Your Egypt

[elmagnoon]

At the Airport prison (which Iraqis refer to as Guantanamo Airport) he was interrogated five times, then ten more times at Abu Ghraib. At each place he was beaten until he passed out, forced to beat other detainees, deprived of food and water (he lost 25 kilos while in detention), offered no medical care, received threats on his life, was threatened that his wife would brought in and raped in front of him, had rats and cockroaches as cellmates. He was kept in a cell 2 meters by 1.5 meters (6' x 4').

Or maybe you haven't heard all of this already …

Maybe you didn't hear that the lead CIA man who tortured him referred to himself as "Satan." Or that while he was praying and reading his Koran, female soldiers came in and flashed their breasts at him, then sexually humiliated and abused him.

What else is news? That there were 16 showers for 650 detainees. That there was no medical treatment, except for 30 out of 650 detainees – who were given aspirin for infections and viruses. That when he was finally allowed to use the toilet after being forced to wait for hours, soldiers would open the door on him.

Of course there is more. There is much, much more. But I'll save that for later, because it isn't easy to type when one's hands are shaking.

Since he has been out he has not slept much, and he has nightmares when he does manage to catch fleeting moments of shuteye.

His home was destroyed while he was in detention.

Then there is his aunt. I interviewed her tonight as well. A kind, 55 year-old woman who used to work as an English teacher. She was detained for four months, in as many prisons: Samarra, Tikrit, one in Baghdad and of course, Abu Ghraib. She was never allowed to sleep through a night, she was interrogated, not given enough food or water, no access to a lawyer or her family. She was abused verbally and psychologically.

But that isn't the worst part. Her 70 year-old husband was detained and beaten to death. But that took 7 months.


http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=2754

[Monica]

I wish there were words to espress the injustice of this story, and of so many other stories that are real and cruel and horrifying...
I ask you ya magnoon...what do you think would be the solution???
What are we ALL supposed to do to save this from happening again and again and again...

Aside from actively participating to humanitarian organization debates and contribute this way or that way, to feel a tiny bit less helpless, what are we to do???

Maybe we can collectively come up with a serious plan ...maybe we can figure out something that has not been figured out yet???

Shall we at least discuss any ideas??

[raymon]

One cannot comment on any injustice befallen on Iraqis by American soldiers … but I have question elmagnoon, do you know what you read does not represent a small decimal of what Saddam’s regime was doing with Iraqis?

Why didn’t we see many reports during the 1980s when Saddam was gassing thousands and thousands of Iraqi people?

There are thousands of Iraqis, if not millions, waiting and hoping that the international media to look to their past agonies as they do listen to a handful of Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib.

If you visited any of the Iraqi cities, you’d be surprised if you met a citizen who does not have a father, brother, sister, cousin or uncle executed or “disappeared” … thanks to Saddam anti-everybody policy.

[Laura]

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[elmagnoon]

Monica wrote: I wish there were words to espress the injustice of this story, and of so many other stories that are real and cruel and horrifying...
I ask you ya magnoon...what do you think would be the solution???
What are we ALL supposed to do to save this from happening again and again and again...

Aside from actively participating to humanitarian organization debates and contribute this way or that way, to feel a tiny bit less helpless, what are we to do???

Maybe we can collectively come up with a serious plan ...maybe we can figure out something that has not been figured out yet???

Shall we at least discuss any ideas??

I wnated to post transripts of one of Chomsk's interview where he answered your questions, but I havn't had a chance to search for them.

I will paraphrase , The protests BEFORE the Iraq invasion was Historic in many ways.
The size of the protests was an indication of how aware people have become and that an incresing number of us are actively participating .
It was the first time a protest of any signicance was held BEFORE the start of a War, though most were aware that there was no way to stop the Invasion.

The above is an inciation that "actively participating to humanitarian organization debates and contribute this way or that way" is not in any way [B]" usless or a waste of time .

Anyone who engages in such struggles should be realistic enough to know that these are monumental struggles and take generations, if we give up everytime we encounter an obstacle we probably shouldn't have started at all.Consider the various Women Rights issues Or The Race Issue and how much progress have been made and how much more to accomplish.

If there's anything to teach our children, it's active participation .

[elmagnoon]

raymon wrote: One cannot comment on any injustice befallen on Iraqis by American soldiers … but I have question elmagnoon, do you know what you read does not represent a small decimal of what Saddam’s regime was doing with Iraqis?

Why didn’t we see many reports during the 1980s when Saddam was gassing thousands and thousands of Iraqi people?

There are thousands of Iraqis, if not millions, waiting and hoping that the international media to look to their past agonies as they do listen to a handful of Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib.

If you visited any of the Iraqi cities, you’d be surprised if you met a citizen who does not have a father, brother, sister, cousin or uncle executed or “disappeared” … thanks to Saddam anti-everybody policy.

I don't get the point of the Question, I am aware of Saddam and his Crimes against Iraqis which he committed with the Support of the US .
The fact that Iraqis suffered under Saddam does not in any way excuse the Crimes now being committed by the US.

Why do we know more about Iraq than we know about Sudan, why is Iraq always on the news and not Congo ....simple, the US of A .

The US has Blatantly invaded a sovereign nation with total disregard to International Law and any Sense of Humanity, and claimed it was doing to bring Democracy to Iraqis.
Instead Iraqis will not Know Freedom or Democracy for decades to come.

[elmagnoon]

"that Iraq-Iran war in part thanks to U.S. assistance for Saddam Hussein went years longer than this should have done, and resulted in 1 million, men, women and children dying. 1 million people died in the Iran-Iraq war and Reagan and Bush probably have blood on their hands,"


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/09/1445208&tid=25