Readers' corner
Warning was true
Sir-- We Americans like to think of our country as a democracy, when, tragically, sadly, it has become a tyranny. Just because we enjoy constitutional rights at home does not mean we are not trampling the liberties of other nations. The US has acquired any number of the characteristics of the tyrant state, notably the ascendance of the "military-industrial complex" of which President Eisenhower warned.
The Bush administration is waging an aggressive war in Iraq based on the big lie. At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, and a nation is being ravaged. President Bush plunged in even as UN inspectors were shouting they could find no WMD.
President Bush has pumped up military spending during his term from $343 billion to $420 billion. The $442 billion he seeks for fiscal year 2006 is about as much as all the rest of the world's military spending combined.
The Pentagon is operating 700 military bases in 130 countries from Turkey to Japan. It has spread its intimidating presence to every corner of the globe. What's more, it is also spending $1.5 trillion to create 80 new terrifying weapons systems.
The US military is holding thousands of prisoners indefinitely without charge, a tactic Hitler once used. President Bush denies torture occurs but as the latest issue of The Nation reports, "prisoners have been kicked and punched, their bones broken. Their heads have been hooded, wrapped in duct tape and smashed. Their flesh has been seared with the chemicals in fluorescent lights. They have been frozen to death, suffocated, hung upside down until dead, starved, electrically shocked and waterboarded." Is this not the use of authority "harshly or cruelly"?
The US is the world leader in weapons sales, with close to $15 billion annually, almost as much as the rest of the world combined. These sales tend to fortify dictators in power and worsen tension between troubled neighbours such as India and Pakistan.
Sherwood Ross
Florida
USA
Boycott 2012
Sir-- Once again politics has prevailed over reason to determine the host of a major sporting event. We saw it in 2000 when European FIFA delegates bullied Oceania's representative, a Scotsman by birth, into defying his own mandate, thus costing South Africa the 2006 World Cup. We saw it again very recently with the announcement that London would host the 2012 Olympics. I personally have no doubt American muscle induced the wild swing away from Paris immediately prior to voting.
A quarter of a century ago America and England boycotted the Olympics because the host nation was in the process of an illegal invasion. Now England wins the right to host the tournament, whilst participating in an illegal invasion. America, I believe, rewarded them for their assistance in creating the current bloodbath in Iraq, and punished France for opposing it. The 2012 Games should be boycotted for that reason.
Quentin Poulsen
Jaen
Spain
True meaning
Sir-- Does the writer of this piece 'The only way is out' ( Al-Ahram Weekly 8-14 December) realise he's saying that the Iraqi people like being oppressed?
Gary Joyce
Aquebogue
USA
Why not us?
Sir-- Watching the Iraqi elections and knowing that Iraqi expatriates have been voting, I am indignant that as an Egyptian expatriate I am not allowed to participate in elections of my country.
Raouf Zaidan
Aberdeen
USA
Large house
Sir-- My commentary concerns 'Why Saddam is important' ( Al-Ahram Weekly 15-21 December).
The question as to what acts of a head of state, or other state actors, can justly be immunised from a due process of law is a relatively recent addition to civilisation. Unfortunately, under Article 40 of the 1970 Iraqi interim constitution, "the president of the Revolutionary Command Council, the vice-president, and the members enjoy full immunity. No measures can be taken against any of them without a priori permission of the council", which means the question was politicised and assigned to the unguided discretion of the Revolutionary Command Council. It is not too much to say that this provision immunises lawlessness. Despite it, the people of Iraq by their rights of self- determination and self-preservation have the just power to confirm a court convened by a paramount force, the United States and allied governments, for the purpose of holding to account men who acted lawlessly.
If the first trial of Saddam fails to affirm and elucidate the high and everlasting principles involved for want of skill or wisdom or truth in the judges, let there be a retrial. The sovereignty of Iraq, which resides in the people thereof, requires it.
The United States government injures many for which no excuse is offered here. I am truly sorry for every injury and death suffered by the Iraqi people in this time. However, in this imperfect world, nothing large is constructed without loss of life and limb. A new house for the people of Iraq, in which they may enjoy more individual self-determination secured by written law promulgated by men and women whom they have chosen by ballot, is such a large thing. Let us encourage their building of it. Let us always remind the United States government of its duty to uphold the high ideals and purposes of the free political society of the American cause which gave it being.
Ali Libery
Tennessee
USA
We disagree
Sir-- In light of the recent events in the Middle East, Canadians are being put at risk for political reasons. And that is wrong.
Most media in that troubled part of the globe have little or no input from Canadian writers or commentators, which should change. Perhaps if more Canadians were to write to the Arab news outlets and explain their distaste with the present American administration, we would be seen in a different light and less as an American cohort. I'm not suggesting we support terrorism or violence, but simply that we make it clear that we don't agree with our neighbours to the north and south when it comes to world dominance.
If Canadians were to take a distinct editorial path of understanding and compassion towards the Muslim world, the threats to our security would dissolve, or at least stay focussed on the USA, where they belong.
Robert Saint Amour
British Columbia
Canada
All muscle
Sir-- I believe your analysis in 'Why Saddam is important' ( Al-Ahram Weekly 15-21 December) is 100 per cent correct. Good job. Too bad Bush and the neo-cons aren't this smart. It's the reason why the Iraqis are suffering. Power is not synonymous with intelligence. To me, Bush makes Saddam look like a choir boy.
Taher Riad
New Jersey
USA
In it together
Sir-- Mohamed Qasem of Qena ( Al-Ahram Weekly 17-23 November) is stating the obvious in response to Monica Hanna's heart-felt cry about the (Christian) Copts being, once again, labelled a minority. He misses the point that labelling a significant section of Egyptians as minority is overtly marginalising that section. He then compares the Egyptian Copts in their own homeland to that of a Muslim migrant community somewhere else. Well, I and plenty more Egyptians living outside Egypt have never stopped arguing for the rights of our compatriots, Muslims or Christians, and will continue to do so because we owe that to our beloved Egypt. We are all Egyptian brothers and sisters, one family with differing beliefs and no majority or minority labels should be allowed to set us apart.
Reda Wassef
Sydney
Australia
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/774/letters.htm