January 7, 2006
I received an e-mail today from a
dear friend in Minnesota who is grieving the death of her uncle in
Iraq. Her heartrending personal account of his murder deeply saddened
me and I include it for all those who wish to read it. Afterwards,
please read a passionate appeal to the American people by Cindy
Sheehan, a tireless crusader to bring an end to the war in Iraq. God
Bless.
I wanted to share some really sad family news that we were just
stricken with yesterday. My uncle Abdulrazaq (my father's younger
brother who is 50 years old) was in Iraq (in our local city of Samarra
Iraq) on Thursday January 5th, 2006 and at 8pm went to go meet with his
business partners to finish financial exchanges and on his way back he
was killed by American troops.
Upon stealing the $10,000 that were in his coat pocket the troops that
the Americans are so proud of and support, found that he did not have
any weapons or explosives and then they dumped his body at the local
hospital and walked away with his money.
My cousin is a resident physician at the local hospital. The Americans
had notified them that they were bringing in a dead body and to come
and receive it. Upon going to receive the body from the Americans
outside of the hospital he was shocked to find that this is his uncle.
At home his wife was very worried as he was extraordinarily late for
dinner. She called other family members who called the hospital (which
is something people typically due since so many people are dying since
the U.S. invation) to see if he had an accident at which point my
cousin answered informing them that his body was just dumped at the
hospital.
Our family was contacted and they came to receive his body. He was shot
in the head, abdomen, and in one of his kidneys and it is believed that
he died immediately, though the details of whether they robbed him
before or after they killed him and when decided to dump his body are
unknown. He left behind a wife and two daughters age 4 and 5. They are
still not sure how to break the news to his daughters.
My uncle had spent 16 years as a prisoner of war in Iran. He was freed
on April 9th, 1998 (even though the Iran/Iraq war ended in the late
80's). Upon starting his life again in 1998 he married and had two
beautiful daughters. Although it was always hard for him to talk about
the torture in the Iranian prisons, his daughters Shayma (5 yrs old)
and Yamama (4 years old) always had a way of transcending words such
they seeped into his heart in the most natural and miraculous way and
when he played with them he was free from his tortured thoughts and
pains.
My uncle Abdulrazak is not the only one, there are thousands that have
died in this way. This is the face of American terrorism. Our family is
so numb. Our hearts are swollen with grief, resentment, and sorrow.
American soldiers sign up to risk life and death and when one of them
dies it is though the earth stops its rotation, but when an Iraqi
civilian who is working hard to support his family and is forced to
live his life in the midst of an American occupation is murdered and
robbed by sweet American boys, he is dumped like road kill.
What makes their lives more worth living?? Is it the blue eyes and
blond hair? or is it the cross that hangs on their necks?? I wonder
what defense they have for this one. Did he part his hair on the wrong
side? Did he wear the wrong color? Was he driving "suspiciously"? What
would they say he did to deserve being murdered? How about robbing him?
It must not have been a robbery. Maybe they were afraid that a doctor
would steal his money so they kept if for safe keeping.
Maybe they wanted to take the money and buy a gift for his daughters.
Whatever it is it must be good because they are Americans! In fact as
they provide this hypothetical justification (assuming they would be
prompted to do so- which wouldn't happen because Americans answer to no
one) I can just hear the national anthem playing in the background.
My uncle's murderers will come home to their families one day to tell
of the heroic stories but humbly refuse to be called heroes and instead
insist that they were merely doing their duty, but in their soiled
hearts they will carry the ugliness of what they have done and who they
became and it will eat at them until it destroys their lives and the
lives around them.
This email will not have an end-just as these killings do not.......
The Opposite of Good Is Apathy
By Cindy Sheehan – 06 January 2006
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.
– William Lloyd Garrison
The apathy of most of America is stunning and appalling to me. When I
found this quote I was filled with wide-eyed wonder that there is one
statue left in America complete with statue, or one grave or tomb still
occupied.
On October 26th, as MoveOn.org was holding its
candlelight vigils across the country to mourn the death of the 2000th
American soldier in Iraq, I and two dozen others were being arrested in
front of the White House protesting the carnage done in our name by the
illegitimate residents therein.
Now, counting the 11 American soldiers who were pointlessly killed in
George's unconscionable and brainless war of terror in the Middle East,
the American "official" death toll is up to 2193: 200 more families
ruined in less than three months!
My son Casey was in the first 1000 to be killed in Iraq. We reached
that dismal mark by September 2004. MoveOn.org conducted candlelight
vigils for that occasion. Then a little over a year later, MoveOn.org
conducted candlelight vigils to commemorate the 2000th soldier.
If we don't get off of our collective apathetic and complacent
backsides to stop the barbaric killing in Iraq, when will the next
candlelight vigil be? George Bush and the evil neocons are killing our
precious soldiers at the rate of 2.78 per day. By my calculations, we
should be lighting our candles again and singing "Kum bah ya" by
October.
This article is not intended to be an indictment of MoveOn.org, which
does some amazing work and who were big supporters of Camp Casey. But
my point is this, America: the longer we allow the illegitimate
pretender to the White House and his conniving and callous gang of
co-conspirators to continue, the more our collective humanity is
damaged.
Apparently, candlelight vigils do very little to stop, or even slow
down a little, the carnage committed by the war criminals in DC.
Then we have the unfortunate innocents of Iraq. I have heard reports of
up to as many as 200 of them killed yesterday. So if 200 were reported,
one has to really wonder what the true count was.
Bill O'Reilly and George Bush define a terrorist as someone who "kills
innocent men, women and children." Am I the only one who sees the irony
and stunning hypocrisy in this statement?" Who do Bill and George think
are being killed in Iraq? A well-trained and organized Army?
Terrorists? We all know that is false.
This is who is being killed in Iraq: living
breathing human beings, identical to Americans or any other human
beings on earth, who are just trying to go about their lives, trying to
survive in a war-torn country that was no threat to America or our way
of life.
"I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial
incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," said George on
December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-timate by
George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000
deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the
terrorist that Osama ever was. If George says 30,000 ... who knows what
the truthful total is. It fills me with sorrow and hurts my heart to
even contemplate the number.
America: this is what you are allowing your government to do in your name:
Detain and torture prisoners without due process. Use chemical
weapons on other members of humanity. Spy on Americans without a court
order (I hope my conversations put them in a coma of boredom). Carpet
bomb cities filled with human beings like yourselves.
Destroy the infrastructure of other countries. Destroy the
infrastructure of American cities. Cut taxes on the rich while pouring
money and blood into the thirsty sands of the Middle East. Decimate our
treasury. Rape the environment. Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Hillary Clinton told me that the "wheels of government grind slowly."
This is a tired cliche and it is unacceptable blather while the war
machine is grinding the bones of our children. It is time for us
wide-awake Americans to make our elected officials speed up the
timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
If I hear one more rendition of "We Shall Overcome" and then watch the
vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TVs and crack open a
brewsky, content in the fact that they have done something for peace
that day, I am going to scream! We can't overcome unless we take the
proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!
Hold your vigils and marches in relevant places: such as warmongering
local Congressional offices. So many Senators and Congresspeople come
to mind. Or in front of a recruiting station. Or federal buildings. Or
military bases. Then instead of going home and cracking open a beer, or
uncorking a bottle of wine, sit down and say "we aren't leaving until
you call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq." Put your butt
on the line for humanity.
Change will not happen until we make it happen. We can't make change happen by wishing or praying that it will happen.
We actually have to do something.
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