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Requiem for a Nation
By Abid Ullah Jan
09/10/05 "ICH" -- --
What do you think of these words: “Unable to win
hearts and minds, the invaders now aim lower. The overwhelming
evidence is that …the occupiers widened the war to destroy
food production in rebel-held areas. The report lists
indiscriminate bombings, reprisal against villages and villagers,
summary executions, … theft of civilian property, desecration of
mosques, killing prisoners of war, wreckage of hospitals, assaults
on journalists, training children as spies - all violations of
Geneva conventions to which the Soviet Union has solemnly
subscribed.”
It
seems these are words from some “Islamist” web site, which
spew venom against the allied forces’ noble mission in
Iraq
to motivate and recruit “terrorist” insurgents. Surprisingly,
these are words from an
editor
ial of the New York Times
— an
editor
ial in which it reminds the occupier of “all violations of
Geneva
conventions to which” the it “has solemnly subscribed.”
Editors
of the New York Times
penned this
editor
ial on December 30, 1984 in which it regretted that the “Soviet
method ‘works.’” It condemned the UN for not doing anything
other than “token censure” of the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan
.
The
editor
ial is titled “Requiem for a Nation.” It is extremely
concerned about “indiscriminate bombings, reprisal against
villages and villagers,” and the lack of dissent at home and
proton abroad.”
If
editor
s of the New York Times
could fast forward their feelings, without being polluted by
chauvinism and xenophobia, they would be able to see that today
another village Tall Afar is at the mercy of their own occupation
forces in
Iraq
.
Bush
and many others in the
US
considered the word “refugee” for victims of Katrina as
degrading. But they could hardly read a Washington
Post, September 07, 2005, report by Jonathan Finer. The title
reads: “With Death at Their Door,
Few
Leave
Iraqi
City
.” Who is threatening such a certain death? And who is forcing
them to leave?
The
report makes it amply clear: “The military had warned in
leaflets dropped by helicopter and messages played over
loudspeaker Tuesday morning that it would soon raid the
insurgent-controlled neighborhood of Sarai, east of the city
center, and asked civilians to evacuate through checkpoints in the
southern part of town. But the Sarai residents, most of them Sunni
Turkmens, insisted they would either flee northward or remain in
their homes, come what may.”
It
means they are not only being thrown out of their homes, but also
told where they can and cannot go in their own country. Had they
intend to go North, then they were to leave their own vehicles and
“board military trucks bound for a base just outside the city
where they could be processed and then released if they proved not
to have ties to the insurgency.” No one could guarantee, they
would not end up in Abu Ghraib like many other thousands of
innocent Iraqis.
So,
here we see 200,000 “liberated” Iraqis thrown out of their
homes and there comes the assault — an action replay of Fallujah.
According to the reports, the operation would be extended to
Ramadi, Qaem, Rawa and Samara as well. Compare the horror of these
uprooted people in a devastated
Iraq
with the victims of Katrina. “Refugees” of Katrina are still
far better off.
Puppet
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari issued a statement that the
operation is against insurgents who wanted “to deny the citizens
of Tal Afar their future in a democratic and peaceful
Iraq
. We want to guarantee those rights.” The world knows how it can
guarantee those rights by destroying their home, making them
refugees and killing the thousands, who according to the Washington
Post report decided to “remain in their homes, come what
may.” They became insurgents and liable to be indiscriminately
killed by the forces of “liberation.”
More
than 128,000 Iraqis have died since the
US
invasion and many more are being killed the moment we write these
words. 1.8 millions were starved to death even before the
US
invasion on the basis of lies upon lies.
Still
it is not time to write requiem for Iraqi nation. It is not Iraqi
nation that is dying. Deaths do not kill nations. Diseases do. It
is not Iraqi nation that is dying. A whole nation is ding in
America
, a nation which can see victims of 9/11 and Katrina, but not the
victims of American lies. A nation which is helpless before the
totalitarians who have invaded foreign countries on the basis of
proven lies, yet they cannot do anything to help their blood
thirsty leaders make a course correction.
Allowing
their leaders to make wars in the heat of the moment after 9/11 is
one thing, but unable to stop them from staying the same
disastrous course is totally another.
A
nation that goes blind to the double standards of its leading news
and opinion source, such as the New
York Times, cannot stay at the helms of affairs for far too
long.
If
a majority of this nation were not suffering from blindness of
soul, they would have seen how glorifying Afghan resistance
fighters was a noble mission of the Times
editor
ial board on December 30, 1984 and how annihilating Iraqi
resistance fighters today is an even greater noble mission for it
today.
The
only difference is that it is their own occupation. When a nation
reaches this stage, it soon reads requiem for itself in foreign
newspapers. The Soviets have read it already. So would the
Americans.
Abid Ullah Jan’s latest book, The End of Democracy, has just been released. <abidjan@sympatico.ca>
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