This is from an open email to the peace movement written by Rania
Kashi, the 19-year-old Iraqi student living in the UK. It was quoted
by Tony Blair in his speech yesterday. The entire email can be read
at
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=2&debateId=88&articleId=983
"You may feel that America is trying to blind you from seeing the
truth about its real reasons for an invasion. I must argue that in
fact, it is you who are still blind to the bigger truths in Iraq. I
must ask you to consider the following questions:
* Saddam has murdered more than a million Iraqis over the past
thirty years; are you willing to allow him to kill another million?
* Out of a population of 20 million, 4 million Iraqis have been
forced to flee their country during Saddam's reign. Are you willing
to ignore the real and present danger that caused so many people to
leave their homes and families?
* Saddam rules Iraq using fear; he regularly imprisons,
executes and tortures large numbers of people for no reason
whatsoever. This may be hard to believe, and you may not even
appreciate the extent of such barbaric acts, but believe me you will
be hard-pressed to find a single family in Iraq which has not had a
son/father/brother killed, imprisoned, tortured and/or ''disappeared"
due to Saddam's regime. What then has been stopping you from taking
to the streets to protest against such blatant crimes against
humanity in the past?
* Saddam gassed thousands of political prisoners in one of his
campaigns to ''cleanse" prisons; why are you not protesting against
this barbaric act?
* This is an example of the dictator's policy you are trying to
save. Saddam has made a law excusing any man who rapes a female
relative and then murders her in the name of adultery. Do you still
want to march to keep him in power?
Throughout my life, my father and many other Iraqis have
attended constant meetings, protests and exhibitions that call for
the end of Saddam's reign. I remember when I was around 8 years old,
I went along with him to a demonstration at the French embassy,
protesting against the French sale of weapons to Saddam. I have
attended the permanent rally against Saddam that has been held every
Saturday in Trafalgar Square for the past five years. The Iraqi
people have been protesting for years against the war: the war that
Saddam has waged against them. Where have you been?
* Why is it now - at the very time that the Iraqi people are
being given real hope, however slight and however precarious, that
they can live in an Iraq that is free of the horrors partly described
in this email - that you deem it appropriate to voice your
disillusions with America's policy in Iraq?. . ."
