Open Letter to Those Opposing the Iraq War

bush ``his war is to just liberate iraqi from tyranny of saddam``events have proved this war united iraqi behind saddam like a wall of steel and it is not for bush to liberate iraqi.how many countries bush going to liberate in this wild world.is he prepared to liberate america of his own tyranny?
plz chowies write some thing light to relax.war discussion have shattered the nerves
besides war
bush ``his war is to just liberate iraqi from tyranny of saddam``events have proved this war united iraqi behind saddam like a wall of steel and it is not for bush to liberate iraqi.how many countries bush going to liberate in this wild world.is he prepared to liberate america of his own tyranny?
plz chowies write some thing light to relax.war discussion have shattered the nerves

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wajahat #65 Thank you for calling me a House Negro. House Negroes were made slaves by force, and I do not look down upon those people. You on the other hand are clearly a slave of your of your own mindset.
As I say in my post #55, I offer my condolences to people like you who think that being of the nonwhite race means that I must limit my freedom of thinking to certain politically correct views only (demonizing the US being one of them).
Romair #58 I stoppeed reading your lengthy post when I saw that it started with namecalling (Goebbels). Namecalling and lengthy articles is no substitute for common sense.

Having responded to both of you gentlemen, I have used up my response time, and will comment on the other posts (which are obviously more sensible than the above two) later.

Reading your Article reminded me of that perfect analogy that Malcolm X draws for people like you, House Negroes. Your examples of how great US and UK imperialism has been for the rest of the world is just mind blowing. To say that Indonesia wished that it wud rather have been a british colony is not just funny but sadistically funny. The reason we come to the West is that we know its only here that we will not be affected as badly as we are affected by the west`s foreign policy in our own parts of the world. And before you apologising house negroes start to ramble on about how great pax americana is look at how it has mutalated your own view of the history of region you belong to. Not just sing along the American version,

god bless the native americans, the vietnamese, the iraqis, the palestinians and soon the north koreans.

[I think it makes sense to give Bush a chance to do what he says he will do.]

And by the same token, would you support an American invasion of Pakistan to restore true democracy?

tahmed #55
``The reason for this is clearly the existential struggle the US was engaged against communism for the past 50 year, when the two goals were often seen to be in conflict, and so real politics took over``

The US like the rest of the world with its finite resources has always been in a continuous existential struggle, because of which real politics will always predominate its actions as is also happening presently. Like Pakistan, Iraq will only be as `democratic` as suits the interests of the US.

``If you can trust your life and the life and future of your children with the US, why do you find it so hard to trust the elected President of the US when he says that aims to introduce democracy in Iraq and has no intention of turning it into a colony?``

There is a disappointing lack of understanding of the US and its institutions in this statement.

You donot trust your life and the future of your children to the same institutional apparatus that decides that US must go to war. You trust your life and future of your children to a different and much larger set of interlocked institutions with checks and balances starting from your county and township governments and the local chamber of commerce, to multi-level democratic decisionmaking, to an executive working under close scrutiny of an adversarial political and legal system,and finally to an alert public and press( and ofcourse to a strong captialist system with wide enterpreneurial base )

These are not the institutions which are consulted when decisions are made about the US going to war and these have only a marginal influence on the President`s war and foreign policy decisions. Its a small select circle of influential people who influenced the Bush decision to fight this war in Iraq, who will not be held accountable for any loss to the future of your and rest of America`s children, no more than McNamara or Kissinger was held responsible.


``giving Bush a chance``
Well some people argued for giving Musharraf a chance, too. What happens if the guy in question goofs up bad?

if this is how they treat people they are about to liberate and their coalition partners, imagine what they would do to their enemies:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/international/worldspecial/29HALT.html

``We had a great day,`` Sergeant Schrumpf said. ``We killed a lot of people.``

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-629644,00.html

`The Yank opened up. He had absolutely no regard for human life. He was a cowboy out on a jolly`

``THREE wounded British soldiers described yesterday how they survived a terrifying attack by an American anti-tank aircraft that killed one of their troop and destroyed two armoured vehicles``

Tauheed, your point of view also is one view, and like multiple views, one of the correct ways, sure. Enough debate on that here.

My point is, this is an Iraq War? Or is it now bigger, like Iraq, Iran, Kurdish, Turkish, Arab, Hind sub-Continent, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, natural resources . . .?

Or is this one pure commerce?

The protegees of Joseph Goebbels:
----------------------------------------

Everytime a case of genocide, state terrorism is anlayzed historically, people ask the question, ``How was it allowed to happen?``

The blame of the holocaust is put on Hitler. Yet Hitler could not have carried out the Holocaust without the backing of the German populace. The blame of the Palestine situation is put on Sharon, but he could not have done it without the backing of the Israeli people. Bangladesh, Kashmir etc. all fall into similar categories. The above holds specifically true for democracies, whose leaders have to take into account the public opinion.

The reason, ``it`` is allowed to happen again and again is that the people are first convinced of the, ``evil`` of the enemy, and the, ``goodness`` of their own leaders and cause. Hitler could not have attacked the Jews just out of the blue. First his population was convinced of the, ``evilness`` and lack of patriotism of the Jews. How is this done?

It is done by normal people justifying inhumane actions, by pointing to the greatness of thier systems, and the evilness of the people they attack. False associations are made, non-factual links are created. A historical good done by a country is used to justify ten of its present-day evils. This is done with the support of a super-nationalistic propoganda machine, which brainwashes the populace of the aggressors. This is done with the subtelty of creative arguments and with the deftness of polite nudges.

This article falls into such a category.

Once the population is convinced of a falsehood - of the evil of those being attacked and/or the justification of an uninvited war of liberation - the attack is launched. It is usually successful in the short term. However, years later people realize the falsities of their brainwashed violence. By that time, it is too late. The dead cannot be brought back. With no where to hide, apologies are made and condolensces are offered by the same people who supported the killings to begin with.

Most of all, the article writers supporting such violence, realizing their wrong, then attempt to pass on the blame to a leadership, to a leader who by that time has died, or onto the military etc. In essence, they wash their hands of thier sins, leaving the world asking the question, ``How did such a leader get into power? Why was their military so ruthless`` Not realizing that many of the Hitlers of our time have been popularly elected and are only doing what their population wants them to do.

It is thus incorrect to state that this war is only being carried out by Bush. It is actually being carried out by the popular support of the US public. Survey after survey is indicating that the majority of Americans support this war. So many of them, are even willing to present false information to justify it. Not only Bush, but the US public needs to be blamed as well.

One cannot wait till the end of this war to decide whether the US was right or wrong. By that time, too many people will have died and we will not be able to bring them back, if it turns out that the US was wrong. Wars should not be intiitated until such questions have been answered to the fullest - specifically by the people who are being attacked. It is no coincidence that the Iraqi opinion has never even been considered. Unfortunately it is the US public opinion that is considered important.

But most of all, when the dust settles and the falsities are exposed (e.g. the Iraqis will dance in the streets), the supporters of this criminal war should not be allowed to hide. They should not be allowed to pass on the blame to someone else. They should be held responsible for egging on their leaderships into their killing sprees. The, ``collataral damage`` argument in an unjust war, should be considered the equivalent of state terrorism.

After all, ``If you can trust your life and the life and future of your children with the US, why do you find it so hard to trust the elected President of the US when he says that aims to introduce democracy in Iraq and has no intention of turning it into a colony?`` is question that could easily have been asked, with the same outward innocence, to the Germans in the 1930s/40s, i.e.

``If you can trust your life and the life and future of your children with Germany, why do you find it so hard to trust the elected President and Chancellor of Germany when he says that he aims to only target the criminal Jews in Poland and has no intention of turning on the innocent ones?``

I hope in a few months or years, when everyone asks the question: ``How was the Bush allowed to kill Iraqis,`` the author of this article will have the courage to look into the eyes of the families of those killed and say, ``Because I told him to.``

Tauheed,

to use your own words here........

`` Have the courage to see the truth. Because the truth will be still be there even if you close your eyes tightly shut to it.``

Please think about it.

Ras

tahmed

excellent article and great follow ups. thanks for writing this.

o -- Basra the land of thousand and one nights -- o Basra the enchanted city of Sindbad the Sailor -- what anguish -- what terror!!


Seeing the British Tommies treating the way they are treating the inhabitants of an ancient sprawling -- sovereign -- city BASRA -- makes my old anti-colonial blood boil again –

what business these foreign white colonials with a swagger -- have in Basra entering the peoples homes and terrorizing the whole family of men, women and children.

I personally know how these BASTARDS treated us Indians in 1942 –

My father and I fought these monsters 61 years ago with our bare hands – and finally kicked them out in 1947 --

these foreigners from a distant alien land were going to hang my father for being a Freedom Fighter trying to free HIS OWN country – isn’t that incredible.

as a teenager I was seething with anger at the treatment of my father and my countrymen – at the hands of these well clad savages -- with a bayonet

I felt so much anger and hatred -- I used to daydream in my bed of the ways I could put a bullet in between the eyes of the resident British police commissioner -- Kemp

I can see how the citizens of Basra .must be feeling at this shameless terrorizing of their poor folks -- and the criminal violation by these Terrorist Tommies of the sacred privacy of their family – in their own homes –

what did the Basra inhabitants do to that bastard TONY the Lap DOG?

We thought we had buried the British Colonialism 50 years ago for good – but it is a Genetic Defect in some of these British Barbarians – it does not go away despite the hybridization.

Once a colonial always a colonial...

This is to respond to various posts concerning my article. In the interests of not getting lost in the forest because of the trees, I decided to try and organize the points made by different posters into three of four major themes, and to provide my two takas to each of these themes. Given the large variety of points, I may have missed some important ones below, or misrepresented what the poster meant - this would be an honest error, and not an attempt to be clever. These points are listed in rough order of significance (as I see it). I hope the individual posters, many of them more knoweldgeable and smarter than me, and recognizing that that isnt saying much :-), will understand and will accept my thanks for writing even if there is no mention of their name below.

An important point raised by a number of posters was: Chances of democracy being introduced in Iraq by the US after Saddam is removed are low.
Various posters gave various reasons for this:
(a) US commitment to democracy abroad is low. Point raised by Dost Mittar, Drumz, Sadna. My response: Agreed. The reason for this is clearly the existential struggle the US was engaged against communism for the past 50 year, when the two goals were often seen to be in conflict, and so real politics took over (meaning often the US dealt with ``bastar!ds, as long as they were OUR bastar!ds``, as Dost Mittar wrote I think). In case of Iraq, Bush has already put a lot of political stake into introducing democracy in Iraq, and there are clear indications that he sees this as part of a larger scheme to introduce a Palestinian State as well as security for Israel. After 50 years of bloodshed in the middle east (and the consequent costs to the rest of the world), and after everything else has been tried (Arab-Israeli wars as well as peace talks), I think it makes sense to give Bush a chance to do what he says he will do.

(b) US under Bush has become less tolerant internally, and more intrusive in private lives. This point was made by a number of posters (soysauce, studebaker, Roohi).
My views: Agreed. However, we must remember that this was triggered by 9/11 and continued uncertainties of terrorist actions. While one may or may not question the effectiveness of some of the actions being taken, I dont think this reflects any underlying bias towards the foreign born in the US (recall the talks for legalizing Mexican illegal immigrants in the US that were taking place between Bush and Fox, until 9/11 shifted the ground rules).

(c) The US and UK contributions to democracy are overplayed in my article. Points made by Ferozk, Drumz, soysauce. Ferozk deals most systematically here, discussing Germany, Japan, India. My response: I beg to differ, and the arguments (to the extent they are presented, mostly by Ferozk) provided by the posters are not convincing. Thus: What was ``restored`` in the Meiji restoration in Japan was the emperor (from the Tokugawa shogunate), NOT democracy as Ferozk indicates. And for many years ending with Japans defeat in 1945, the real power in Japan was with the military, not the people. So, it was indeed the US occupation that introduced democracy for the first time in Japan. This may sound politically incorrect, but these are historical facts even if they are emotionally unacceptable to some people. The Weimar Republic in Germany was indeed an early attempt at democracy in that country. However, it was had a tough time keeping its head above water for a number of reasons (political and economic) and finally Hitler pushed it under. Adenauer (contrary to what Ferozk writes) was a great admirer of the US, and the US contributed significantly in a number of ways (the Marshall Plan, commitment to post-war recovery to avoid another Weimar regime). Similarly, while it is true that the Brits came to India to exploit it as a colony, it is also true that had they not come you and I would be kowtowing to some Mughal king in Delhi, or to some other dynasty. (And thanks to Ferozk for correcting my typo on Louis XIV who of course was the Sun King, not the Guillotined King Louis XVI).

So, in summary on this point, I can do no better than reiterate that if Bush says that a major aim of the war is to introduce democracy in Iraq, I think (as NazarHayat also indicates) it makes sense to give him that chance.

Some other points included decrying the bloodshed that war would cause in Iraq (nasah, nawaid). I fully respect your views, and one would have to be less than human not to be appalled by deaths that would have been avoided by war. (I incidentally wish Romair had not negated his expressed concern here by also expressing his desire for a prolonged war - thus indicating that his desire to see the US frustrated militarily in Iraq was greater than his concern for the added number of deaths it would also cause). Soldotna agreed with the basic points I make in the article, and provided a touching comment from Powell about how the only land the US has sought in its foreign wars was land enough to bury its war dead. The cemetries in France are clear testimony to this. Hobbes also agreed that getting rid of Saddam was clearly in the interest of the Iraqi people.

Given the impressive array of points made, I may have missed some important ones, and for that I will appreciate being reminded by the poster. Some things I ignored since I thought they were either irrelevant or insubstantial (e.g. where the poster implies that my being of the nonwhite race limits my freedom of thought to certain politically correct views only - to such posters, I offer my sincere condolences and wish them lots of fun reading books by McCauley).
But by and large, I found the comments to be thoughtful and from the heart. And that is why I hang out with all you great folks on chowk (this is NOT meant to be softening you people up, since I am not running for any elections), even though we slug it out sometimes on Big Issues on politics, religion, science and so forth, and sometimes we just have a bit of fun discussing movies, music and haiku poetry (we need more of that, in these times that ``try men`s souls``).
Thanks again all, and if there are more comments, I shall try to respond. Cheers.

From Monday, March 31st The News Opinion section:
words of Seattle Indian Chief are worth reading.

Civilised savages

Anwar Ahmad

As the forces of civilization unleash weapons of savagery to liberate the Iraqis, it seems useful to revisit an earlier clash of civilization and savagery which had shaped American culture and psyche. When white settlers landed in America, the fate of the red man was sealed. They were decimated by the exposure to civilized diseases (diarrhoea, chicken pox, etc) against which they had no immunological resistance. Later, infected clothing was gifted by the settlers to the unsuspecting natives, who died in droves. Bigotry, deceit, genocide and biological weapons thus became the earliest ingredients of the great American civilization.

There was insatiable greed for land as well, and treaty after treaty with the retreating savages was broken in the westward march. When the trail-blazing frontiersmen couldn`t finish off the irksome savages fast enough, the cavalry galloped in to stage unprovoked massacres. Among the pioneers was Gen George Custer`s 7 Cavalry regiment -- now leading civilization`s charge into Baghdad, and reminding some of Custer`s fatal misjudgment at Little Big Horn.

The surviving savages were herded into ``reservations`` to drown their humiliation in drink and become the symbols of nothingness. Civilization had triumphed. Were the natives really mindless, blood-thirsty, yelling, scalp-taking, savages who had to be forcibly civilized? Actually, they were aware of a universe with a formless spiritual Force at its centre as the source of all life. Unlike the settlers, they did not see humans as entirely apart from animals and plants and believed all to be inter-dependent and, ultimately, dependent on life-giving power of the Almighty. This faith in a purposeful balance in nature the savages had acquired through timeless co-existence with it.

When the civilized man arrived -- ``to serve God and also to get rich`` -- his greed seemed despicable and destructive to the savages. They found him oblivious to the ``rhythms and spirit`` of nature, which he saw as an obstacle, even an enemy. Above all, it was a commodity: a forest was so many feet of timber, a beaver colony so many pelts, a buffalo-herd so many robes and tongues. For some, even the native was a resource -- heathen souls ripe for salvation (and a plentiful supply of labour, until shiploads of niggers began arriving). The shocked savages saw the settlers as ``mechanical-soulless creatures who wielded ingenious tools and weapons to accomplish their ends.``

By early 19th century, the west was almost won and ``reservation`` of the savage well advanced. In 1834, the ``Great White Chief`` in Washington offered to buy a large chunk of Suquamish land from their chief and promised a ``reservation`` for his tribe. Chief Seattle saw the ``offer`` for the ultimatum that it really was. His reply remains a poignant indictment of the soulless avarice of modern civilization and its illusion of omnipotence:

``How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air, and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every humming insect, is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man -- all belong to the same family. I am a savage and do not understand any other way.

``Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quite place in the white man`s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in the spring, or the rustle of an insect`s wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.

``I have seen a thousand rotting [wild] buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron-horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. I am a savage and do not understand any other way.

``And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night; or the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by the midday rain, or scented with the pine. I am a red man and do not understand.

``The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath -- the beast, the tree, the man...The air...shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit on the ground, they spit on themselves. This we know: The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know...all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Even the white man, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see.

``One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover -- our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot, because He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all the other tribes. Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. I am a savage and do not understand any other way.``

Are these the thoughts of a savage? Or, the anguished epitaph of a simple but spiritually alive and civilized people acutely aware of the delicate natural balance, man`s dependence on it and the rights of all God`s creations? An awareness acquired without the benefit of any Church or state, and long before nature`s destruction by unbounded human avarice had become too threatening to be ignored even by the ``civilized`` man.

And yet, in the name of civilization, the destruction goes on. Quite fittingly, George Bush launched himself as the symbol of the avaricious forces by scuttling the painstakingly crafted Kyoto Protocol. And he has all but killed the International Criminal Court, an attempt to deter modern man`s abiding genocidal instincts. And, as if to underscore the efficacy of the ICC and the reasons why he had killed it, Bush savagely bombarded the innocent Afghans and is now blasting the Iraqis to freedom. Included in the collateral damage could be the United Nations ideal.

As the massacre continues in the cradle of civilization, the world watches as helplessly as the native Americans had witnessed the decimation of their way of life. Can any good come of it for the Iraqis? Theirs, after all, is a moribund civilization while the ascent of America is undeniable. True. But has the reduction of human endeavour to materialism not triggered runaway acquisitiveness and exacted a terrible socio-psychological toll? Who has more time for togetherness, happiness -- the ``civilized`` or the ``savages``?

As Chief Seattle had foreseen, America`s cities are mechanised, concrete jungles and their captive-dwellers lack control over their lives and thoughts, are oblivious to nature, bereft of spirituality and dependent on psychiatry. They now live longer, and lonelier, lives. Their rulers lie in their name, and do as they please; the ozone hole gets larger, new and old diseases, war and famine threaten humankind. And, science marches on.

Is this post-modernism, or pre-medievalism? Has the civilized man conquered nature? Or, succumbed to his baser instincts and set the clock for self-destruction? Who was wiser and happier -- the ``savage`` or the ``civilized`` man? Judged against the eternal question about the ``purpose of life,`` is America not adrift -- the inhuman assault to liberate Iraq underscoring its moral paradox?

The writer is a freelance columnist

aa52pak@hotmail.com

remember Tauheed Ahmed --

that bumbling buffoon bush -- the greatest LIAR that ever -- `invaded and occupied` -- the United States White House -- AND the United States

-- ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS --

Bush and the US -- are NOT ONE and the SAME --

we all trust the US -- THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD -- BUT we don`t trust this BUGGER --

for what he has done to my beloved country -- politically, financially, militarily, constitutionally, -- and MORALLY -- in JUST TWO YEARS.

Bush`s America is NOT the Jefferson`s and the Washington`s America -- Bush`s America is a rightwing fundamentalist extremist`s -- America

Bush`s -- fascist AMERICA -- is NOT MY America -- and neither –

It’s YOURS

This is Bush`s America -- not MINE.

Outrage Spreads in Arab World
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 30, 2003; Page A19


``CAIRO, March 29 -- A shuddering sense of outrage at President Bush and the United States fell over the Arab world today as television networks and newspapers reported a U.S. air assault that Iraqi officials said killed 58 people at a vegetable market in Baghdad.

``Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad,`` said a huge headline in al-Dustur, a newspaper in Amman, Jordan.

``Dreadful massacre in Baghdad,`` read a banner headline in Egypt`s mass circulation Akhbar al-Yawm newspaper. Photos of two young victims of the blast covered half its front page.

``Yet another massacre by the coalition of invaders,`` read the main headline in Saudi Arabia`s popular al-Riyadh daily.

``Mr. Bush has lost us. We are gone. Enough. That`s the end,`` said Diaa Rashwan, head of the comparative politics unit at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. ``If America starts winning tomorrow, there will be suicide bombing that will start in America the next day. It is a whole new level now.``

The anger was a clear sign that U.S.-Arab relations, despite the Bush administration`s campaign to win hearts and minds, was at a low point.

``Bush is an occupier and terrorist. He thought he was playing a video game,`` said George Elnaber, 36, a Arab Christian and the owner of a supermarket in Amman. ``We hate Americans more than we hate Saddam now,`` he said, referring to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The popular al-Jazeera satellite television network broadcast the funerals of those killed at the market. It repeatedly showed pictures of severed body parts and wounded toddlers bandaged and crying in hospital beds.

``Those pictures have showed that America`s war is not only against the Iraqi regime and the Iraqi army, but also against the Iraqi children and elderly. How can we trust them now?`` said Mahmoud Sahiouny, 19, a Syrian computer science student who lives in Beirut.

The United States has said it is investigating whether its forces caused the market blast Friday in a mainly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. But many Arabs said the bloodshed was clearly the fault of the United States.

A group of women using computers at an Internet cafe in Cairo displayed some of their e-mails containing pictures of funerals, wailing women, mourning men and the bodies of children in cradle-sized coffins.

``This is a media war, and America will realize sooner or later that we Arabs have a million alternatives now,`` Rana Khoury, 20, a political science student at the American University of Beirut. ``What really hurts is when I turned to American stations, they were talking about the humanitarian aid that the allies are providing for the Iraqi people. They didn`t even mention those who were massacred.``

The outrage was also felt in Syria, which suffered war casualties when a U.S. missile accidentally hit a busload of civilians Monday in Iraq about 100 miles from the Syrian border.

``I was watching what was happening and I found myself cursing for the first time in my life,`` a 17-year-old student named Lama told the Reuters news agency. ``I felt I wanted to kill, not only curse.``

In Cairo, some residents with long ties to the United States said that the bombing of civilians made them lose all hope that relations could return to normal.

``It is as if you are watching a horror movie,`` said Summer Said, a journalist for the Cairo Times, an English-language newsmagazine. ``I thought, at first, okay, maybe it isn`t a war for oil. Maybe America does want to help. Now, it`s genocide to me. Is the American government trying to exterminate Arabs?``

``This war is affecting civilians primarily. I did not expect to see civilians bombed and I feel exceedingly angry,`` wrote Ezzat El Kamhawy, a respected Egyptian novelist. ``This war can only harm the future of democracy in the area. . . . What is happening now does not implicate the future of the Arabs alone but the future of America herself.``

Some of the people interviewed said that they had hated leaders like Osama bin Laden but that now they were ready to fight and believed that attacks on the United States would be justified.

``For every man they kill, there will be four or five people who want revenge for this person`s life. They can`t just kill people and have it be forgotten,`` said Ali Sabry, 43, a building attendant in Cairo. ``America is our enemy now. They have millions of Muslims praying against them every day.``(Washington Post)