Iraq war I
There can be no doubt that planet Earth would be a much safer place without the likes of George W. Bush. Here we are a year into the chaos of Iraq with thousands of Iraqis either dead or maimed; 600 dead US soldiers; a country bordering on civil war; and what does Bush have to say about it?
At one of his elitist dinner parties he starts making jokes about not finding weapons of mass destruction — "no weapons under here". The laughter from the audience was a little too nervous or maybe some of them felt a pang of guilt. It can't be too easy to laugh at such jokes when hundreds of your own countrymen are dying, or maybe US citizens just don't give a damn.
Iraq is a bloody mess and it is only going to get worse while foreigners occupy it. The Iraqi resistance is fighting a war of liberation. Theirs is a just struggle to free their country from tyranny. Where they lacked the courage to take on Saddam, maybe they can redeem themselves by ousting the new military occupiers.
The United Nations must not become embroiled in Iraq at this point. If they do, they risk becoming targets because they would be seen to be collaborating with the US. Reconstruction of Iraq can only commence when US, British and Australian occupation forces are withdrawn and the Iraqi Governing Council is disbanded. Those security institutions that have been set up under the US led occupation will also have to be disbanded or reorientated to support an independent Iraqi government.
Iraqis will decide what form of government they want, but that can only occur when the US withdraws its stranglehold over the country.
Adam Bonner
Meroo Meadow, NSW [Abridged]
Iraq war II
The Passion of the Christ is apparently far more newsworthy than the many hundreds of slaughtered, crippled and injured Iraqi civilians. The passion of parents hugging their blood soaked infants is studiously ignored in favour of burnt American corpses and injured soldiers exiting a stricken tank. When the International Clearing House web site showed candid pictures of children screaming in agony with shattered bone instead of arms and legs, it received a welter of hate mail and was then hacked.
The most powerful empire in world history has the highest level of church attendance and professed allegiance to Christianity. From George Bush down, key members of the US government claim to be born again "super Christians" and yet, like Herod, they butcher Iraqi innocents not intentionally like him, of course, but by simply dropping 500lb bombs in residential areas or by gunning down a neighbourhood from a helicopter.
History reminds us though that we should not expect humanitarian behaviour from the US military. After Hiroshima, thousands fled to Nagasaki, the only Christian Japanese city. They thought they were safe but on August 9, 1945 Christian America incinerated Christian Nagasaki leveling 6.7 million square kilometres and injuring/killing 150,000. How can Muslims expect better treatment?
Gareth Smith
Byron Bay, NSW
Lone refugee
I was deeply moved and absolutely infuriated by the SBS Dateline program of March 31 — the interview with the lone young Palestinian refugee prisoner on Manus Island, PNG. He is apparently only 25, and has over half his life ahead of him. He is not allowed to communicate with the islanders, his future is uncertain, he fears he may be "accidentally" killed, and that his medicines (which help him deal with his appalling psychological loneliness) may be stopped. Media and representatives of "do-gooders" are denied access to his prison. Howard's government is wasting thousands of dollars per day on keeping this obviously intelligent but very unhappy young man in total solitude.
Obviously his lawyer, Eric Valdaris, is doing all he can to help; he has contacted Amnesty International and the UNHCR, but they can't get near the innocent prisoner. What more can we do? Even in Auschwitz, Hitler's victims were with other victims; even he never thought of that one — placing someone in total solitary confinement for years.
The cruelty and brutality of that mass of blubber, that boulder from Stonehenge, Amanda Vanstone, is incredible.
Rosemary Evans
St Kilda, Vic
Cuba
Kim Bullimore (Write On, GLW #577) is right to recognise "more civil space is being opened in Cuba for discussion on how best to advance the rights of gays and lesbians". This is not necessarily because the revolutionary process is deepening, or because Cuba is "in transition towards socialism". Other factors contribute to changing civil space: Cuba no longer imports reactionary and heterosexist ideas from the Soviet bureaucracy, it is increasingly dependent on foreign tourism and US$800,000 per year in remittances from Cubans abroad, and it has increased exchange with countries like Brazil.
Simon Wollers (Write On, GLW #577) is right to suggest the Cubans can sort out the issue of gay freedom "at their own speed". However, surely it is wrong for state officials or foreigners to advise Cuban lesbians and gay men against "radicalising", self-identifying and self-organising.
The problems of censorship, exclusion of open homosexuals from the party, military, culture, teaching, representation abroad (and even Western solidarity brigades!), police harassment/raids (since 1961) and the refining of laws used against "public" homosexuality (1979, 1987) are structural — neither fully resolved nor forgotten.
The issues of sexism, racism and heterosexism would be dealt with faster if the Cuban leadership was, rather than dragging its heels, leading a genuinely emancipatory program, and trusting Cuban workers to organise themselves independently to deepen the revolution, to speak and read freely about issues defining Cuba's future.
Cuba requires and deserves unconditional solidarity in its conflict with US imperialism, but uncritical and undemocratic politics undermine the credibility, honesty and effectiveness of this solidarity.
Ken Davis, Sydney
The Passion and sado-masochism
The Passion of the Christ movie reveals Christianity's underlying sado-masochism, glorifying and romanticising misery and suffering. Worse yet, until the 15th century it was thought that only Jesus as a unique son of God could bear such torture, but German monk Thomas a Kempis in 1418 wrote a book, Imitation of Christ, putting forth the thesis that everyone should suffer like Jesus and that suffering is good for you.
Just because there is a movie about something does not make it true. The chronology of the passion story is highly implausible. Knowing how slowly court systems work, it is highly unlikely that someone should get arrested late Thursday night and be executed at nine o'clock the next morning.
Furthermore, Jesus would have to go through not just one but two legal systems — both the Jewish courts and the Roman courts. Also, the Jewish Sannhedrin court was not allowed to meet during Passover. Furthermore, it had to wait 24 hours before rendering a verdict in a case.
Jesus' death after only three hours on the cross is also highly suspect since victims of crucifixion did not usually die for two days or even longer. Thus the local Jewish population rejected the passion story as bogus and only faraway Gentiles unfamiliar with Jewish customs and practices accepted the story.
There is the further problem of Matthew 12:40 saying Jesus would lie dead for three days and three nights but Matthew 28:1 saying he rose from the dead only two days and two nights later on Sunday. There are also many other inconsistencies in the various versions of the passion story in the Bible.
Jim Senyszyn
Peoria, Illinois
From Green Left Weekly, April 21, 2004.
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