I was reading the Telegraph newspaper today as usual. NOT Dowding’s favourite paper, but we all have our crosses to bear!
On page 11 there was an article about growing support for the war (now 53% according to YouGov), and a photo of some anti-war protesters. This particular group of war protesters called themselves “Blondes Against the Dumb War”, a clever word anagram which could have been derived from the more obvious but self-deprecating “Dumb Blondes Against the War”.
One of them is holding a banner which proclaims, quite incorrectly: “Anything war can do, peace can do better”. ROFL. Some people just don’t get it. 12 years of “peace” have not ousted Saddam, and so now he will be removed by force. That WILL work. The other thing they just don’t get is that you cannot negotiate with Saddam, and he won’t go just because he’s asked. I tutted at their blinkered naivety, and turned the page.
The very next photograph I saw was that of a young woman, Ms. Abtehale Al-Hussaini, an Iraqi exile living in Britain. Ms. Al-Hussaini is in favour of the war, and that might surprise some of you pacifist pinkos, war protesters and Daily Mirror readers. It might also surprise Dowding. But it does not surprise me. Ms. Hussaini has lost about 40 of her relatives who ended up in Saddam’s jails and torture chambers.
Article source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F03%2F21%2Fwirq221.xmlWhen Abtehale Al-Hussaini is accused of betraying Islam by supporting war on Iraq, she recites a harrowing set of statistics: 40 relatives executed, including four cousins, three uncles, two aunts, and a grandparent.
She holds one man responsible: Saddam Hussein.
"So ask me again why do I want this war?" she said. "People who say there is another way haven't a clue what is happening in Iraq."
Miss Al-Hussaini, 21, who lives in Southampton, is anxiously awaiting news of relatives who remain in Baghdad under threat of being gassed by their own leader.
Her views represent those of the sliver of the British Muslim population that supports military intervention. Most oppose the use of force, as shown by a YouGov poll conducted for The Telegraph last December.
But Iraqis like Miss Al-Hussaini, whose family has first-hand experience of Saddam's rule, believe Tony Blair's intentions for a liberated Iraq may be honourable.
Yesterday, other exiles delivered messages and letters of support to Downing Street telling of the horror of life under Saddam Hussein.
Miss Al-Hussaini's parents, Amal and Hazem, live in exile in north London. They fled from Baghdad after the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war but not before it took a heavy toll on her family.
Many of Miss Al-Hussaini's uncles and cousins were imprisoned. Eight aunts were jailed at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad on charges of supporting opposition factions.
She said: "Some rioters set the prison on fire. Six of my aunts escaped and ran to the Iranian border but the other two were raped and later executed."
Still, she considers herself lucky. "I lived through that war with Iran. Some of my parents' friends watched as their babies were burned alive, or cooked over a stove in front of them."
Among other supporters of war, Mahdy Surche, 30, had doubts about British and American intentions but said that after 24 years of Saddam, there was no choice. "America has not supported Kurds in the past. After the last Gulf war they left us. But I am willing to back them now," he said over tea in a Kurdish cafe in the Handsworth district of Birmingham. "What choice is there?"
Mr Surche is among 50,000 Kurds living in Britain. He was jailed and tortured three times, he says, on charges of supporting the opposition before seeking asylum in Britain in 1999.
"When they kill you they put your body in a box and tell your family to come pick it up," he said. "If they have shot you with a bullet your family is sent a bill for the cost of the bullet."
Mr Surche's elderly mother and younger brother remain in Arbil, a Kurdish controlled city in northern Iraq. When he last spoke to them a week ago they were resigned to the possibility of being gassed by Saddam's soldiers. "My mother said to me, 'My son, don't worry about what will happen to us. We cannot do anything about it'."
He added: "So I am ready and happy to fight with British troops. I'm ready to fight for my nation. Anyone is better than Saddam."
It is a view not normally heard from British Muslims. Most would agree with Arfan Sharif, 23, a charity worker, who said he did not believe America had the "moral authority" to decide post-war Iraq's future.
"Let's look at America's past support of Pinochet, or their bombing of Cambodia. Or supporting Indonesia when they invaded East Timor. There is a history of mistrust of Americans."
Mr Sharif also was suspicious of America's intentions regarding Iraq's oil once Saddam was driven out.
He said: "What if the people decide they want to nationalise their oil industry to rebuild the country?"
But Azad Mirza, a Kurd who arrived in Britain three years ago, said he was tired of waiting for another uprising because they have failed in the past.
"This is the day we've been waiting for," he said. "We Kurds are tired.
"We've been living in the dark for so long. At last, the light may finally come out and shine on us."Note that Ms. Al-Hussaini is
not the young Iraqi woman mentioned in my sig. block.
Photo of the blinkered blonde bimbos
