The below video was taken by my friend Omar.
Simply because they are children…
Watch this video that was made by Saudi blogger, Raed, author of Falsafat.
Reaction on this topic can be found here.
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In her post, Abu Fadil detailed how the Bush shoe incident left an impact on the worldwide fury against the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
It was bound to continue. The shoe has been transformed into a weapon of protest and fury at Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, and by extension George W. Bush’s unconditional support for the Jewish state.
The post also includes an interesting anthology of cartoons published in Arab newspapers and Web sites regarding the Israeli attacks and Bush’s end of presidency.
Read the entire blog post here.
Blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
It feels like the same war Israel carried out against Lebanon in 2006 again. Doesn’t it? Bombardments, slaughter, complete destruction and civilian killings—all under the banner of “fighting the terrorists.”I blame the carnage and the horrible death of the Palestinian civilians on both sides. Israel is so arrogant and indifferent to human rights that it had been slaughtering millions of civilians since it was created in the recent history and this war is no different than any of its former ones. And Hamas is even worse. Instead of laying weapons down and creating a stable and indepndent state along with the other Palestinian political factions, they have put their own people in this situation where they knew that messing up with Israel would lead to such a war. None of the both sides have actually thought about human rights and that of course led to the death of civilians on both lands.
Now, what are we going to make of this whole mess? More violence to happen, of course. Hatred will also increase against the Israelis across the Arab world- as if it has not been enough- and the fact that having a peaceful atmosphere in that regions seems moving farther and farther.
So what’s the solution to stop this carnage now? There isn’t, I guess. Israel has managed to break Hamas’ backbone. But what about the innocent civilians who lost their loved ones? Won’t they grow up with the will to take revenge, like those in Iraq and Lebanon? Doesn’t violence breed violence? And wasn’t that what has been happnening in that region since ever?
I’m sure you all have seen what happened yesterday when the Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at the soon-to-leave American president. I have to say I was surprised. I had mixed feelings and didn’t know if I should laugh or not.
Professionally as a journalist myself, I found what the reporter did was extremely wrong. Journalists have their voices and pens (and now the internet) to express whatever they want to protest against. However, I was kind of relieved. As an Iraqi citizen, I believe Bush deserved this ending that the entire world will remember and cherish. I mean what the wrong the man had done was huge. His failure to prepare for an invasion aftermath caused Iraqis and Americans hundreds of thousands of souls, not to mention the destruction of an entire country, the millions who have migrated and the creation of terrorism in Iraq. Well, you know the rest. There is no need to go into details here.
When I saw the video, all I could think of was what Bush will do for the rest of his life after he leaves the White House. Will he ever be respected? Remembered for at least a good thing he did? Now, the republicans will say, “But he removed Saddam!” and then I’ll reply, “and brought hundreds of Saddams instead and destroyed an entire functioning country.”
The reaction in the Arab world was expected. Extreme happiness and appreciation to what the reporter did. Iraqis have even created a facebook group right after the incident, praising the reporter and calling him “hero.” This morning, the number of the group members was around 900. Now it’s far more and is increasing. Also, a crazy Saudi wealthy man offered to buy the shoes for $10 Million. In addition to that, Arab people started exchanging jokes via email and cell phones. One of the jokes reads, “A new presidential order says no journalist attends a press conference wearing shoes.”
Anyways, now Bush has one last thing to have the world remember him with. If I were him… Nah, I’ll keep this to myself. lol
American society has often been described as a melting pot. It has become a great nation by its people’s will and desire to live, work and build as they work hard to achieve their American dream. But what is happening now by some conservative Americans as they support McCain is extremely hurting this great image of the American dream, which is the essence of what America is all about. Expressing their racism and intolerance publically while rallying for McCain is just sad.
I’m sure all of you saw this ignorant American woman rallying for McCain saying she doesn’t trust Obama and that she has “read about him and found out he’s an Arab.” At first, I thought she said “he’s an error” which is why I accepted McCain saying, “No, Madam. He’s a decent family man…” But when I realized she meant an “Arab” and connected it to what McCain said, I felt very offended. It appeared as if he was saying, “No, Madam. He’s is decent, not Arab.” I wonder if he said that deliberately to convey that Arabs are not decent and that since Obama is not an Arab, he’s decent!
In all cases, I’m not surprised that this came from a McCain supporter and from McCain himself. I wonder what would the Arab Americans feel when they heard this ignorant woman. What would they think when they see the country they built along with their Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist and Hindu countrymen intolerant like this. Haven’t they defended their country like what Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan did when he enlisted in the army, deployed in Iraq and then killed there? What would his heart-wrenched father say when he sees or hears ignorant people disregarding his son’s sacrifice for his country and faith?I guess no one said it better than Campbell Brown in this CNN video. “What if Obama was an Arab or a Muslim… What if McCain was?”
This election is a wakeup call for Americans and how they are going to shape their country. I hope they do it the right way this time, unlike what happened when they voted for Bush whose eight years brought destruction, caused many enemies around the world and most importantly used the people’s taxes to pay for wars and let the entire American economy collapse before the American people’s eyes.
Now, it is time for change. And yes, you can!
I usually write my reviews about books after I finish reading them, but this time I wanted to share my opinion with you before finishing it.
This time the book is about conflict all over the world: In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars by solo journalist, Kevin Sites. Which one of us doesn’t remember the U.S. soldier’s image shooting an unarmed insurgent in a mosque in Fallujah during the 2004 Fallujah battle? It was Kevin Sites who shot that controversial footage.
Watching the world’s conflicts, Sites came up with an idea, a one that led to an important project: covering twenty wars in one year.Sites’ first chapter of the book and the introductory part of the documentary was about the Fallujah mosque shooting and his time in Iraq. He describes how he was labeled as a traitor by those who don’t accept facts and who do not want to admit that war is ugly and that crimes happen from both fighting parties. The insurgent who was shot might deserve what had happened to him, but the way he was killed was, of course, against the ethics of fighting in war zones. It’s sad to see that those who sent Sites threatening letters and text messages do not understand that he was just doing his job and had not expressed in no way ever his own, personal opinion regarding what happened. He let the world judge and it did.
I see Sites as a good example of balanced, sincere and extremely honest journalism. His words and the video footages he took in the countries he covered had an imprint of humanity. Throughout his travels as a solo journalist in conflict zones, the sense of humanity in his dispatches and reports was strongly evident, having it covered away from politics. There was a scream of horror that he wanted to let the rest of the world hear.
There were stories from Afghanistan, Nepal, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Congo, and other places in the world. Sites was successful in detailing in a summarized way what the cause of violence was and how it took its toll on the human beings there. The things that blew me up the most were the stories from the Congo, Lebanon and Afghanistan. In the documentary he interviews a woman called Marie (not her name, as he mentions in the book). She was raped several times in front of her husband by militiamen who killed her children before her eyes and then mutilated her husband’s body after killing him. The worst part was asking her to chew his cut flesh. “They use rape as a weapon of war,” she told Sites. “They have guns, but this is worse than the guns.” The entire interview in the documentary brought tears to my eyes.
His coverage of the Israel-Lebanon war in the summer of 2006 was noteworthy. He was there when Israel shelled entire buildings with civilians in them. The image of the woman weeping after their loved ones died and the image of the children covered with blood is unforgettable.
Reading the book now after watching the documentary makes me picture all those who were interviewed. Reading the words and comparing them to the people’s faces makes my heart ache. So much violence out there, so many wars, and so much pain and sorrow in the hearts and minds of people. Like Sites, I believe this violence aims to kill civilization and most importantly humanity. The worst part of all, in my opinion, is that there are people out there benefiting from all of this, encouraging more and more violence and causing the deaths and the suffering of millions of people across our cursed planet.
Muslim Massacre is a website dedicated to a new electronic hate game that promotes killing the Muslims, their prophet and even God wherever they are. It can be downloaded for free online.
A few days ago, I finished reading a very interesting book about the Middle East and more specifically about the Shiite Muslims. The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr is a must-read for all those who have no idea what the terms ‘Shiite’ and ‘Sunni’ mean. I actually recommend it more for those who are interested in knowing why there is a difference in the two terms and why was all this fuss called ‘sectarian war in Iraq.’I have a friend in Philly who is a Shiite Muslim from Saudi Arabia’s infamous Qatif city. We have always sat and discussed issues that concern our region, religion, and our lives as they are related to these things. One day, I was completely upset and mad at what I had discovered in our religion. The discussion we both had led to realizing that it’s not the problem was not in the religion itself more than the practitioners of Islam themselves who used certain things and interpreted them the way they wanted them to mean. The goal is to make others believe them, and nothing other using certain things from the religion to make them believe in was better than that. During that discussion, I told my friend about my memories of Islam in Iraq. I remember leaning back on the plastic chair, saying “Our religion was simple. The war made it gross.”
Indeed, it was as simple as knowing the basic things in the Quran, knowing your prophet is Mohammed and your God is Allah and that there were other prophets whom God chose to deliver his messages. Yes, there were Sunni and Shiite differences, but among the people (at least those in Baghdad whom I was one of) it was not something we really cared about. During those years, books about religion were rarely found. The secular Baathist regime made sure people in my generation do not understand or know what the real history behind the two sects was. My family did tell me that the Shiites were victimized throughout history, especially during the Abbasid Empire era, but they never really went into details about it nor they stressed on making me or my sister insist on knowing it because it was not a big deal then.
The internet revolution and the flow of the books and the articles about the real history between the two sects appeared on surface in the aftermath of the US.-led invasion of Iraq, letting me and many others in my generation be able to read and learn about that grim and gruesome history of wars and struggle to get power.
One of these books is the Shia Revival. The book opened my eyes to many things that I did not before the war. I knew it all started when Prophet Mohammed died but did not know other details, including the fight between Iran and Saddam was a Shiite-Sunni fight. I know understand why the Arab countries supported Saddam against the “Evil Persians” and why Iran went on for eight years to fight Saddam. The goal was who would dominate? The Sunnis who wanted the Arab World always be Sunni or the Shiites, represented by Iran then, who wanted to spread their faith to a larger crowd in the Arab World?
Addressing the West in his book, Nasr relates the Shiite rituals to those of the other religions. This was something that I did not really know. Nasr also talks about Saudi Arabia’s Wahabism a lot. It is widely connected to the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites these days. It goes way back to the days when the Wahabis invaded the holy city of Karbala where Imam Hussein is buried and slaughtered the Shiites there, believing that they were infidels and tomb worshipers. He also writes about the Lebanon Shiites and how they emerged as a fighting and strong force in the region, making even Sunnis follow them in their fight against Israel which was occupying their land for decades. Then, came the Iran-Iraq war and the whole struggle of keeping the Shiites away from domination. There is also a long, detailed and very interesting chapter about Khomeini and his role in Shiism, followed by an interestingly-analyzed chapter about the new Iraq which he called it ‘The first Shiite Arab state,’ a term that I’ve never heard before and a one that is so true.
Overall, the book shows that the struggle is not religious more than political. Peoples from both sects were caught in the middle of this conflict. They were used and brain-washed over the decades to create differences.
Anyways, it is a wonderful book and a good source that I strongly recommend to readers interested in learning about political Islam.
The other book I’m sunk in its waters now is Robin Wright’s Dreams and Shadows: the future of the Middle East.
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