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Understanding Why the U.S. Wages War On
Iraq:
Professors Speak out at Lincoln
University
Only 7% of African-Americans Support the War:
Rebutting the Demonization of
Saddam:
Bush,
keep God out of it
April 2, 2003: A faculty panel at Lincoln
University, Pennsylvania
discussed The Middle East Crisis with focus on
Iraq. The main speakers were
Dr. Melvin Leaman,
Dr. Kaukab Siddique
and Dr.
Abdul Alim Shabazz, with Dr.
Zizwe Poe as moderator.The presentations were
documented and up to academic
standards. The auditorium was packed with
students, some faculty and visitors.
BUSH SHOULD STOP BRINGING GOD INTO HIS
WAR MOVES:
Dr. Leaman, who is "White" and a Christian
pastor, passionately opposed
the war on Iraq. He said that America is
certainly not behaving like a
Christian nation. He urged President Bush to stop
bringing God into his war
speeches. God, Dr. Leaman said, has nothing to do
with such aggression
against a far away and small country.
Quoting from Dr. Siddique's writings on
Jihad, Dr. Leaman expressed
the fear that the U.S. might, by blundering into
Iraq, preparing the grounds
for Jihad. Dr. Leaman showed a segment from a
documentary on
9.11
which
indicated that martyrdom became a form of worship
for the hijackers who
wrought destruction on in America. The new
jihadists, he said, do not care
that their targets are not legitimate military
targets.
Dr. Kaukab Siddique presented the
viewpoint of
Bush-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle and critiqued it.
He analyzed
CNN,
MSNBC,
Fox
presentation of the war as untruthful, misleading
and shot through with
streaks of demonization of the "enemy." He did a
point-by-point rebuttal of
the propaganda against President Saddam Hussain,
especially with regard to
the "mass murder of Kurds." He expressed
amazement at the values of the U.S.
media which shows off late model jet fighters and
tanks being sent off to
fight a poorly armed foe. Such exhibitions, he
said, smack of the posturing
of a coward and a bully.
Dr. Siddique said that
PALESTINE
is the key to
understanding the conflict. He
said, Iraq is the only country willing to stand
by the Palestinians. Iraq
under Saddam is scientifically advanced,
industrially significant, rich in
oil wealth and INDEPENDENT in its foreign policy.
With Saddam helping the
Palestinians, the freedom struggle against
Israel
could succeed. Hence the
Jewish
lobby in America wants Iraq destroyed. In
turn, America will use
Israel to control the oil and the economy of the
Middle East.
The
CIA,
Dr. Siddique said, has planted
agents and puppets in Muslim
countries, ranging from Musharraf of
Pakistan
to
Mubarak
of
Egypt
and the
Kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The purpose it
to stop the development of
movements against Israel and U.S. hegemony.
Unfortunately for the U.S. and Israel,
President Saddam refused to
surrender and has put up a fight for more than
two weeks against the most
powerful military force in the world. This
resistance has changed the
situation.
Dr. Abdul Alim Shabazz's speech was the
most powerful of the day. The
audience seemed to be mesmerized by the power of
his words, spoken in
exquisite English, with each word as if etched in
steel. Dr. Shabazz said
that to understand the attack on Iraq, we must
understand how the concept of
White supremacy works. The U.S. is doing to
Iraqis and Palestinians what it
did earlier in history to slaves brought from
Africa
and to the Native
American people. The AFRICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE, he
said, see the attack on Iraq
as oppression because they know from history what
oppression is all about.
Hence, he said, ONLY SEVEN PERCENT OF THE
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE support
Bush's war on Iraq, as opposed to almost 60% of
Whites.
Every day, he said, ISRAELIS KILL men,
women, children in Palestine and
Bush rewards the Israelis with billions of
dollars. The Iraqi people today
are fighting back, he said, not because they have
good weapons but because
they have faith and they have learned the lesson
of the
Qur'an
that
OPPRESSION IS WORSE THAN SLAUGHTER.
Dr. Shabazz questioned the legitimacy of
Bush as president of the
United States. This presidency, he said, was
delivered by the vote of a
conservative judge, after the disenfranchisement
of the African-American
voters in Florida.
Dr. Shabazz spoke in some detail of Islam
as a liberating force. Our
ancestors, brought from Africa as slaves were
Muslims, he said. Also, Muslim
Africans had reached America much before
Columbus. We had to undergo the
aftermath of slavery in segregation and
racism,
he explained with examples of
his childhood in Alabama.
The program ended after an hour of
questions and answers.
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2003-04-03 Thu 04:56ct