqi intelligence trained groups at Salman Pak on how to hijack planes without weapons.

Am I saying Saddam trained the 9-11 hijackers? Not necessarily. But I am saying he\'s training other terrorists to do the same thing – and perhaps worse.

It seems Saddam just loves suicide bombers. He boasts about supporting Palestinian suicide bombers, giving $25,000 to each family of a \"martyr\" who manages successfully to vaporize himself while murdering dozens of Israeli men, women and children in pizza parlors, or on board buses like the one in Haifa last week. Then there are the dozens – sometimes hundreds – of wounded in these horrific attacks. Those who don\'t die are frequently filled with dozens of pieces of shrapnel, and recovery for them is long, difficult and painful. Saddam supports these mass murderers financially, and brags about it.

Didn\'t President Bush say we would treat countries that harbor and support terrorists just the same as we do the terrorists themselves? And didn\'t you cheer? Saddam Hussein supports terrorists, and is proud of it.

Remember Abu Nidal, the most notorious terrorist of the 1980s? He made his home in Iraq until a few months ago, when Hussein had him murdered.

And, did you know this, you who still insist Saddam has never attacked the United States in any way? As the Boston Globe reported last Tuesday: \"The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center ... a decade ago had several Iraqi fingerprints on it.\"

Referring to the recent capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the No. 3 man in al-Qaida, sometimes referred to as al-Qaida\'s \"CEO,\" the Globe reported: \"U.S. intelligence sources associate Mohammed with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the killing of French naval technicians in Karachi, the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia, and the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.\"

Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the acknowledged mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and of plots to plant explosives on 11 U.S. airliners in Asia and to fly a plane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

\"There are unnerving similarities between Mohammed\'s interest in using cyanide derivatives in terrorist attacks and his nephew [Ramzi Yousef\'s] attempt to vaporize cyanide in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center,\" reported the Globe. \"That operation a decade ago had several Iraqi fingerprints on it. Yousef entered this country on an Iraqi passport. His No. 2 man then, Abdul Rahman Yasin, is an Iraqi who returned to live in Baghdad after the operation.. And it is likely that the false identity papers Yousef used to obtain a Pakistani passport in New York in the name of Abdul Karim Basit – the passport he used to flee after the bombing – were falsified in Kuwait during Saddam Hussein\'s occupation of that country.\"

Maybe some readers are a little hazy on the first World Trade Center attack 10 years ago. It killed six people and injured about 1,000. An expert on the Iraq-terror connection, Laurie Mylroie, wrote the book, \"Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein\'s War against America.\" In it, Mylroie says the bomb was designed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower and envelop the scene in a cloud of cyanide gas. It failed – but had it succeeded, the destruction to the twin towers would have been total, resulting in much greater loss of life than even Sept. 11\'s catastrophe, since there would have been no time to exit the towers, and the cyanide gas would have wreaked who knows how much more destruction.

Hussein is complicit, says Mylroie. And he is harboring a wanted terrorist, Abdul Yasin, one of several suspects who got away. Recently, Hussein offered to give up Yassin to the U.S. – the man the FBI wants most in connection with that attack.

Do you get it? For all these years, Saddam Hussein has been protecting Yasin – the man who actually mixed the bomb that exploded in the basement of New York City\'s World Trade Center in 1993.

By the way, how did we respond to the first World Trade Center attack? We didn\'t. We treated it like just one more crime. That shows how much good is accomplished by a weak response to terrorism – eight years later they came back and finished the job. So much for looking the other way and burying your head in the sand.

The evidence continues to pile up that Saddam Hussein\'s regime is tied to al-Qaida. Citing Pentagon officials, reporter David Rose wrote in both Vanity Fair and the United Kingdom\'s Evening Standard recently that CIA reports of Iraqi-al-Qaida cooperation number nearly 100 and extend back to 1992.

These are the hard realities we need to face. But instead, we are preoccupied with illusions and pleasant distractions, chief among them the United Nations.

Let\'s see, we\'re supposed to convince Security Council members France, Germany, Russia, China, Syria and others to agree that we can defend ourselves against a maniacal terrorist leader with doomsday weapons.

Is this real, or surreal? Think about it. We\'re being asked to get the approval of Security Council members like China – a communist totalitarian nation with one of the worst human-rights records in the world, and which claims to have ICBMs targeting U.S. cities. And Russia – a long-time friend and weapons-trading partner of Saddam Hussein\'s regime.

France also has long-standing, lucrative business dealings with Iraq, which will go bye-bye when Saddam is toppled. And Germany, whose anti-American leader Gerhard Schroeder shamelessly played the hate-America card during the last election just to stay in office.

Here\'s one of my favorites: Syria – a prime sponsor of the largest terror organization in the world, Hezbollah. Did you watch Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara at the U.N. Friday, speaking so piously and nobly about the good of the international community? Syria is a major supporter of Saddam\'s regime. And as I said, it\'s a major sponsor, along with Iran, of what is arguably the world\'s most dangerous terrorist group – Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has about 10,000 short-range missiles and rockets that can strike much of Israel. It is also equipped with tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and missiles. That\'s not just a terror group – that\'s a terror army – brought to you by Syria.

And then there\'s Guinea, Angola, Cameroon. Excuse me – and meaning no offense to these nations – but how many people could even find Cameroon on a map? I wish Cameroon well, but what does Cameroon have to do with the U.S. fighting its terror war?

The anti-war crowd says we\'re supposed to act only under U.N. authority. But France wasn\'t attacked by terrorists. Germany wasn\'t attacked. And I\'m sure Syria wasn\'t attacked – it was too busy harboring, funding and training the largest terror army in the world.

Why do we have to get other nations\' permission to act in our own self-defense? Especially when many of those nations are known to be in cahoots with the enemies of peace?

It\'s a farce.

Now let\'s talk about inspections.

Is there anyone who\'s not dead from the neck up that can\'t see that this is an idiotic cat-and-mouse game?

Question: If you were a clever psychopath leader like Saddam, with months and even years to prepare, could you hide objects – some of them the size of a washing machine, but some, particularly in the biological weapons area, that could be tiny – could you hide these things from a couple hundred inspectors, in a nation the size of France? Especially if the inspectors were known occasionally to tip off inspection sites up to two days before the inspection team arrived. Especially if the leader of the inspection team was a weak European diplomat notoriously soft and accommodating toward Saddam Hussein?

Iraq is supposedly destroying missiles right now, right? Well, sort of.

On Wednesday, Colin Powell told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.: \"From recent intelligence, we know that the Iraqi regime intends to declare and destroy only a portion of its banned Al Samoud inventory and that it has, in fact, ordered the continued production of the missiles that you see being destroyed.\" He added, \"Iraq has brought its machinery that produces such missiles out into the daylight for all to see. But we have intelligence that says, at the very same time, it has also begun to hide machinery it can use to convert other kinds of engines to power Al Samouds.\"

Now guess what? There\'s more to the story. It is now being reported that U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iraq deceived the United Nations by destroying stockpiled Al Samoud missiles with old engines.

U.S. officials now say Saddam Hussein has not destroyed any Al Samoud missiles deployed in forward bases in southern Iraq. Instead, they said, Iraq has brought out missiles from military warehouses and replaced the engines with those from the Soviet-origin SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, developed in the 1950s.

Also, U.S. officials said U..N. inspectors have not been allowed to actually inspect most of the missiles. As one U.S. official put it: \"It is one big deception and the U.N. knows it. The entire Al Samoud episode is being stage-managed by the Iraqis. They find the missiles and they destroy them.\"

Inspections. They\'re not real. Get over it.

Enough fantasy. This is too important an issue to live in la-la land. Let\'s get back to reality:

There was a lot of talk Friday in the U.N. about avoiding military force by allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in power by keeping his weapons of mass destruction program in check by having hordes of international inspectors rummaging throughout this large country for a generation. Are we all brain-dead? Even if \"the international community\" were to commit to this massive and long-term occupation of Iraq to try to keep mad-dog Saddam from destroying this or that neighbor, what about life in Iraq?

Do you know what life is like in Iraq?

Here\'s what Amnesty International says about life in Iraq.

\"The systematic torture and climate of fear that have prevailed in Iraq for so many years must be brought to an end.. The continuing scale and severity of human suffering must not be allowed to continue.\"

Can Blix fix that?

Forgive me if I take just a few minutes to give you a taste of what life is really like within Iraq today. This is from a recent report (December 2002) from the State Department\'s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor:

\"In 1979, immediately upon coming to power, Saddam Hussein silenced all political opposition in Iraq and converted his one-party state into a cult of personality. Over the more than 20 years since then, his regime has systematically executed, tortured, imprisoned, raped, terrorized and repressed Iraqi people. Iraq is a nation rich in culture with a long history of intellectual and scientific achievement. Yet Saddam Hussein has silenced its scholars and doctors, as well as its women and children.

\"Iraqi dissidents are tortured, killed or disappear in order to deter other Iraqi citizens from speaking out against the government or demanding change. A system of collective punishment tortures entire families or ethnic groups for the acts of one dissident. Women are raped and often videotaped during rape to blackmail their families. Citizens are publicly beheaded, and their families are required to display the heads of the deceased as a warning to others who might question the politics of this regime.

\"Saddam Hussein was also the first leader to use chemical weapons against his own population, silencing more than 60 villages and 30,000 citizens with poisonous gas. Between 1983 and 1988 alone, he murdered more than 30,000 Iraqi citizens with mustard gas and nerve agents. Several international organizations claim that he killed more than 60,000 Iraqi citizens with chemicals, including large numbers of women and children.\"

We hear from many anti-war spokesmen that there\'s no evidence Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Let me paint a brief picture of one Iraqi town on March 16, 1988. It was 6:20 p.m. when a smell of apples descended on the town of Halabja. This Iraqi Kurdish town of 80,000 was instantly engulfed in a thick cloud of gas, as chemicals soaked into the clothes, mouths, lungs, eyes and skin of innocent civilians. For three days, Iraqi Air Force planes dropped mustard gas and nerve agents, including sarin and VX.

These chemicals murdered at least 5,000 civilians within hours of the initial attack, and killed and maimed thousands more over the next several years. Halabja has experienced staggering rates of aggressive cancer, genetic mutation, neurological damage and psychiatric disorders since 1988. If you walk through the streets today, you will still see many diseased and disfigured citizens.

Was this an isolated event? Iraqi exiles claim Saddam has used chemical weapons 281 different times.

We learn two important lessons from this story: 1) Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and 2) he is willing to use them, even on his own people.

Back to everyday life in Iraq.. What about basic freedoms?

\"The Iraqi people are not allowed to vote to remove the government.\" (In the last election, there was one candidate. The ballot said \"Saddam Hussein: Yes or No?\" Each ballot was numbered so any no votes could be traced to the unfortunate voter, who would disappear forever. Big surprise – Saddam got 100 percent of the vote.

\"Freedom of expression, association and movement do not exist in Iraq. The media is tightly controlled – Saddam Hussein\'s son owns the daily Iraqi newspaper. Iraqi citizens cannot assemble except in support of the government. Iraqi citizens cannot freely leave Iraq.\"

Here\'s a quote from Safia Al Souhail, an Iraqi citizen, and advocacy director of the International Alliance for Justice:

\"Iraq under Saddam\'s regime has become a land of hopelessness, sadness and fear. A country where people are ethnically cleansed; prisoners are tortured in more than 300 prisons in Iraq. Rape is systematic ... congenital malformation, birth defects, infertility, cancer and various disorders are the results of Saddam\'s gassing of his own people ... the killing and torturing of husbands in front of their wives and children ... Iraq under Saddam has become a hell and a museum of crimes.\"

I apologize for the graphic nature of what follows. I actually deleted the worst descriptions, but left enough in to give you a sense of why the Iraqi people are hoping and praying we will liberate them from the current Baghdad terror regime.

The official State Department report continues: \"Under Saddam Hussein\'s orders, the security apparatus in Iraq routinely and systematically tortures its citizens. Beatings, rape, breaking of limbs and denial of food and water are commonplace in Iraqi detention centers. Saddam Hussein\'s regime has also invented unique and horrific methods of torture including electric shocks to a male\'s genitals, pulling out fingernails, suspending individuals from rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on a victim\'s skin, gouging out eyes, and burning victims with a hot iron or blowtorch.\"

Why don\'t more Iraqis complain? I wonder if it could be because of Saddam\'s decree in 2000 authorizing the government to amputate the tongues of citizens who criticize him or his government.

The following are routine in Iraq today:

Medical experimentation

Beatings

Crucifixion

Hammering nails into the fingers and hands

Amputating sex organs or breasts with an electric carving knife

Spraying insecticides into a victim\'s eyes

Branding with a hot iron

Committing rape while the victim\'s spouse is forced to watch

Pouring boiling water into the victim\'s rectum

Nailing the tongue to a wooden board

Extracting teeth with pliers

Using bees and scorpions to sting naked children in front of their parents

Does this sound familiar to you? Medical experimentation? Routine torture for the fun of it? It reminds me of Nazi Germany. We went in for Hitler – who didn\'t attack the United States, by the way – and we are going in for Saddam.

Saddam does not deny the fact that his regime tortures and brutally murders women. The daily newspaper \"Babel,\" owned by Uday, Hussein\'s eldest son, contained a public admission on Feb. 13, 2001 of beheading women who are suspected of prostitution.

The Iraqi Women\'s League in Damascus, Syria, describes this practice as follows: \"Under the pretext of fighting prostitution, units of \'Feda\'iyee Saddam,\' the paramilitary organization led by Uday, have beheaded in public more than 200 women all over the country, dumping their severed heads at their families\' doorsteps. Many of the victims were innocent professional women, including some who were suspected of being dissidents.\" (March 3, 2001).

So much for treatment of women. What about the children?

\"Since the Gulf War alone, Saddam Hussein has built 48 lavish palaces for himself,\" says the U.S. State Department. \"Meanwhile, pharmaceutical supplies intended for sick children are being exported for resale overseas. Medicine and medical supplies that are desperately needed by children are frequently delayed because regime members demand bribes from suppliers. The lack of health care in Iraq has led to the re-emergence of diseases that had been exterminated years ago, including cholera and polio.\"

By the way, Saddam\'s regime also forces children between the ages of 10 and 15 to attend 3-week training courses in weapons\' use, hand-to-hand fighting, rappelling from helicopters and infantry tactics so they can be part of Saddam\'s army. These children endure 14 hours of physical training and psychological pressure each day. Families that do not want their children to attend this rigorous training course are threatened with the loss of their food-ration cards.

Let\'s add it all up. Torture, murder and extreme cruelty are a way of life in Iraq. Saddam is involved in international terrorism.. He was complicit in the first World Trade Center attack. He has for years supported al-Qaida, which killed 3,000 Americans on our own soil. He has weapons of mass destruction – not is trying to develop – but has weapons of mass destruction and has already used them for the attempted genocide of the Kurds.

If we send our troops home and leave Saddam\'s regime in power – and even if we deploy a few hundred or a few thousand inspectors and troops to roam hither and yon in that large country – will the U.N. presence stop Saddam\'s daily torture? No.

Will they stop his support of terrorists? No.

Will they stop his clandestine program to continue developing more and more fearsome weapons of mass destruction? No.

Eventually, as happened in 1991, we will leave, and Saddam Hussein will rise again. If we let him, he will – very shortly – put his weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorists.

And if you didn\'t like what terrorists did to us with four stolen jets and box cutters, you\'ll really dislike what they can do with weapons of mass destruction.

Ask yourself this question: Is it right to let this man stay in power?

and I ask of our country, India,after reading this news item, do we learn something from this and make oursleves more stronger too, so that we will not have similar terrorist attacks on our land anymore?!!

by **neeraja** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 2:57 pm

Hi Indian American! You are talking so much to side the US, but if the motive of the US is to wipe out terrorism, then why doesn\'t it do something about Pakistan which is obviously killing and has killed so many Indians in the name of Kashmir? You are just talking about about 3000 Americans who perished - do you know how many innocent Indian children fall prey to terrorists every single day? Who is the cause? It is Pakistan. Where is Mr.Bush now? What are you talking about? Why has he waived off the sanctions against Pakistan?? It is certainly the highhandedness of USA to do this aggression unilaterally without the UN approval... This is certainly going to have a tremendous blacklash on the global economy. Because of some idiotic egoist like George Bush, who needs to be stripped from his position.

by **XYZ** » Thu Mar 20, 2003 2:33 am

Hmm... Saddam killing his own people and torturing children? When did this happen? Two decades back. What was the US doing then? Concentrating on Iran. Cared a shit about people of Iraq. Now after two decades, Bush is keen on liberating these people by throwing out Saddam. hee hee hee... What a noble thought! And the conditions Bush puts forth are that Saddam should meet all demands regarding weapons... Hee hee hee! Would that mean that had Saddam yielded to Bush\'s demands then Bush would\'ve let him go? What about those children who were tortured (two decades ago), those villages that were destroyed completely? Saddam deserves to be punished severely, no doubt about that... But why did the US react so late? US couldn\'t have been more hypocritical... All this facade of honesty, compassion etc. etc. to justify war!!! These Americans are crazy...

by **a proud indian american** » Thu Mar 20, 2003 1:16 pm

Baghdad welcomes \'Moment of Liberation\' 
Reporter in capital says newly emboldened people eager for war 
Posted: March 20, 2003 
1:00 a.m. Eastern 
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com 

Many newly emboldened Iraqis are revealing to the few reporters left in Baghdad that they see America\'s military action as their moment of liberation.
 
\"Many, many Iraqis are telling us now – not always in the whispers we only heard in the past, but now in quite candid conversations – that they are waiting for America to come and bring them liberty,\" said New York Times reporter John Burns in an interview from Baghdad on the PBS News Hour last night.
 
\"Along with all of this apprehension,\" said Burns, \"Americans should know that there also is a good deal of anticipation. Iraqis have suffered beyond, I think, the common understanding in the United States from the repression of the past 30 years.\"
 
PBS\'s Gwen Ifill asked Burns to clarify: \"They are actually eagerly anticipating war?\"
 
\"It\'s very hard for anybody to understand this,\" he said. \"It can only be understood in terms of the depth of repression here.\"
 
Burns said that, of course, there are people who don\'t want war out of loyalty to the regime, or out of fear or out of \"suspicion of America\'s motives.\" Because of the closed nature of Iraqi society, we cannot know how numerous either side is, he said.
 
\"All I can tell you – and every reporter who is here will attest this – is that the most extraordinary experience of the last few days has been a sudden breaking of the ice here,\" said Burns, \"with people from every corner of life coming forward to tell us that they understand what America is about in this.\"
 
Burns said the people naturally are fearful of errant bombing, damage to Iraq\'s infrastructure and what kind of government might come after Saddam is gone.
 
\"Can I just say,\" Burns stated, after Ifill tried to interrupt, \"there is absolutely no doubt, no doubt, that there are many, many Iraqis who see what is about to happen here as their moment of liberation.\"

by **:)))))** » Sat Mar 22, 2003 10:04 pm

USA. Super Power. Needs to maintain it. Had to flex its arms, more so after the showdown in UN. Face saving gestures. Happens to be saving the Iraqis too from its own Despot. Was watching a news item by the National Geographic last night about the excesses by saddam and his two sons. Looked 3 to the power of nth Hitlers and progressing. Iraq nor the World needed them. Good enough, US taking care. Have the need and the ability. Saddening though, about the loss of lives of the innocents. But, loss of lives after bomb blast in Hyd/Mumbai or in Gujarat or.. Lesson:For the sake of peace we need war?

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