Letters to the Editor, April 13, 2004

Cora Fraser and John Anast have come close to the truth . The most salient point to remember is that some Jews see Christianity as 'blasphemy'. The blasphemy of Christ was that he taught that all mankind were equal before God. Hitler who had declared the Germans to be a 'master race' found that this planet was too small for him and the Jews. The concept of the 'master race' or 'God's Chosen people' are antithetical to Christianity.

Peter Lewychy

Will you give me a bit more information on who you are and how you get your news and photos. I just want to make sure this is all current before posting your link on my website.

I too am appalled by what Bush and his cronies are doing. We've got to remove him from power in November, and forever watch closer what our Government Officials are doing in our name.

Thanks,

Robin Roberts

https://www.democrats.org/epatriots/give.html?sourcecode=E002280

Visit my web site for Democratic Information and links
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GrassrootsDemocratsInGeorgia/

Editor: Al-Jazeerah.info is a US independent publication. Read the bottom of the front page and the Mission section for more information. News and photo sources are written under the items clearly. Photos and cartoons come mainly from Arab newspapers and they are updated daily.

I marched on March 20, 2004, in Chicago, IL, USA, to say no to war. I had the opportunity to meet people involved with a group called "Voices in the Wilderness." I am recommending their website for inclusion on your page listings websites promoting peace.

The United States is not a democracy and, as such, we do not have the option of electing a president who supports peace. Our government is controlled by corporate profiteers and they want war. We, the people of the United States, want peace. I apologize for the death and destruction caused by my inability to silence the warmongers.

I would love to see Iraq with a government of, by, and for the people of Iraq. A government where people making laws, decisions, and giving Iraq her direction are placed into power, because their fellow Iraqi's believe them best for the job...and not because they have more guns or bombs than anyone else.

It will be a thrill to see Iraqis prospering in a free society. A society where each person's abilities, attitudes, and drive determine their station in life. Not a society where freedom is not the rule, and does not allow each person to have an equal hope for the future.

It's exciting to think about a prosperous Iraq, where stores are full of food, health care is abundant, each family has a home for their sanctuary, and children learn in schools that are surrounded by peace, no machine guns in sight...anywhere!

I long to see our military home with their families, and the only Americans in Iraq are there for business or pleasure. Bringing friendship, and commerce to Iraq, and welcoming Iraqis to visit America.

There can be little doubt that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein. The atrocities that he and his sons committed are a sad record in Iraq's history. But with that leadership gone, there becomes the temptation of others to take his place. Only a group representing all the people of Iraq, backed by an Iraqi military and police, can prevent a chaos in Iraq that would be so much worse than the repression which was recently lifted.

If America leaves Iraq now, we will be guilty of abandoning the hopes of the majority of Iraqis. No matter what a person's beliefs are regarding America going to war against (Iraq), there can be little reason to disagree on this point. A minority of Iraqis wish for chaos in Iraq, hoping that in the chaos, they can catapult themselves above others, and rule them by force. Americans stand for freedom, and justice, and cannot stomach this. It is more repulsive to us than burning and dragging our dead through the streets. It is more repulsive than losing our soldiers lives. More repulsive than the expenses of this war on our government, already struggling financially.

It may be difficult to understand why Americans want freedom for Iraqis. I think it is because it is a gift that free people cannot wait to share. Once you have it, you would rather die than lose it.

Iraq's real enemies are the people who wish to prevent this freedom. They are scared of what a free Iraq might mean to them. When their own people wish for a voice in their government, and when the love of freedom causes Iraqi's to wish to share it, just like Americans now.

If you cannot take any hope from this, then also consider that each time America goes to war, and defeats an enemy, we eventually become close friends with the same nation. Look at Japan, and Germany as example of this. Both are our great friends, and are free and prosperous. They are our allies, not our colonies. History will show the same for Iraq, if only we are allowed to prevail over the (Iraqis resisting the US occupation) who want to steal back the hard won freedom.

Editor: You're in contradiction with the US official main cause of the war, i.e. disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. In reality, the evidence shows that the war is about controlling the Iraqi oil, justifying the continuous military spending, and destruction of an Arab state which was enemy of Israel. But you're entitled to your opinion and I wish you're right.

In one of his election speeches, from his raised platform of a minibus cum pseudo-Rath now sputtering through Ranchi, L. K. Advani has tried once again to bask in the reflected glory of Vajpayee. This time over Vajpayee’s 1977 initiative of opening up grant of passport liberally to all Indian citizens, while reminding only the Muslims to be grateful to BJP for the supposedly undeserved favour, denied to them by Indira Congress.

In actual practice, the opening of liberal passport facility opened up enormous employment opportunities in the Arab countries of the gulf, where full 90% immigrants from India were non-Muslims.

This glaring fact is never highlighted by the BJP, which later received enormous funding from its own supporters spread out all over the gulf countries.

Advani’s singling out Muslims as the sole and apparently exclusive beneficiary of Vajpayee’s ‘Raj Dharma’ while being a foreign minister in the Janata Party coalition government of the then Prime Minister, V. P. Singh, is one more clever spin that will not convince the people that BJP had been fair to Muslims.

How can BJP be fair to Muslims, when its RSS ideology is totally founded on treating Muslims as ‘the enemy’? A time will come, when people will openly demand that all books of Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Savarkar who demonized Muslims, should be banned by the secular Indian State.

Besides, it is an affront to common man’s intelligence that Advani still wants Muslim votes with blatant disregard of the fact that the wounds of Gujarat massacres, rapes, arson and forced ethnic cleansing, are still bleeding and even short memories are not so short as to forgive and forget one of the most gruesome chapter in Sangh Parivar’s hate Muslim crystallization. They should stop rubbing salt over raw wounds.

L. K. Advani and Vajpayee will have to reflect deeply over making up to Indian Muslims, through concrete acts of full justice rather than through empty sloganeering.