Letters to the Editor, March 27, 2004

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Mahatma Gandhi

I, like many people, am not privy to the inner machinations of the wars that appear on this planet. Like many though, I feel an empathy towards those that suffer these evils. We feel an unverbalised sorrow in the fact that so many have systematically died for the most absurd and hence evil of reasons.

It occurs to me that there is a profound lack of sight and knowledge in the family of humans that allows this inter-species alienation to occur.

I ask myself when is it that we will grow beyond what we read and are fed, to what we can become. What is it that the world needs to understand that these wars are atrocities are mere displays of power. We, the people simply pawns and chaff to these powers.

Put even more simply I want to say that Israel, Palestine, and all the world are simple playthings for megalomania and this corresponding meglomaniacs.

Israel is used as a weapon against the Middle East. This weapon is there only so that oil, and its concomitant economic power is available to the colonising nations. Isrealis are blinded by the same tools that blind many in the west, as many are in the east.

Instead of fighting each other, we should learn to fight the source of the problem. The challenge is to be able to form the will within ourselves to tell that power that it has no power with us.

Maybe we should divide the world into the World less that power, and whoever wishes to side with the evil that resides in its real government.

In the USA, the early 20th century witnessed the arrival of several hundred Muslims from Eastern Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, including a group of Polish Muslims who opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928. In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the presidency of Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. Today there are over 10 million Muslims on the USA.

18 % Arabs 82 % Non-Arabs: 20% Africa 10% Russia and China 17% South East Asia 30% India Subcontinent 13% other places of World 10 % Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan

USA Population (280 m): Islam 2nd Largest Religion % Muslim : Christians 84% (235 m) USA 3.7 % 3.7 % Muslims (10 m) UK 4% 2.1% Jews (6 m) Canada 2% 10.2 % Others (30 m) France 7%

Islam is the fastest growing religion in US, Europe, and the rest of the world. Every 4th person in the world is a MUSLIM. There are 58 countries (out of 189 in the world) with over 50% populations as Muslims. Islam is the 2nd largest religion in US, UK, France, Canada, and Germany. There are over 4,000 Mosques in the US and Canada alone. I the year 2015-16, Muslims in the world will be the majority.

I have completed a third anti-war (English language) drama set in Iraq on March 2, 2004. THE LANGUAGE OF THE PILGRIMS is about a team of journalists with an Arabic TV news network coping with the tragic bombings of that day in Baghdad. The complete script if posted at my web site:

All of my plays set in Iraq - and the first two also have journalists as characters - are posted at my site.

I have also written a 166,000 word (English language) novel - THE ESCAPE PAINTING - about an Iraqi-War professor who returns to Iraq in July and August, 2003.

Religion and war

By Phil G Hong

We do live in a most amazing world, at times beautiful, tenderly indifferent, hostile. Whether it evolved or was created by some divine power, it should be treasured, not defiled through killing. I cannot detect any meaningful efforts to address and solve the root causes of conflict.

Bob Dylan

With God on Our Side

Oh my name it is nothin'

My age it means less

The country I come from

Is called the Midwest

I's taught and brought up there

The laws to abide

And that land that I live in

Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it

They tell it so well

The cavalries charged

The Indians fell

The cavalries charged

The Indians died

Oh the country was young

With God on its side

Oh the Spanish-American

War had its day

And the Civil War too

Was soon laid away

And the names of the heroes

I's made to memorize

With guns in their hands

And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys

It closed out its fate

The reason for fighting

I never got straight

But I learned to accept it

Accept it with pride

For you don't count the dead

When God's on your side

I've learned to hate Russians

All through my whole life

If another war starts

It's them we must fight

To hate them and fear them

To run and to hide

And accept it all bravely

With God on my side.

But now we got weapons

Of the chemical dust

If fire them we're forced to

Then fire them we must

One push of the button

And a shot the world wide

And you never ask questions

When God's on your side.

In a many dark hours

I've been thinkin' about this

That Jesus Christ

Was betrayed by a kiss

But I can't think for you

You'll have to decide

Whether Judas Iscariot

Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'

I'm weary as Hell

The confusion I'm feelin'

Ain't no tongue can tell

The words fill my head

And fall to the floor

If God's on our side

He'll stop the next war.

Updated

*With Bush on your side*

Oh his name it is nothing,

His mind it is less,

And the country he comes from,

Is archaic Mid-West,

He’s taught and brought up there

Those prisoners to fry,

And you gotta ask questions

With Bush on your side

Oh they set off to Vietnam,

a-doin’ no harm,

Just dropped Agent Orange,

and then Napalm

George didn't go with them,

He ran for to hide,

And you gotta ask questions

With Bush on your side,

The Arab-Israeli war

Now has its day,

George is not just one sided,

He's blind you might say,

The word ‘peace’ is abhorred,

It just falls to the floor,

If Georgie-boy can

He'll start a World War

And then they're suspicions

Bush just cannot prove,

So the rich bomb the poor,

in an assault so cruel,

Revenge for his daddy

For Israel and oil,

They'll attack anybody,

Anywhere anytime.

Oh Bush is as righteous,

As righteous as hell,

His line in hypocrisy

Gets the hard sell,

Those great double standards

The whole world can see

War's a Sunday School picnic,

For folks such as he.

Phil G Hong - with apologies to the original song