http://Hoda.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10733





http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=326324


the painting is by a palestinian painter named Abdel Nasser Amer]]> Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:22:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10733 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10727 (to the Americans of Lebanese origin)
I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.

I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.

I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America.

I believe that you can say to the founders of this great nation, "Here I am, a youth, a young tree whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon, yet I am deeply rooted here, and I would be fruitful."

And I believe that you can say to Abraham Lincoln, the blessed, "Jesus of Nazareth touched your lips when you spoke, and guided your hand when you wrote; and I shall uphold all that you have said and all that you have written."

I believe that you can say to Emerson and Whitman and James, "In my veins runs the blood of the poets and wise men of old, and it is my desire to come to you and receive, but I shall not come with empty hands."

I believe that even as your fathers came to this land to produce riches, you were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labor.

I believe that it is in you to be good citizens.

And what is it to be a good citizen?

It is to acknowledge the other person's rights before asserting your own, but always to be conscious of your own.

It is to be free in word and deed, but it is also to know that your freedom is subject to the other person's freedom.

It is to create the useful and the beautiful with your own hands, and to admire what others have created in love and with faith.

It is to produce by labor and only by labor, and to spend less than you have produced that your children may not be dependent upon the state for support when you are no more.

It is to stand before the towers of New York and Washington, Chicago and San Francisco saying in your heart, "I am the descendant of a people that builded Damascus and Byblos, and Tyre and Sidon and Antioch, and now I am here to build with you, and with a will."

You should be proud of being an American, but you should also be proud that your fathers and mothers came from a land upon which God laid His gracious hand and raised His messengers.

Young Americans of Syrian origin, I believe in you.

Gibran Khalil Gibran
Lebanese American Poet






]]> Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:05:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10727 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10711 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0822/p06s01-wome.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3184671.stm
http://www.traversepeacealerts.org/john_ism.html]]> Thu, 28 Aug 2003 00:25:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10711 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10625 Hoda
A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

"Bring 'Em On?"
By STAN GOFF

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.

Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing this war."

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He retired in 1996 from the US Army, from 3rd Special Forces. He lives in Raleigh.




]]> Thu, 21 Aug 2003 23:10:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10625 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10611 Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:04:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10611 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10591 What about the suicide bombing in Israel today?How terrible! what will that achieve, well that will for sure achieve something, wait for the Israel army, it will soon demolish plenty of houses, jail hundred of peoples, break many bones, and the peace process will stop again, as it was going somewhere before. Is this ever going to end?
Let's hope so....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3164675.stm]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2003 16:20:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10591 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10543 Sharon and Arafat had too much blood and hatered on their resume, it is time for them to go.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0814/p12s01-lire.html]]> Sun, 17 Aug 2003 12:36:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10543 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10487 please just read the article !!
http://truthout.org/docs_03/081303A.shtml]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2003 13:14:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10487 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10439 http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=6683]]> Mon, 11 Aug 2003 01:07:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10439 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10322 [Robert Winer]

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?

A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.

Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.

A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.

Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?

A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass
destruction, did we?

A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find
something, probably right before the 2004 election.

Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?

A: To use them in a war, silly.

Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in
a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war
with them?

A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons,
so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.

Q: That doesn't make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had
all those big weapons to fight us back with?

A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.

Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons
our government said they did.

A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons.
We had another good reason to invade them anyway.

Q: And what was that?

A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was
a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.

Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his
country?

A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.

Q: Kind of like what they do in China?

A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor,
where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S.
corporations richer.

Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate
gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?

A: Right.

Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?

A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People
who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?

A: I told you, China is different.

Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?

A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is
Communist.

Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?

A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.

Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?

A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are
sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Like in Iraq?

A: Exactly.

Q: And like in China, too?

A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand,
is not.

Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?

A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws
that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba
until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.

Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started
doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?

A: Don't be a smart-ass.

Q: I didn't think I was being one.

A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.

Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?

A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein
came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate
leader anyway.

Q: What's a military coup?

A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by
force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.

Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?

A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our
friend.

Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?

A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.

Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly
overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate
leader?

A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped
us invade Afghanistan.

Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?

A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.

Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?

A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men -- fifteen of them Saudi Arabians
--
hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over
3,000 Americans.

Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?

A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule
of the Taliban.

Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's
heads and hands?

A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's
heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.

Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back
in May of 2001?

A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job
fighting drugs.

Q: Fighting drugs?

A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium
poppies.

Q: How did they do such a good job?

A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would
have their hands and heads cut off.

Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing
flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for
other reasons?

A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's
hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands
for stealing bread.

Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?

A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that
oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in
public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.

Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?

A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.

Q: What's the difference?

A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet
fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes
and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal
oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and
fingers.

Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.

A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our
friends.

Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were
from Saudi Arabia.

A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.

Q: Who trained them?

A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.

Q: Was he from Afghanistan?

A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad
man.

Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.

A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan
talked about?

A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or
thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call
them Russians now.

Q: So the Soviets ? I mean, the Russians ? are now our friends?

A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after
they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our
invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French
and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.

Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?

A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries
and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we
want them to do?

A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.

Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?

A: Well, yeah. For a while.

Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?

A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our
friend, temporarily.

Q: Why did that make him our friend?

A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.

Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?

A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the
other way, to show him we were his friend.

Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes
our friend?

A: Most of the time, yes.

Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an
enemy?

A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit
by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.

Q: Why?

A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for
America.
Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless
unAmerican Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?

Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?

A: Yes.

Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?

A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him
what to do.

Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George
W. Bush hears voices in his head?

A. Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes,
make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.

Q: Good night, Daddy.
]]> Sun, 03 Aug 2003 19:52:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10322 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10317 On a lighter note let me leave you with this George Bush quote:"I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be - a more literate country and a hopefuller country." -George W. Bush, Jan. 2001
Anywho,(Yes, I meant it to be anywho, in case you where wondering)
If you want to know the reason for my frustration, read this great article, and please put your input, common....
http://truthout.org/docs_03/080303G.shtml]]> Sun, 03 Aug 2003 00:41:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10317 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10178 Hoda

read the Article:
http://www.thetruereligion.org/savewestern.htm]]> Fri, 25 Jul 2003 09:10:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10178 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10046 Hoda
read the article and aplaud:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3003296.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3076801.stm]]> Fri, 18 Jul 2003 13:50:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10046 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10018 to read the whole arlicle go here:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=3ItemID=2754

]]> Wed, 16 Jul 2003 23:50:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10018 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10012
So Mr. Rumsfield, if you are reading this! Please stop wasting your time and their lives and bring them back to their families, where they are at least appreciated. Then you will ask what will happen in Iraq if the US army withdrew? well, let the united nation take over, at least they are not going to be hated and attacked by the Iraqi. Then and only then, the world will start to celebrate the removal of Saddam.
Hoda
Read the article :
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq030716_2ndBrigade.html]]> Wed, 16 Jul 2003 21:40:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/10012 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9990 Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:58:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9990 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9970 http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0714-03.htm

http://www.lavozdeanza.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/06/01/3ed98a980e0fc]]> Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:51:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9970 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9942 http://www.distanceeddesign.com/rachel/
]]> Sat, 12 Jul 2003 16:25:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9942 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9932 Don't tell me that you have grown a conscious over the past 20 years about the poor 4000 kurds that Saddam has gas with the gas we supplied him with, but we really didn't mean for him to gas the Kurds, we wanted him to gas the Iranien instead, as if the Iranien don't belong to the human species. and how about Ben Laden? did we get tired of him after we hired him to get rid of the soviet? The Bottom line killing is killing. It is never justified, no matter who is doing it, or who is getting killed. But let's not shift from the main subject it is the oil stupid !!!...Read this article. http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,996305,00.html]]> Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:57:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9932 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778 http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9896 Thu, 10 Jul 2003 07:50:00 EDT http://Hoda.tigblog.org/post/9896 37.3661111 -81.102777837.3661111-81.1027778