Refugee Iraqi Professor To Bush: "Why?"; On U.S.: "I Think History Will Never Forgive Her."

[Hissyspit]

From the latest episode of "Dan Rather Reports" titled Exodus which can be viewed and the transcript read here (click Transcripts).

DAN: In Professor Dunia Alfayed's (DOONYA AL- FI-YED) dentristy class we asked who in the class was Iraqi? Professor Alfayed is also an Iraqi. Married to a retired Iraqi Army officer, she taught at Baghdad University, ran a successful dental clinic and was a working mom. She had it all.

ALFAYED: You have your special world, special - emotions, dreams, imaginations. But everyting is come - sorry if I (visibly upset) - Someone gets and take your life, complete life. Not on you - you, your children, your - poor, but you have no choice but certainly everything is gone, and you must get out of your country, your home, seek for another job, start from the first. Now the question is why. Everyday I ask myself this question, several times a day, really. And I cry several times a day. Why? All of this for what?

DAN: Dr. Alfayad's perfect life in Iraq was shattered the day men came to her house saying they were friends of her husband and had gifts for Fauisal, (FI-SAL), her son.

ALFAYED: No my husband with me on phone and said nothing, please take care. I think they are thieves. That's why my mother start shouting. I start to shout.

DAN: The men, who Dr. Alfayed is convinced were kidnappers, left that day. But she believed they would come back for Fauisal. Within days, she left her home, her clinic and her life in Iraq and came to Syria. Professors, smart young people, all are leaving Iraq. American educated doctor Hikmat Shaarbaf, dean of the medical school, says this "Brain Drain" is especially huring the medical community.

SHAARBAF: "It is as strong and big a brain drain in Iraq. First of all, many peoplehave been killed from the universities and the number is increasing day after day. It is in tens and now in hundreds...

DAN: Whether rich or poor, well educated or not, many of the Iraqis we encountered in Syria rightly or wrongly blame the United States governement for the violence swallowing their country.

ALFAYED: In the last night I decided to write to Mr. Bush. Really, I swear. I want to ask him just big "why?" big "why?" All letter I try jus to say big "why?" Why he can't tell me why? Is he convinced, is he satisfied with these results. He think he thought he do the correct thing. No. No. Believe me, no, and if he want or if U.S.A. want something from Iraq, she can let me say she can tell us, and take what she wants, and give us peace, give us love, give us technology, but by this way? No. It is not the correct way. I think history will never forgive her. I think.


Also in the episode:

COMING NEXT THE STORY OF ONE YOUNG IRAQI MAN WITH A DREAM "I ASK ONLY FOR ONE THING - IT'S JUST A DREAM I ALWAYS HAD IN MY MIND - JUST WANNA GO TO THE UNITED STATES." THE INCREDIBLE TALE OF SURVIVAL OF JOEY - WHO WORKED FOR THE AMERICANS IN IRAQ AND PAID A HEAVY PRICE FOR IT.

IT'S ESTIMATED THAT TENS OF THOUSAND OF IRAQIS HAVE WORKED FOR THE U.S. MANY OF THEM AS TRANSLATORS SINCE THE WAR BEGAN. THEY'VE BEEN THREATENED - KILLED - AND MANY HAVE FLED THE COUNTRY. SINCE 2003 ONLY FIVE HUNDRED IRAQIS HAVE BEEN ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES.

WE MET ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO SERVED THE U.S. HE GOES BY JOEY - A NICKNAME GIVEN TO HIM BY SOLDIERS HE TRANSLATED FOR IN IRAQ.

- snip -

JOEY RETURNED HOME AND HID IN HIS ROOM FOR NINE MONTHS. HE WARNED HIS GIRLFRIEND, WHO WAS ALSO WORKING FOR THE AMERICANS TO QUIT. I GIVE HER THE PHONE CALL. TELL HER, "DON'T GO AGAIN. THEY'RE GONNA KILL YOU. THEY GONNA-- THEY GON-- TRYIN' TO KILL ME. THEY'RE GONNA KILL YOU AGAIN. GONNA KILL YOU." SO SHE SAID, "IT'S ALL RIGHT. YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT." SHE DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME. SO THEY SHOT HER. THEY KILLED HER, THREE SHOTS IN THE HEAD. THAT'S IT.

I LOST MY TWO BEST FRIENDS AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THEY WERE WORKIN' WITH THE BRITS. THEY WE WERE WORKING TOGETHER WHEN I WAS WORKING WITH THE BRITS. AND I GOT THE NEWS THEY'D BEEN KILLED ON THE WAY HOME.

MORE

[flyarm]

1. Dear people of Iraq..i am so sorry for what my country has done to you..

i feel nothing but shame..

i tried to help you

i tried to stop this horrific war..but even the democrats refuse to stop this war..

I have tried..or i thought i did..

our president and VP should be impeached..

our democratic congress should not have funded anymore of this war that is killing your people..

I know i will have to live out my life with shame of what has been done to you ..in my name..

i know it doesn't mean much when your loved ones have been taken for greedy selfish bastards..

But ..

I am Soooo Sorry.

My heart is so heavy of what has been done to you.

I have nothing but sorrow for you..that this was done to you.

I will never forgive the people that allowed this ..and did this to you.

and i will not stop until bush and cheney are impeached.

and that human rights are more important than our banks and wall street...and Americans going shopping and to the beach.

I am still trying to educate as many Americans as i can..so we can stop your psin and losses of human life..your families and your friends.

again..

I am deeply sorry...and i am ashamed.

fly

[liberalmuse]

3. Amen.

Thank you for expressing what I'm too unbelievably angry and bitter and heartbroken to say.

[Hissyspit]

5. It is a f*cking huge human disaster of amazing proportions

and I am so ashamed that we apparently are not going to impeach the monsters who did this.

[malaise]

12. I'm running out of words to describe this

clusterfuck.

[Swamp Rat]

2. Dubya doesn't give a lying fuck about other humans

[Mind_your_head]

4. Why? We want the OIL under your sand.......

Thousands and thousands of years of energy that the sun has beamed down on our planet and that plants & animals have captured & stored and is convertible to OUR (human) use....is buried under the very sand you live upon. All 'hail' to Ra the Sun God! Everything that we humans know, comes from the energy of the Sun.

Why should we 'buy' the oil from you, when we could just come in and TAKE it? We (the Americans, who 'tamed' the "frontier") buy ANYTHING from you, when we can just take it by force?) It 'worked' with the American Indians! The Indians believed that no one really owned the land.....yet the white man came and said "HE OWNED THE LAND".....and now most American Indians suffer on relatively small unproductive lands....poor, dejected, and addicted b/c they KNOW that they were duped by unscrupulous PREDATORS!!!!!! Who stole their land! And the same is being replayed in Iraq! Except it's 'more sophisticated, of course. Depleted Uranium is going to hurt the children you bear, Iraqi's will die earlier b/c of cancers caused by DU.

If you've got something of value - they'll TAKE it/STEAL it....that's what 'they' do.

There is no "love" of people or their dreams/desires/or needs.....individuals don't matter right now (although that's blatantly WRONG headed!!!!)....THAT's 'what we're dealing with'....and I sure do feel sick now acknowledging that truth.

Peace,
M_Y_H

P.S. I want to throw in a 'pitch' for you all to read "An Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. I have absolutely NOTHING to do with this book, other than ~ I'm reading it (I'm not even done with it yet) ~, but *damn* it has really taught me soooo much about things I didn't understand 'how our current system all works'/made the light bulbs 'click on' in my head.....I MOST highly recommend the read!

[Mind_your_head]

6. What the h*ll is really going ON over there? Wish we knew but

CNN (Censored News Network) keeps silent.

[cali]

11. Why are you depending on CNN?

Try Democracy Now!, or the BBC, independent web sites, news from Al-Jazeera, CBC, magazines like harper's, etc., etc.

As to the statement about history not forgiving the US, that should be true, but it's really not germane to much.

[wiggs]

7. History doesn't matter. We'll all be dead...according to GWB. As a corollary,

another WH official says that they create reality and the only job we have is to write about it.

[Mind_your_head]

9. Don't believe that tripe........

Yeah, 'we' (and they) will be dead.....but 'we' will leave an invaluable trail for all future 'truth seekers'.....just as has been left before us. That's 'how you "know" what you now know/believe (and it MAKES SENSE)....b/c the 'truth-seekers' never stopped investigating/reporting/journaling the TRUTH.

Peace & best wishes,
M_Y_H

[DeepModem Mom]

8. K&R

[Solly Mack]

10. She's right

"I Think History Will Never Forgive Her."

Her understood to be America

It won't just be Bush Inc that history judges poorly

The world will ask of Americans they same questions that are still asked about Germans under the Nazis.

"How?"
"Why?"

and "fear" and "we were lied to" and "we didn't have the power" and "we don't have the votes" and "we didn't know what was happening" will not be acceptable answers.

The least we can do now is to seek justice and hold the guilty accountable for their crimes...

Because the most we could have done...to stop it long before now...that time has come and gone.

Yeah - America's done just as bad in the past...but too many people use that as an excuse that allows them to marginalize what is taking place now. A lot of people are hoping that the Bush years will just be relegated to the past and be called something that "happened then"...like all the other bad stuff in our history...but how cowardly is that to want it to just be over and in the past so it doesn't have to be dealt with by those of us living in these times? We can't wait for history to do what we have to do for ourselves.

This - all this ...from the selection to the torture, the abuse, the violations of federal and international law, the wars of aggression ,and such much more...all of it...is our responsibility to deal with now.

[indepat]

13. That the world will never forgive naked aggression would seem a given