May/June 1991, Page 38

Other People's Mail

Some letters by or to other people are as informative for our readers as anything we might write ourselves.

Freeing Kuwait Does Not Justify Destroying Iraq

To The New York Times, April 15, 1991

During President Bush's war against Saddam Hussain, he stated many a time that the conflict was not with the people of Iraq, but only with Saddam Hussain.

After 42 days, the war was over with a great United States victory. But the balance sheet is puzzling. The people of Iraq, against whom Mr. Bush had no hostile intentions, have paid a high price of some 200,000 civilians and military dead and maimed. There are three million to four million Kurdish, Shiite and Sunnite Iraqi refugees within Iraq and in Turkey and Iran. Iraq and its people have been reduced to a preindustrial age by American bombing. The Persian Gulf has been polluted, and some 600 oil wells in Kuwait are burning at the cost of $100 million a day.

Yet Saddam Hussain is in power!

Americans also paid a high price, including some 350 killed and about $1 billion a day spent to destroy and kill the Iraqi people. The social and economic problems in the United States are the same as before.

Kuwait has been liberated. But this was everyone's goal, including Arab and Muslim peoples and governments. The world community had an opportunity to experiment with a new device, economic sanctions, to stop aggression and get Saddam Hussain out of Kuwait. George Bush sabotaged it by insisting on the traditional means of force. Was that wise, and was the high price worth it?

The balance sheet is puzzling on another level, too. The great victory seems to be based on big lies. One of the big lies circulated by the Pentagon, and parroted by the submissive news media, was the assertion that the Iraqi paper tiger was the fourth largest army in the world.

Iraq cannot produce even a simple screw without first importing the raw materials. It is evident that as a third world country it might have had the largest army on paper, but not in the field. By contrast, the United States produces tanks, airplanes, bombs, missiles, rockets, A-bombs. Probably the United States and its allies were 1,000 times stronger than Iraq on paper and in the field. The war was not so much a military achievement as the victory of the big lies.

Saddam Hussain is a thug, and his repression of the people of Iraq, war against Iran and invasion of Kuwait have been denounced by Iraqi Sunnites, Shiites, Kurds and other minorities. By jumping the gun, George Bush wrecked the possible success of the economic sanctions and created for the people of Iraq, not for Saddam Hussain, near apocalyptic conditions.

May Allah forgive George Bush!

M.T. Mehdi, American-Arab Relations Committee, New York, NY

Bush's Restraint in Iraq

To The New York Times, April 19, 1991

President Bush is to be greatly admired for his surprising restraint against further intervention in Iraq's internal affairs following the Persian Gulf war. The only United Nations-warranted action was the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi annexation. That has been achieved, albeit with terrible consequences to Iraq, to Kuwait and its oil supply, to our regional environment.

Our refusal of involvement in Iraq's subsequent civil war makes our stated foreign policy more credible. It makes cynical charges of hidden agendas to dominate Middle East politics with a new world order (read: American imperialism) less credible.

Yet now your columnists apparently seek to discredit the president's—indeed, the United Nations—restraint: Leslie H . Gelb Anthony Lewis and A.M. Rosenthal. Only Tom Wicker holds out.

Would they presumably have us ignore the United Nations (or buy votes again), resume our adventurism, plunge ahead into Baghdad, destroy Iraqi armaments, remove Saddam Hussain, appoint a lackey, increase Arab hatred and endanger the ultimate survival of Israel even more?

L. Alexander Harper, Norwalk, CT

A Disservice to Truth

To The Washington Times, March 18, 1991

I found your article about life on a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank to be little more than propaganda on behalf of Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Sharon and those of his ilk who have no interest in ending Israel's illegal occupation of these territories.

Your piece does a great disservice both to the truth and to those Americans who have tried for years to argue for a more sensible US policy in the Middle East. In fact, your portrayal of life in the quaint and picturesque town of Tekoa, with its "breathtaking vistas," falls short in that it says nothing about the sheer misery of the Palestinian occupants of the occupied territories who wonder every day whether or not their homes will be blown up, their orchards uprooted and their children incarcerated by the Israeli authorities.

Would The Washington Times run a similar piece about a town in South Africa or one in Cambodia? And yet, the international community has condemned the apartheid regime in Johannesburg, and Vietnam's illegal occupation of Cambodia and, yes, Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in equal measure.

As Americans, we bear a special responsibility for what has happened in the occupied territories because as citizens we pay for it to the "breathtaking" tune of $4 billion a year. That figure is likely to increase substantially this year as our payback to Israel for its "restraint" during the Persian Gulf war. Today, the United States has a "window of opportunity" to do the right thing in the Middle East, to help put an end to a conflict that will likely draw us into a much deadlier war in the near future if it is not justly settled. Continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is an obstacle to peace and, thankfully, today we have a president and a secretary of state who understand this.

Stephanie T. Williams, Arlington, VA

When Do Nations Make Peace?

To the Washington Jewish Week, Feb. 21, 1991

While Yossi Klein Halevi's reporting on the Israeli scene is excellent, I have to disagree with his opinions criticizing the Israeli peace movement. I think he misunderstands what it means for a nation to make peace with its enemies.

To be sure, left-wing Israeli politicians are frequently "angry and sarcastic ... .. prone to internal bickering [and] nasty conflict" with their political opponents, etc. In this, they are like most other Israeli politicians. I would also agree that, like most other Israeli politicians, they would be more effective if they recognized the legitimacy of the feelings of those who do not agree with them.

But Halevi makes a basic error when he argues that, to be a peacemaker, one must have "empathy for all sides," "inner peace, " etc. Nations make peace with their enemies when they come to believe, usually reluctantly, that it serves their national interests to do so. In Israel's case, making peace means developing a national consensus that its security would be strengthened by coming to terms with the Palestinians. It is even more clear now than it was before the war that these terms would be based on mutual suspicion rather than mutual trust and that they would ultimately be enforced by the Israeli army. The mission of the Israeli peace movement, particularly its more mainstream elements like Peace Now, is to convince the public that the risks of such an arrangement are less than the risks of the current policy.

Many people in Israel, including the government, now seem to believe that Israel will be able to cut a deal with Syria after the war while continuing the status quo in the territories, trading on the good will built up with the Bush administration. This is a double illusion: the dynamics of the Arab world after the war will make it impossible for any Arab government to sell out the Palestinians, and there is no reason to expect the US to abandon its consistent policy since 1967 of opposing permanent Israeli occupation of the territories. Thus, the Palestinian problem will still need to be faced by Israel.

Arnold M. Kuzmack, Kensington, MD

A Nation Worth Saving

To the Chattanooga Times, April 9, 1991

It appears to me from the news media and letters to the editor that most people do not understand the way the Kuwaiti people are treated by their government.

I was sent to Kuwait by the Gulf Oil Corp. in 1955, accompanied by an executive of British Petroleum, to analyze the organization and operation of the Kuwait Oil Co. for the purpose of improving the efficiency of its operations. At that time the company was owned 50/50 by Gulf Oil and BP. We spent over a month in Kuwait.

To do the job thoroughly, it was necessary not only to go into the oil operations and administration, but all of the relations of the oil company with the various governmental agencies. We found that:

• All Kuwaiti citizens had full health care provided free of cost from cradle to the grave.
  
  
• Education was provided free of cost. This included academic education even to the extent of sending students abroad. Artisan training was provided for all trades.
  
  
• Jobs were provided for all who wanted them.
  
  
• There were no beggars and there was no apparent hunger.

My last visit to Kuwait was in 1975, when we formed a joint real estate development company with the Kuwaiti government. At that time I found relations between the government and the people still excellent.

During this period I met the emir of Kuwait and had dinner with him and his cabinet members at his palace. I found all of them to be well educated, knowledgeable of world affairs and gentlemen with a genuine concern for the well-being of their people.

William H. Magness, Signal Mountain, TN

Kuwait Abuses Palestinians

To the High Point (NQ Enterprise, March 20, 1991

The Palestinians were sent to the Persian Gulf area for two reasons, according to Richard Walterman, an English writer: to make room for Jews to live in Palestine, and to provide skilled labor to build the Gulf.

The Palestinians made contributions in all areas of life and helped to modernize these small countries. The countries, in return, never gave Palestinians their simple, basic rights: equality, social justice, or even citizenship. The countries perceived the well-educated Palestinians with fear and passed laws to keep the Palestinians from competing fairly with others.

Since Aug. 2, Palestinians in the Gulf area have become victims of outrageous crimes from the Kuwaiti resistance fighters. The Kuwaitis are defending their actions by saying Palestinians are members of the Iraqi secret police and collaborators with Iraq. The evidence points to the contrary.

The international community must demand that these massacres and brutal crimes stop. The Palestinians do not have a government to speak for them. The world community must condemn these actions and demand that the human rights and safety of Palestinians be protected.

Badi M. Ali, Greensboro, NC

Hatred's Eternal Flame?

The following letters were written in response to an advertisement published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on April 10, 1991 by FLAME, Facts and Logic About the Middle East, which described Islam as "virulent, " "obsessive " and "irrational, " and blamed the Gulf crisis on "Arab-Moslem fanaticism and intransigence. " On April 11, the Star-Tribune apologized and repudiated its decision to run the ad.

The decision to run the repugnant ad by a group calling itself Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME) was appalling coming from a newspaper that prides itself on sensitivity concerning issues of race. That your "advertising acceptability committee" had reviewed the ad prior to publication, and pronounced it acceptable, adds insult to injury.

Regardless of its intent, the advertisement's anti-Islamic, anti-Arab sentiment has reinforced the negative stereotypes that have complicated our lives as Arab Americans. While we combat Arab bashing that seems to be the order of the day in this country, we still have to attempt to raise our children with honor and dignity. The Star Tribune has made our job that much more difficult.

Noha Ismail, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Eden Prairie, MN

Although "Facts and Logic" is contained in the title of the group running the ad, these are two things lacking in it. Islam is a religion of peace and peaceful coexistence. The Holy Koran states "There is no coercion in religion." Islam has spread in most of the world through trade and exchange rather than battle. The largest populated Islamic country in the world is Indonesia, where not one Muslim soldier has set a foot.

How can Arabs and Muslims hate America while most of the Arab countries were her allies in the Gulf War? The reason behind this kind of ad should be obvious. This fanatic group FLAME has sensed that Americans have been moving towards reason and justice in dealing with the Palestinian problem. FLAME, through its venomous ads, is trying to counteract this trend.

As a Minnesotan, I deeply regret the Star Tribune's decision to publish this hate ad, and I welcome the paper's apology to the Muslim community for running it. Our newspaper should not have "for sale" space for hate messages.

Amin Kader, Islamic Center of Minnesota, Fridley, MN

The Star Tribune's apology for publishing the April 10 ad containing false and inflammatory characterizations of Islam and encouraging hatred of Arab Muslims is appreciated. The ad was not only a profound insult to Arabs and Muslims but also an insult to all persons of faith and harmful to the entire community. The feelings conveyed by that ad inject a poison into the minds of all readers, and as hate literature it can have an unpredictable impact on the public's welfare.

Margaret J. Thomas, Minnesota Council of Churches, Minneapolis, MN