By Abdullah F. Rahman
Arizona Daily Wildcat
December 8, 1997

Columnist ignores violence of U.S. policy

Editor,

I would like to express my opinion on the commentary 'The Case for Bombing Iraq' by Mr. Eric Clingan in the Dec. 3 Wildcat.

Mr. Clingan, your column was unbalanced. Yes, Saddam is a cockroach, a rat, a killer and worst. But what about the Iraqi people who will die in any bombing? The US bombed Iraq in '91 and put sanctions against Saddam. Result? Thousands of Iraqi children died and are dying everyday for the lack of food and clean water! Innocent, helpless children! They are dying to fulfill the wish of 'world community'! And, the shame is that Saddam thrives with his thugs while the horrified 'world community' keeps using its mass destruction policy of sanction against the Iraqi society.

Let's come to another point. You mentioned that "the Middle East has always held disdain for the U.S. In 1991, the Arab world suspended that animosity out of a selfish concern."

Well, about the disdain, don't you think there are some valid reasons? Do you remember the 'disdain' that Americans had towards the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor? Japan bombed Pearl Harbor but did not cut a part of USA to create a foreign nation, right? Yet, the Japanese Americans were sent to concentration camps. After the continuous unfair bias of USA against the common people of Arab world, from 1948 till now, is disdain unrealistic?

Talking about selfish concerns: in 1991, the most selfish concern was that of USA. Remember Arab Oil? There's a very good chance that you don't, and that is because neither CNN nor the 'unnamed officials' ever discuss it. US went to war because of that selfish concern, not to save Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Two weeks ago secretary of state Mr. Cohen openly said that removing Saddam or his regime is not in the interest of US. Then, sanction is against whom? Bombing is on whose head?

To be honest, I think this is time that US should openly be thankful to the stupid rat Saddam. If it was not for him, how could US have been milking the whole Arab world for the last six years and maintaining its military presence in the backyard of those countries? How else hatred and animosity against each other would have been born among the common people of Iraq and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? The only winner of Gulf war was (and still is) USA. The looser? Not Saddam, not Iraq, but the whole Arab world.

Abdullah F. Rahman
Research Associate
Soil Water and Environmental Science