3/21/03
This is the latest from jabiz...
Well friends and family it has been a long time since we have gathered and talked. Well at least it’s been a while since I ranted. But tonight I am more sad than angry and with the spring solstice and Persian New Year 17 minutes away I will try to ride this somber peaceful mood, but don’t take that too far, because I am also filled a rage that I can not deal with. I am filled with a disgust and a shame that haunts my sleep. I just read some emails that Rachael Corrie ( the girl who was killed in Israel by Israeli troops) wrote to her mother and I started to cry. If you are interested I will FWD them to you, but I don’t want to flood your emails tonight.
Last night I was correcting test and cursing Chris Mathews for losing his objectivity and becoming a Bush media whore, when I learned that the genocide had begun. “Operation Iraqi freedom,” that name alone is so disgusting that I literally almost threw up. The screen showed a shot of some intersection in Baghdad, and I tried to humanize everything that was happening. I feel this is the most important thing we can all do. Never let them force you to forget that bombing means murder. It means death and tears. I will not get political here tonight, I will not talk of US Imperialism, I will not talk of greed, I will not talk of the Bush Doctrine, shock or awe, or collateral damage, I will not speak of MOAB, or Tommy Franks, I will not use the word Occupation, oil or Haliburton, or reconstruction, I will not speak of democracy, or the collapse of the UN, I will not utter the words international law, or naked aggression, or depleted uranium, I will not try to inform you on past US aggression, no mention of Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the genocide of Native Americans or slavery (yes it does go back that far) no talk of Angola, no Cold War.
As I was saying, I was watching this intersection and I saw a few cars driving around. I thought of the Iraqis shooting at B52 bombers miles away in the sky. Terrified men, tired men, poor men unaware that the missiles were coming from large ships hundreds of miles away. I thought of how they must be praying and shooting into oblivion. They must be thinking of their families. Maybe a daughter that started to wet the bed, due to fear. Or an aging grandmother that had a weak heart that may not make it this time around. This man was maybe 28, my age and he has never known peace. When his country was fighting Iran, he used American guns and now those same guns had turned on him, with a wrath and vengeance he could not quite contemplate.
I thought of the sound of screaming in a small apartment at dawn. I thought of the feeling of the ground shaking. The waters out, food is limited and the hospital has no supplies, sanctions you know 12 years….I thought of engaged couples, like myself, planning lives, hoping for children, a bride is crying because her life isn’t the way she was promised. A mother recovers from a cesarean because she doesn’t want to give birth in Armageddon. I see old women serving Tea and sweeping yards, mumbling EnShallah, God be willing we will survive.
Then they show the President, the Bush, the moron, the killer, the puppet, the liar, the hypocrite the criminal. I feel hatred and I am ashamed, I feel anger and I am vindicated. I feel lost, guilty. I feel powerless. I feel cheated. “one nation under god with liberty and justice for all.” I see a photograph of his daughters placed behind him by a PR guy. I loath them, why? What have they done? Can they ever imagine a life of terror, A life void of free rides, I life of sacrifice, and work, I life they can be proud of.
I wish there was a channel for my team. A place where the people spoke and not CBS, or General Electric. Not the people who make the bombs, selling their bombs. A place where money took a back seat and humanity could show it’s shine. A place where the truth about this madness could be broadcast to every home. A place the lies could be exposed and the criminals bought to justice. A channel not run by the state department. A station where the opinions of retired general didn’t mean shit. A place for activist and socialist. For peace lovers and workers, teachers, nurses, the people.
THE PEOPLE UNITED SHALL NEVER BE DEFEATED
This is what we were chanting in the rain tonight in Times Square as the cops in the land of the free and the home of the brave stood chomping at the bit. We chanted Let Us March. They didn’t Maybe this is the Democracy MR. Bush wants to bring to Iraq.
After all this I do not feel defeated, to the people who say, “what can we do, they will do whatever they want anyway.” I say think of Ghandi, think Martin Luther King, think of Che Guverra, Think of Lenin, Think of Malcom X, Think of Sitting Bull, Think of Rachel Corrie, Think of Allen Gingsberg, Think of who ever you can that gives you hope and than think of people of Iraq. They are jut like you….They just want a chance. They just want Peace and Justice. They do not hate freedom. They hunger for it.
I hope you are all well and that you educate yourself and speak out. The war may have begun, but only you can make it end. Stand up be counted, be heard…
