A Letter to the British People From a Daughter of Iraq
Was forwarded to me...
A Letter to the British People From a Daughter of Iraq
Iman al-Saadun
Friday, 8 July 2005
I’m sending this letter to the British people and in particular tothe residents of London. For a period of hours, you have livedthrough moments of desperate anxiety and horror. In those hours youlost a member of your family or a friend, and we wish to tell you intotal honesty that we too grieve when human lives pass away. I cannottell you how much we hurt when we see desperation and pain on theface of another person. For we have lived through this situation –and continue to live through it every day – since your country andthe United States formed an alliance and laid plans to attack Iraq.The Prime Minister of your country, Tony Blair, said that those whocarried out the explosions did so in the name of Islam. The Secretaryof State of the United States, Condaleezza Rice, described thebombings as an act of barbarism. The United Nations Security Councilmet and unanimously condemned the event.I would like to ask you, the free British people, to allow me toinquire: in whose name was our country blockaded for 12 years? Inwhose name were our cities bombed using internationally prohibitedweapons? In whose name did the British army kill Iraqis and torturethem? Was that in your name? Or in the name of religion? Or humanity?Or freedom? Or democracy?What do you call the killing of more than two million children? Whatdo you call the pollution of the soil and the water with depleteduranium and other lethal substances?What do you call what happened in the prisons in Iraq – in AbuGhraib, Camp Bucca and the many other prison camps? What do you callthe torture of men, women, and children? What do you call tying bombsto the bodies of prisoners and blowing them apart? What do you callthe refinement of methods of torture for use on Iraqi prisoners –such as pulling off limbs, gouging out eyes, putting out cigaretteson their skin, and using cigarette lighters to set fire to the hairon their heads? Does the word “barbaric” adequately describe thebehavior of your troops in Iraq?May we ask why the Security Council did not condemn the massacre inal-Amiriyah and what happened in al-Fallujah, Tal‘afar, Sadr City,and an-Najaf? Why does the world watch as our people are killed andtortured and not condemn the crimes being committed against us? Areyou human beings and we something less? Do you think that only youcan feel pain and we can’t? In fact it is we who are most aware ofhow intense is the pain of the mother who has lost her child, or thefather who has lost his family. We know very well how painful it isto lose those you love.You don’t know our martyrs, but we know them. You don’t rememberthem, but we remember them. You don’t cry over them, but we cry overthem.Have you heard the name of the little girl Hannan Salih Matrud? Or ofthe boy Ahmad Jabir Karim? Or Sa‘id Shabram?Yes, our dead have names too. They have faces and stories andmemories. There was a time when they were among us, laughing andplaying. They had dreams, just as you have. They had a tomorrowawaiting them. But today they sleep among us with no tomorrow onwhich to wake.We don’t hate the British people or the peoples of the world. Thiswar was imposed upon us, but we are now fighting it in defense of ourselves. Because we want to live in our homeland – the free land ofIraq – and to live as we want to live, not as your government or theAmerican government wish.Let the families of those killed know that responsibility for theThursday morning London bombings lies with Tony Blair and hispolicies. ---------------------------------Stop your war against our people!Stop the daily killing that your troops commit!End your occupation of our homeland!
A Letter to the British People From a Daughter of Iraq
Iman al-Saadun
Friday, 8 July 2005
I’m sending this letter to the British people and in particular tothe residents of London. For a period of hours, you have livedthrough moments of desperate anxiety and horror. In those hours youlost a member of your family or a friend, and we wish to tell you intotal honesty that we too grieve when human lives pass away. I cannottell you how much we hurt when we see desperation and pain on theface of another person. For we have lived through this situation –and continue to live through it every day – since your country andthe United States formed an alliance and laid plans to attack Iraq.The Prime Minister of your country, Tony Blair, said that those whocarried out the explosions did so in the name of Islam. The Secretaryof State of the United States, Condaleezza Rice, described thebombings as an act of barbarism. The United Nations Security Councilmet and unanimously condemned the event.I would like to ask you, the free British people, to allow me toinquire: in whose name was our country blockaded for 12 years? Inwhose name were our cities bombed using internationally prohibitedweapons? In whose name did the British army kill Iraqis and torturethem? Was that in your name? Or in the name of religion? Or humanity?Or freedom? Or democracy?What do you call the killing of more than two million children? Whatdo you call the pollution of the soil and the water with depleteduranium and other lethal substances?What do you call what happened in the prisons in Iraq – in AbuGhraib, Camp Bucca and the many other prison camps? What do you callthe torture of men, women, and children? What do you call tying bombsto the bodies of prisoners and blowing them apart? What do you callthe refinement of methods of torture for use on Iraqi prisoners –such as pulling off limbs, gouging out eyes, putting out cigaretteson their skin, and using cigarette lighters to set fire to the hairon their heads? Does the word “barbaric” adequately describe thebehavior of your troops in Iraq?May we ask why the Security Council did not condemn the massacre inal-Amiriyah and what happened in al-Fallujah, Tal‘afar, Sadr City,and an-Najaf? Why does the world watch as our people are killed andtortured and not condemn the crimes being committed against us? Areyou human beings and we something less? Do you think that only youcan feel pain and we can’t? In fact it is we who are most aware ofhow intense is the pain of the mother who has lost her child, or thefather who has lost his family. We know very well how painful it isto lose those you love.You don’t know our martyrs, but we know them. You don’t rememberthem, but we remember them. You don’t cry over them, but we cry overthem.Have you heard the name of the little girl Hannan Salih Matrud? Or ofthe boy Ahmad Jabir Karim? Or Sa‘id Shabram?Yes, our dead have names too. They have faces and stories andmemories. There was a time when they were among us, laughing andplaying. They had dreams, just as you have. They had a tomorrowawaiting them. But today they sleep among us with no tomorrow onwhich to wake.We don’t hate the British people or the peoples of the world. Thiswar was imposed upon us, but we are now fighting it in defense of ourselves. Because we want to live in our homeland – the free land ofIraq – and to live as we want to live, not as your government or theAmerican government wish.Let the families of those killed know that responsibility for theThursday morning London bombings lies with Tony Blair and hispolicies. ---------------------------------Stop your war against our people!Stop the daily killing that your troops commit!End your occupation of our homeland!
posted by Tamer at
10:55 AM
10 Comments:
really interesting...
check out http://baghdadisburning.blogspot.com
Teach your people how to read and think for themselves and then we'll talk
Interesting comment...human rights are rights of all humans whether literate or not...
Iman Saadun is entitled to her opinion and to expressing it.
If a good amount of people in this part of the world are not as developed as other people in the world are...who is to blame? The people themselves, their rulers, the colonialists?
I know the most about. For Egypt, read about education during the time of Mohammed Aly (1805-1845) and about education in the time of the British colonialists (1882-1952 or 1936, depends how you want to look at it).
WHERE WERE YOU AND MILLIONS OF OTHER IRAQUI WHEN HE WAS KILLING YOUR PEOPLE? DO YOU NOT KNOW MITE IS RIGHT? MILLIONS COULD HAVE RISEN UP TO DEFEAT THE FEW THOUSAND ANIMALS--BUT YOU DID NOTHING BUT ALLOW THE ATROCITIES TO GO ON. IT WOULD HAVE NOT MATTERED IF YOU ONLY HAD YOUR HANDS AS WEAPONS AGAINST THEM THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN TOO MANY OF YOU AND YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN THE VICTORS. INSTEAD OUR PRESIDENT DECIDED TO SEND OUR SOLDIERS TO BE KILLED AND OUR TREASURY TO SPEND 481 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO OBTAIN YOUR FREEDOM.
HOPE YOU ENJOY IT--IT WILL NOT LAST--OVER THE CENTURIES YOUR KIND HAS PROVEN YOU ALL ARE ANIMALS AND DO NOT WANT PEACE.
First of all, I am not Iraqi but would have been proud to be...
Second of all, do not talk about things that you think you know about from your relatively "ignorant" standpoint.
Third of all, so many people in the world live in fear and can not stand up for their rights...they have been forced to live in fear of the regimes that govern their countries, regimes that were strengthened by the money given to them by the US government...So if the US government decided to do something, it was trying to cover up for its mistake of financing Saddam into being stronger and more brutal, seeing him kill the Kurds and the Shiites and not saying anything about it because he was kicking some Iranian ass for them.
Fourth of all, do note how civilised discourse is done so you might then be truthful when thinking that you can be superior to other human beings
I feel ashamed that i do not really know the history so cannot comment as to why this is all happened, i only know there are alot of people with hate in them, justly or unjustly. but at the end of the day it is the innocent people who suffer and that is how it has alway been. what do we the innocent people do????????
Before you accuse a group of people of being animals and blaming them for something they have no control over, ask yourself this. Why did they not stand up for themselves aginst Saddam? Why are there negative feelings towards the U.S. Why is the situation in Iraq and Middle East the way that it is? Do you not believe that the U.S. had nothing to do with this? Educate yourself beyond American history. Educate yourself on U.S. foreign policy and learn about how the U.S. contributed to the chaos in the world. Why have there been so many cruel dictators in the world who not only oppress their people but take away their human rights and treat them as if they were animals. You think these dictators would have ever had power without the support of the U.S. and the western world. You think the people of these countries have the power to stand up towards their cruel leaders when our government, the U.S. government, is funding and supporting them.
You cannot blame our soldiers dying and government spending on defense on a group of people who do not have the power to stand up for themselves. Have you walked in these peoples footsteps. Do you know what it is like to live in their situation? Have you been to their homes, their country? How can you ever truely understand, if you're not living their life? Who are you to tell them they should have used their "hands as weapons" when they never have been able to do so?
We have the freedom to stand up against our government. We have the freedom to disagree with what our government is doing? We have the freedom to protest and speak our minds. What were you doing when our goverment decided to send our troops to Iraq? What were you doing when our government decided to spend $481 billion?
You don't believe the Iraqi people want peace? How naive can you be?
You think the U.S. is the greatest place in the world. Have you seen the war going on in our backyard? Have you seen our crime rate? How many people are murdered and how many women are raped a year? In what country does a child bring a gun to school and kill his fellow classmates? We have kids joining gangs and killing each other over a pair of sneakers. Have you heard of the KKK? Yes, they still exist? Have you not witnessed with your own eyes the discrimination and racism that exists in the U.S.? What are we doing about all the atrocities going on in our country? If we cannot stop the atrocities going on in our homeland, how can we expect a group of people living under a bruttal regime, a people not free, to stop the atrocities happening in their countries?
To you from Daughter of Iraq,
What about all the innocent people that were killed in 9/11? What about all the other times that Iraq was responsible for death and distruction here in the United States.What about all our service men and women that are in the war zone that are being killed, what about all our people that donated their time to come help rebuild Iraq that were killed. I have a nephew over there fighting for freedom and people like you only have bad things to say. My theory, We should have just gone in and wiped out the whole country, men, women and children, and not bothered to drop food and supplies and help build your country, because its the women who support those men, its the children that grow up to be those men and women and so the cycle continues. There are many Iraqui people here in the US that have the nerve to live here, and yet talk bad about our country. Ship ALL the Iraquis BACK to your shit hole and level the whole country and be done with you all.
To the Anonymous person who posted this "What about all the innocent people that were killed in 9/11?"
Let me advise you that there is more to 911 then meets the eye.
Can you please tell me what kind of plane hit the twin towers? Was it a commercial plane? Everyone seems to think that it was a commercial aeroplane, yet the closer people (and yes this is in the media tapes which seemed to have vanished) were yelling "What plane is that, that does not look like a normal commercial aeroplane!".
The first plane that hit, why did the explosion in the building went off before the plane hit?
I think these facts need to be cleared with you before you go into 911 in detail or ask questions.
Let me tell you this "A CLUE" "Ask the government, and if they reply there is 1000 lies with 1 truth."
They are not what they seem to be.
It does not really matter what KIND of plane it was, but WHO took over the plane and directed them into the towers and the pentagon.
The fact about 9/11 is that people died. AMERICAN people. And I suppose you are so well informed on the inside of our government? I suppose you know exactly what happened on that day. I doubt it, so don't preach to me about it.
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