Sipping Coffee on the Euphrates
By Dr. Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 29, 2005

The following is a virtual chat, taking place between two Iraqi brothers
after watching TV. The arguments are real, but the names have been changed.
The dialogue is adapted from a combination of actual discussions that took
place between two brothers sipping coffee late Saturday on the Euphrates
river.

Hassan: So, Majid, what’s going on in the world today?

Majid: Well, we are still terrified by those terror attacks by Zarqawi (may
Allah take him away). As usual, he killed civilians, kids, women, and
elderly.

Hassan (deep breath): That is our destiny. We have no choice but to resist
the terrorists, whatever the price. For there is no higher price than the
one we paid under Saddam Hussein. We will suffer all what the terrorists
would do, but we will not return to what was here before April 2003. The
most important thing that happened to us was the removal of the monster. I
can’t even think back and imagine the days of massacres, torture, and
oppression. Let all the Zarqawi of the world come here. Ahlan wa sahlan
("Welcome" in Arabic), because eventually no one will want his regime of the
Taliban to take root in Iraq.

Majid: But there is one thing I don’t understand.

Hassan: What is it Majid?

Majid: Those people in London and America.

Hassan: What’s with them, Majid?

Majid: They are organizing these marches..

Hassan: What’s wrong with that? These are democracies, Majid. And in
democracies you demonstrate, express yourself, say whatever you want. That’s
why we’re struggling here. That’s what we want here...That’s why we’re
dying..

Majid: But Hassan, these demonstrations are not calling for democracy.

Hassan: What are they calling for ,then?

Majid: They say they want peace.

Hassan: Azeem ("Great"), we all want peace. Where is the problem?

Majid: They say they want to stop the war in Iraq..

Hassan: Tamam ("Perfect"). Isn’t it what we all want in Iraq? Aren’t we
sick and tired of this war, this terrorism?

Majid: Yes, Hassan, it's true. But that is not what these people want.

Hassan: I don’t understand, Majid. Don’t they want peace and the end of war
in Iraq?

Majid: That’s what they say but...

Hassan: But what Majid?

Majid: ...they say they want the U.S. troops to pullout immediately.

Hassan: Like this? And to abandon the Iraqi people, leaving them alone
against Zarqawi, Iran, and the terrorists coming from Syria and Saudi
Arabia? That’s what these demonstrators want?

Majid: Yes. They say it is not America’s business to be in Iraq.

Hassan: But it is we Iraqis who want them to stay and help us...our
government is asking them to help us. What’s with those demonstrators?

Majid: They are saying our government is not legitimate. That is was formed
under American occupation.

Hassan: But we elected our government. Didn’t they see 8.5 million people
voting, including old women?

Majid: They don’t care. They say the Iraqi people are fighting U.S. and
Coalition forces. They say the insurgents are the Iraqi people.

Hassan So Zarqawi’s terrorists are the Iraqi people and the 9 million voters
are what?

Majid: They don’t talk about the Iraqi voters.

Hassan: How about the Afghani voters?

Majid: They think the Taliban are more legitimate.

Hassan: You must be joking! How about the American voters? Do they count?

Majid: Well, they want to influence them...to bring down the Blair and Bush
governments and bring in governments that would pull Coalition forces from
Iraq.

Hassan: How about our government here? They want our government to fall,
too?

Majid: Yes, some of the activists wants that, too.

Hassan: And whom do they want to see in running Iraq?

Majid: Some of them say we had no business toppling Saddam, so I assume they
’d want him back. One of their main leaders is British MP George Galloway,
who came to Iraq when we were in prison and supported Saddam.

Hassan: Do you mean those Europeans and Americans who came here on red buses
and wanted to protect the Saddam regime from the U.S. and Britain?

Majid Yes, many among the red buses people are among the demonstrators in
London and Washington..

Hassan: They still want to protect Saddam’s regime even after he is going on
trial for massacres?

Majid: They never answer that question.

Hassan: They don’t want Saddam on trial?

Majid: They say it is not their problem.

Hassan: Did they wanted Hitler and Mussolini on trial?

Majid: They say that was different.

Hassan: Why?

Majid: Because Hitler and Mussolini massacred people....

Hassan: How about Milosevic?

Majid: They’re OK with him on trial -- except the group called International
ANSWER, which supported him, because he was a Socialist.

Hassan: But they don't want anyone to try Saddam?

Majid: They say that is up to the Iraqi people.

Hassan: But the Iraqi people decided.

Majid: They say Iraq is under occupation.

Hassan: But so were Germany, Italy, and Japan when their dictatorship were
on trial.

Majid: Yes, but they say the invasion of Iraq was illegal.

Hassan: And the invasion of Germany was legal?

Majid: They say Iraq didn’t attack us first

Hassan: And Nazi Germany did? How about Milosevic? Did he attack the United
States?

Majid: At the time, the Nazis massacred peoples. Milosevic massacred the
Muslim minority in Serbia.

Hassan: And the Baathists didn’t massacre the Shi'ites? Saddam didn’t
massacre the Kurdish Muslim minority?

Majid: Hassan, why are you asking me? They said it, not me!

Hassan: OK, so what kind of peace are these protestors calling for?

Majid: Immediate withdrawal of US forces

Hassan: But that is war, a bigger war...Zarqawi, al-Sadr, and others will
wage wars elsewhere, not just here.

Majid: They say it won’t be their business. Besides it was Bush and Blair’s
problem: Had the invasion not taken place, there wouldn’t have been an
insurgency.

Hassan: And what would have happen had no invasion taken place?

Majid: Nothing, peace.

Hassan: So before the removal of Saddam Hussein. there was peace?

Majid: They say there were no pictures of bloodshed on TV

Hassan: So there was no bloodshed in Iraq before the toppling of Saddam?

Majid: They say Saddam was no angel, but there are many dictators around the
world? And why is it up to the U.S. to pick one dictator and remove him?

Hassan: But he had killed 400,000 Shi'ites and 200,000 Kurds, plus another
100,000 Sunnis, Chaldo-Assyrians and others. That wasn’t enough to
intervene?

Majid: They say the U.S. should not change regimes..

Hassan: How about Haiti? Didn’t the U.S. change the Cedras regime? How about
Milosevic? Wasn’t he brought to justice? How about Noriega?

Majid: They say these dictators were oppressing their people..

Hassan: And Saddam wasn’t?

Majid: Why are you upset with me? I was in prison for years. I’ve got my
share. It’s them you need to question.

Hassan: I really don’t understand these people. They say they want war to
cease, and they encourage the terrorists to win. They say they want peace,
and they wish the dictator and the radicals to reign over us. They say they
are Progressives and secularists, and they allow the fundamentalists to
massacre us. They say they promote liberties, and they want ours to vanish.
They say they demonstrate for the Iraqi people, and their actions are aimed
at plunging the Iraqi people under terror and oppression. What on earth do
they want with us?

Majid: Hassan, we’ve got to be fair. These are their soldiers, their
equipment, and their money. They want them out. It is their right, no?

Hassan: Yeah, it is their right to do what they want with their soldiers and
money. But it is not their right to deny us ours.

Majid: And how are they denying our rights?

Hassan: Galloway came to Iraq during the presidency of Saddam Hussein to
support him. Saddam was massacring us. What was his business coming here
with all these red buses to support the oppressor? Why didn’t these buses
visit the mass graves or the victims of chemical attacks? Why did they
position themselves around Saddam palaces and not around the Kurdish and
Shi'ia villages?

Majid: I don’t know. Maybe they thought America is the aggressor and Saddam
is the nationalist?

Hassan: Did you say America was the aggressor and Hitler the nationalist?

Majid: I didn’t say that. You said it.

Hassan: How about Sudan? There were no red buses there, where there? One
million black people were massacred there. Where were the demonstrators of
Washington and London?

Majid: They say that was a civil war.

Hassan: Wasn’t Yugoslavia a civil war?

Majid: Let’s quit talking about Yugoslavia and Sudan. These demonstrations
are about Iraq. Besides, there are many mothers and relatives of American
soldiers killed in our country. They are saying that the troops should go
home.

Hassan: Are they saying that the U.S. army should go home, because their
children were killed in combat?

Majid: They are saying U.S. forces shouldn’t have been in Iraq in the first
place.

Hassan: So, had their sons and daughters not been killed, they would have
asked for the withdrawal of U.S. forces?

Majid: They say U.S. forces must withdraw, because it was and is an illegal
war, regardless.

Hassan: So, do they want to pull the troops because soldiers were killed or
because the troops shouldn’t have been sent in the first place?

Majid: Don’t be cynical Hassan, these soldiers are their children and
relatives.Would you send your children to be killed in another country?

Hassan: Our children were killed in our own country.

Majid: Yes, but they don’t like to have their soldiers killed in our country

Hassan: Did they demonstrate against their government on June 7, 1944? They
sent their sons to liberate Europe: 4,000 died in 12 hours in Normandy.
Another 6,000 died on one island in the Pacific. They brought freedom to
nations around the world. Is our freedom a lesser one? I understand that
parents suffer for the loss of their children. But is there a draft in
America?

Majid: No, it is a voluntary recruitment.

Hassan: Why do they go to the Army then? They know that they are risking
being killed.

Majid: I don’t know. But one of their activists, Cindy Sheehan, lost her son
in Iraq and is leading the campaign against President Bush now.

Hassan: Was she against his decision to join the armed forces?

Majid Apparently yes. That’s what she says.

Hassan: Did she try to convince him not to enroll?

Majid: Yes, that’s what she said.

Hassan: So, her son refused to obey her

Majid: Yes.

Hassan: He disagreed with her?

Majid: Yes.

Hassan: So he had different views than she did?

Majid: Well, he joined the Army, and she didn’t want him to join.

Hassan: Was she against the War in Iraq before he joined?

Majid: She was against the removal of Saddam.

Hassan: And now she is acting as a mother who lost her child who refused to
obey her and was killed in a war she opposed?

Majid: Exactly. She considers the war that liberated us a war that killed
her son. She was against regime change in Iraq. I also heard she criticized
Bush, Chirac, and Blair for removing the Syrians from Lebanon.

Hassan: Why is she against our peoples’ freedoms?

Majid: She says removing Saddam wasn’t a good cause.

Hassan: Did she ever meet with Iraqi mothers who lost their children,
husbands, and babies?

Majid: Not that I know of.

Hassan: So stopping the genocide in Iraq is not enough of a noble cause for
her?

Majid: She and her movement say no.

Hassan and Majid both sip their coffee and take a deep breath.

Hassan: If Mrs. Sheehan were elected president of the United States, not
George Bush or Kerry, and she would be informed that 400,000 sons and
daughters were in the mass graves in Iraq, that 8,000 Kurds were gassed to
death, what would she do? Would she order U.S. troops to rescue the
survivors or not? Would she be willing to use the resources of the U.S. to
save more children from Saddam?

Majid: If the American people would have elected her president and it was
established that Saddam had murdered close to a million people, a majority
of Americans would have asked any president to intervene.

Hassan: Even militarily?

Majid: Well that’s what they did in Bosnia and Kosovo, and it wasn’t Bush.
It was Clinton. The American people intervened in Europe twice to save
nations from genocide. Close to one million U.S. lives were lost for what
was perceived as a noble cause: Unless Arab blood is not considered worth
saving.

Hassan: So Majid, you’re telling me that the lady who is protesting the
American presence in Iraq today – if elected as a President - would have
sent troops to remove Saddam?

Majid: If she was informed by her Administration about the genocide, and the
pictures from Iraq’s mass graves would have been aired by CNN, as they were
in the 1990s from the Balkans, the American people would have demanded she
send the troops. Whether she would have sent them, or suffered their
repudiation, is hard to say.

Hassan: And if she sent troops, her son would have been part of these
troops?

Majid: Yes. Ironically, he would have been a soldier in Iraq and could have
been killed.

Hassan: And had he been killed, would his mother have withdrawn the troops?

Majid: Allah knows, Hassan. Only Allah knows. When President Clinton was in
the White House, he sent the army to Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo. When he left
the White House, he opposed sending forces to Iraq. He had plans to remove
Saddam when he was in the White House.

Hassan: But whatever our politics, Hassan, we need to respect the feelings
of people. Mothers’ feelings are the fabric of society.

Majid: Yes, Hassan. All mothers. American mothers, who mourn their sons,
accept their sacrifices, and consider them heroes, and those who like
Sheehan, who have different views: All mothers, Hassan. Our Iraqi mothers,
too. They have lost their children in mass graves. They certainly feel with
those American mothers. They appreciate their sacrifices. At least their
sons had the freedom to choose to live or die. Our mothers’ sons had no
choice. Saddam massacred them. Casey Sheehan was a hero whose sacrifice
saved the lives of many Shi'ites and Kurds. In Iraq and to many Iraqi
mothers, he is a hero.

Hassan: I hope his sacrifice won’t be dishonored. He died to give life and
freedom to others. That is a noble cause. The worse that could happen to his
memory is to destroy the nobility of the cause he died for.

Majid: More coffee?

Hassan: Well, just one more cup….

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=19664

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Sipping Coffee on the

, SNIP

WHO could read such achingly Boring ****..

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