Wherein the fault lies
Sir-- Your articles keep talking about Bush this and Cheney that and America this and that in relation to the impending war against Iraq -- which is actually a new attempt by a Western power to impose its imperial order on the entire region.
But there seems to be a dearth of mention of the regional leaders and their response to these aggressive neo-imperialistic policies of a war- crazed "super power".
The US could not lift even a finger in trying to accomplish its unholy plans were it not for complete and uniform capitulation of the leadership of the regional, mostly Arab countries. So please try and refocus your tired old anti- American arguments (however valid) on looking within your own realm and towards your own decrepit leadership. That is where the true source of the Arab world's problems lie.
As Mark Anthony said: The fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
Saif Hussain
California
USA
Culture of death
Sir-- I thank you and all your staff for contributing to the minority of intelligent and balanced reporting; I only discovered this site a few months ago.
As a Canadian, I am ashamed that I cannot find a voice of reason within the media in North America, without having to dig through journals, books, newspapers and Internet sites to find objective news or insight. I am truly frightened about the global imperialism demonstrated by American big business and this current US administration. The precedent being set by the US is fascist.
I am not a university-educated person, however, your writers provide a glimmer of hope that there exists intelligence somewhere in the world. I am absolutely sickened by all this war- mongering by the US, but as long as North Americans are stupidly glorified by their football, baseball and Hollywood culture they cannot ever know the real tragedy of 9/11, war or hunger. Death is US culture. These are truly sad times.
Charles Koth
Vancouver
Canada
Apocalypse soon
Sir-- When we discuss 9/11 and the effects of this tragedy, we must never forget the bizarre entanglements of the CIA, the Bin Ladens of Saudi Arabia and the Bush clan. Osama's brother died in a plane accident while visiting the Bush clan in Texas. Osama's father died in a plane owned by the Bush clan when visiting in Texas. Osama, like Bush Jr, wants the Apocalypse. And what connects them intimately besides the CIA? Death in airplanes on beautiful lovely mornings.
This isn't a political problem. This is the nurturing of, and the creation of, the Apocalypse and both are playing their roles perfectly. Like the many beautiful, serene mornings shattered by the sound of flying things screaming into the atmosphere in flames and destruction.
Elaine Supkis
Petersburgh, NY
USA
Thirsty for oil
Sir-- Thank you very much for providing our region with your great weekly newspaper.
No on can deny that the American government is trying to deceive the whole world through what they call weapons of mass destruction. They claim to be doing their best to find Iraqi weapons and destroy them, but the truth is that the American government is thirsty for Iraqi oil.
I want to send a very short message to Mr Bush: Don't you realise that countless numbers of men, women and children will be killed?
Arrous Youssef
Kenitra
Morocco
The devil's work
Sir-- This is a note just to let the beautiful people in the Arab world know that there are millions of people here in America who are on your side.
I didn't say United States because, believe me, this country is not united at all about what is happening. It's sad to think that the same ruling class families who want this war, are those who have mercilessly murdered millions for centuries. It's a game for these people and is highly profitable. The only way this will stop is for people not to fight their wars for them any more.
Our government allowed 11 September to happen as a pretext to take over the oil fields in the Middle East. They have no problem murdering thousands, as Madeline Albright grotesquely stated: The end justifies the means. These people have no souls whatsoever.
Brett Connor
Kotzebue, Alaska
USA
Taking the body bags
Sir-- I recently saw what looked like a squad of high school students running at a steady, measured clip and the grim thought of body bags crossed my mind. That night I saw the movie Chicago, and a thought crossed my mind that our president was engaged in show business in the Middle East.
During the weekend, I read the 16 February, 1992, statement of Richard Cheney, our then secretary of defence, explaining why we had not pressed on to Baghdad. He said: "If we'd gone to Baghdad and got rid of Saddam Hussein -- assuming we could have found him -- we'd have had to put a lot of forces in and run him to ground some place. He would not have been easy to capture. Then you've got to put a new government in his place and then you're faced with the question of what kind of government are you going to establish in Iraq? Is it going to be a Kurdish government or a Shi'ite government or a Sunni government? How many forces are you going to have to leave there to keep it propped up, how many casualties are you going to take through the course of this operation?"
Now, in 2003, we will "take" the bodies of our sons and daughters and slide them into those body bags, though we wouldn't have "taken" them in 1991. Why now? Ask our smiling president -- the gentleman wearing an old time straw hat, holding a cane and, with arms outspread, doing a two-step across your television screens.
Just like they do it in the movies.
Harold Reynolds
Scarsdale, NY
USA
What a shame
Sir-- Reading Al-Ahram Weekly, you get the impression that the Middle East is for sure heading to the Middle Ages. How on earth Arabs are impressed by Marxists such as Noam Chomsky and the like. People like Chomsky are only misleading the world thinking that they have a political-economical alternative to capitalism. The US, with whatever you describe as failures, is still the best place on planet earth; to view it otherwise is to make a mockery of oneself.
Many people view Arabs in the negative sense because of the violent nature of Arabs and Muslims in general. Every single suicide attack is carried out by an Arab, if not a Muslim, and in spite of this obvious fact you blame America for your ills. Don't you think if the Palestinians stop the suicide bombing today I will be their staunch supporter tomorrow? To make matters worse Al-Ahram Weekly pundits sit down to justify the suicide murderers by calling them martyrs.
Egypt has just appointed its first female judge in history; is this really an American problem or your Islamic backwardness? Until you sit down and discuss your home problems, you are wasting your time filling Al-Ahram Weekly's pages with rubbish just to earn a living. You have no democracy, no idea of women's rights or human rights, your economy is stagnant, but some how you look across the seas and discuss other's failings.
Shame on all the Egyptians.
Matthew Eridad
Nairobi
Kenya
Excellent article
Sir-- 'A splendid little war' (Al-Ahram Weekly, 16-22 January) by Hani Shukrallah is an excellent article.
I have seen nothing written with such clarity in the British press.
Congratulations.
James Muir
Inverness
UK
On guard
Sir-- Why do so many Arabs despise the way of life of Americans? Have you written an article about how America is made up of people from all over the world, that the policies that are American are rooted in some ethnic origin other than Washington or New York?
In history, we learned of the American expansion of economic freedom to countries which were once the poorest in the world and now prosper from an association with American business and technologies. A good example is Saudi Arabia; without Texaco and Exxon investing in wildcat wells 60 years ago, that desert would still be just a desert of sand and not a land of significant importance that it is today.
There are many in America who would like to see it close its borders, bring all of its ships home, and let the rest of the world fight it out. However the truly American way of life is not brutal, so we will continue to patrol the seas, skies and space to be on the lookout for that one rogue nation that has aspirations of attempting to be the biggest and the worst bully on the planet.
I wish the people of Iraq could be permitted to carry on an intelligent dialogue over where they would like to see their country in the next five, 10 even 20 years from now.
James Forbis
Texas
USA
Home-grown change
Sir-- Nothing will stop Washington from attacking Saddam Hussein. Iraq is another matter. An attack on Saddam can be a hit and run, but Iraq isn't lost in the mountains. Iraq is sitting on a sea of oil which makes it a nation of strategic importance. A hit and run policy is unacceptable which brings us to reconstruction.
America was once seriously involved in the export of democracy, but too often it simply left empty temples that were eventually abandoned, such as Weimar Germany.
Democratic republics demand liberal values for their survival and they must be home-grown. Otherwise, reconstruction also needs occupation, but too many people in Iraq and America would also resent the notion that we are doing their work.
Let the Arabs find their own Mandelas. At the end of World War II too many people simply contended that for now the Third World needs no assistance from us, while our attention shouldn't be diverted from Russia and Eastern Europe in transition.
Derry Ledoux
Massachusetts
USA
Double talk
Sir-- George Bush believes that the North Korean nuclear issue can be resolved diplomatically, while the threat from Iraq must be dealt with militarily, since Mr Hussein may have the potential of destroying the entire world.
The thought comes to mind that the people of the Middle East could possibly take pride in the fact that one of their kind has the technical capability to annihilate the world, or they could interpret such an approach as meaning that the only language the Arabic-speaking people understand is military force while the North Koreans merit diplomacy.
Wonder which one fits the scenario?
Armand De Laurell
Dallas, TX
USA
The other picture
Sir-- I love your on-line edition and read it faithfully every weekend.
In your coverage of this impending US-Iraq conflict please remember to include the growing American opposition to this endeavour. Our domestic press drastically under-reports the opposition, if it reports it at all.
There are hundreds of thousands of us working every day to avoid a war despite the challenge and violations to our civil liberties.
Leslie Buffone
Georgia
USA
Somewhere, somehow
Sir-- Regarding 'We won't succumb' (Al- Ahram Weekly, 6-12 February). Will the Palestinians ever agree to become one united country, not factions warring forever -- not only against the world, but amongst themselves? People in one country must somehow agree to a common frame of reference, so why can't Palestinians do it themselves? It's not up to Egypt, or anyone else in the world, but themselves.
Stop the anti-Zionist and anti-US rhetoric and deal with one another; Palestinian to Palestinian. Take precautions if necessary, but come to the table, some table, somewhere, sometime and be a country. Maybe then the world would take notice and seriously address the problem.
Lana Johnson
Graham, WA
USA
Continue talking
Sir-- The news of the Palestinian conference hosted by Egypt is an encouraging sign that Egypt is taking its natural place as leader of the Arab and Muslim world.
I pray that true progress will come out of these talks and that Egypt will take the initiative in other troublesome issues facing this critical region of the world. There definitely is a need for some other voice than that of the Washington junta.
Noah Lindsay
Lake City, FL
USA
Not all are zealots
Sir-- To equate anti-Zionists or critics of Israel in general with anti-Semites is to liken them to the Nazis or the rampaging mobs of the pogroms. It says that their hatred is unreasonable, unfathomable, based on some crackpot racial theory or some misguided religious zealotry. It dismisses all criticism, no matter how legitimate, as rooted in prejudice and therefore without any validity.
No doubt there has been an upsurge of anti- Semitic incidents in Europe, but there has also been an upsurge of legitimate criticism of Israel that is not in the least anti-Semitic. When Israel recently jailed and then deported four pro- Palestinian Swedes, two of them physicians, under the misguided policy of seeing all the Palestinians' sympathisers as enemies of the state, it was an action that ought to be condemned -- and the Swedes who have done so ought not be considered anti-Semites.
When the same thing happens to a Japanese physician, that too ought to be condemned -- and it was, as it happens, in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. A column by Gideon Levy made the point that Israel cannot reject and rebut all criticism by reciting the mantra: "The whole world is against us."
Richard Cohen
New York, NY
USA
Clark facts
Sir-- Regarding the article 'Ramsey Clark: A voice of reason' (Al-Ahram Weekly, 6-12 February). Mr Clark did not relinquish his office. When Nixon was elected president, he appointed his own attorney-general; Clark served until the end of the Johnson term in office. If he had differences with the Johnson Administration they did not affect his term in office.
Your article also fails to mention that he ran for the US Senate from New York in 1974 as the Democratic candidate, but lost to Jacob Javits.
His unconventional career did not begin until after that defeat.
Yonah Fredman
Brooklyn, NY
USA
African complex
Sir-- Mr Nkrumah's piece on the AU 'Cut short' (Al-Ahram Weekly, 6-12 February) was useful, but I have a couple of comments. Yes Africa has a number of wars, but no more than Asia. You say that Côte D'Ivoire has the third largest economy in "sub-Saharan" Africa, but why pander to the racist colonial divide between North Africa and the rest of Africa? There's nothing qualitatively different between North Africa and the rest of Africa except the racist divide established by the colonisers.
You are right, most African leaders lack imagination and have huge inferiority complexes vis- à-vis the West, such as Gbagbo who obeyed when Chirac told him to without conferring with the people who oppose his settlement. Of course, the Southern Ivorians are just ignorant and foolish for opposing any form of settlement, and horror of horrors are begging the Americans to intervene. They really are brainwashed in Abidjan.
What Africa needs are serious moves in the direction of federal unions, single currencies (perhaps three or four), regional passports and less inferiority complexes. Africa also needs an ABC (African Broadcasting Corporation) to counteract the racist BBC, RFI and other vulture media that feast on bad news about Africa. If African governments complain about lack of money, they should establish stronger currencies and to do away with the racist IMF and World Bank. Currencies are just paper, so what's the big fear?
Alassan Kamara
Serrekunda
Gambia
Enchanted by the flute
Sir-- I found the review 'Excluding the magic' (Al-Ahram Weekly, 16-22 January) of the Opera House production of The Magic Flute annoying. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read it. The Magic Flute was staged for the first time in Cairo, but Amal Choucri Catta who wrote the review knew nothing better than to shred the whole production more or less into tiny pieces and moaned about her discomfort. She composed a review which was not only inaccurate but to a certain extent very spiteful.
I found the performances very satisfying and I enjoyed the artistic work of the director, the set and costume designer, the lighting designer and above all the singers very much. The performances were excellent and all who attended were enchanted with what they saw and heard. The applause at the end was frantic.
The Magic Flute is not easy to put on stage, and it is the artistic right of a director and his co-artists to bring their ideas into their production. Cairo's Magic Flute was excellent and could certainly meet international standards. I am sure that none of the spectators was disappointed -- I saw only happy faces. But Ms Catta saw it in a very different way. Why on earth did she lament over the beautifully singing Rasha Talaat who was a perfect Queen of the Night? Madame de la Critique must have been sitting in another Opera House or why else did it escape her notice that the audience was enraptured.
We must congratulate the Opera House for having such a harmonious ensemble of excellent singers and performers; it is absolutely unfair to them to write such a review. My advise for your prestigious weekly newspaper is: it is not important to write a whole page about a certain performance, but it is important that the reviewer has no prejudices. I wonder if Ms Catta really saw the same opera I did -- and enjoyed. Could it be that she attended only one of the dress rehearsals when the whole production was still in progress?
The Cairo Opera House does its best to give all music lovers beautiful evenings; the evenings of The Magic Flute were some of them.
Helga Walder
6th October City
Egypt
On-line fraud
Sir-- The Internet could be a dangerous tool. For the past several months, I have been receiving literally hundreds of letters from strangers, always in the same context, more or less, of trying to embezzle me out of money. The letters always imply that "they need my help", and "in strict confidence" with very prestigious titles of artificial VIPs, ex-bank managers, ex-authorities of high ranks, and so on. The artificial names of the senders are either Muslim or Christian names, or other religions, and are from males and females.
Other letters pretend that they are coming from innocent victims of abuse, and younger than the first category, pretending that so-and-so have taken their inheritance, and that if I help in transferring their "lost" money, (or, as in the first category, money without any official claim, or money that the government, whichever it is, "will confiscate") and so many other scenarios, and say that "if I help them out, in strict confidentiality, I will receive a 10 to 20 per cent bonus for the time, help, and (look out): for letting them use my bank account number," etc. This bonus fee is more or less over $25,000. Most of these letters come from African countries.
For gullible recipients of these quacks, please ignore these letters, and by no means ever give your bank account number, should you have one, or mention anything in connection to your financial status. You do not need to even bother with answering them. I advise you just to "block senders" or "delete" without even opening the bogus letters.
It is strange that they manage to get one's e- mail address in the first place. Therefore, try not to register or accept the "accounts" of any groups or "newsletters", especially if you do not know who they are, where they are coming from, and if they are indeed official harmless newsletters.
A browser who will not be duped
Hoda Nassef
Cairo
Egypt
Staying in touch
Sir-- I was wondering how the builders of the Pyramid would have communicated once the chambers became accessible only by corridor.
I wonder how long it would have taken a message sent from overseer A to overseer B if A was in an inner chamber and B was on an exterior level. Maybe a pulley system or specially trained dogs or monkeys were used to convey messages, requests between different areas of the Pyramid. Or maybe a primitive type of telephone system like that of cans on string.
Norman Gibney
London
UK
