Lifting the Veil : Prelude

My friends, I apologise for the harsh nature of my last posting. I do not believe in genocide - annihilating an entire group of people, harming civilians, harming children etc. I make no excuse for my last posting. It was written in anger & frustration at the helplessness I feel (which I'm sure many of you share) at the world spiraling into an abyss.

These past few weeks since I attended the War Crimes Conference in KL, I have plunged further & further into darkness. For the first 4 nights since the Conference started, I could not sleep at all. Till this day, when I can finally fall asleep at night, I have nightmares of what's going on in Iraq. I hear the shrieking of the children being sodomised by the American soldiers in front of their mothers, the screams of the men whose genitals are bitten off by the dogs the American soldiers unleash upon them whilst they stand before them naked with their hands bound behind their heads, the cries of the Iraqi women being defiled & tortured by the American soldiers.... yes America's brave.... the more I read about it to find out more about what's going on out there, the more I spiral downwards into darkness. I feel their pain, their helplessness, their despair, their hatred, their anger... The women prisoners in Abu Ghraib send messages to their brothers & fathers begging them to come & kill them for they have been defiled by the American soldiers.

Why do they do this? Why do they inflict these barbaric acts on the people of Iraq. The answer is simple. They want to humiliate & subjugate the Arab people. They want to humiliate and subjugate the Muslims. They do not see them as human beings. They see them as creatures to be hated, to be tormented, to be exterminated ... I, myself, despite many years of deep contemplation, fell into this trap - the straw that broke the camel's back for me was - when I read about the children (boys of 13 & 15) held & tortured in Guantanamo Bay, the children in Abu Ghraib (who were arrested with their mothers) being brutally sodomised by the American soldiers whilst the other soldiers watched and filmed the whole thing... all these pictures taken, all these films they took are kept by the American government. Read Seymour Hersh's articles in the New Yorker. Read John Pilger's articles on Iraq. These are investigative journalists who are Pulitzer Prize winners. If you cannot believe what they write then you may as well spend the rest of your lives buried in all the lies the mainstream media churns out to keep your life idyllic. Do your own research. Open your eyes.

The Conference ripped apart the veils that covered my vision from this darkness, this evil which surrounds us. We are not so far away that we cannot feel their pain. We are not separate from each other. I can feel the pain of the mother who has to watch her child shrieking in pain & terror whilst the soldiers sodomise him - I can feel it as though he is my own child. What kind of evil is this that has descended upon us? What kind of people are these who would welcome their soldiers back as heroes - who have committed these heinous despicable acts? What kind of society is it that has deteriorated so much that they refuse to acknowledge the brutality caused by their people on the rest of the world? A society which feels that it has the right to safety, security, wealth above all other people. A society which feels that it has a right to the pursuit of happiness at the expense of the rest of the world. Satan could not have dreamt of an act so evil as those which these people have committed.

I was drowning in this darkness, in this anger & hatred for weeks and as I read more & more, I could only feel despair as the rot & evil has spread so far and is so complexly intertwined into our daily lives that I felt it was impossible to undo or fight against it. By last weekend, I was really worried that I could not climb out of this, that I would go insane and would never see the light again. It is easy to feel love and to give love when one is living in a tranquil and even mundane life. But when one is thrown into the depths of life's cesspool & ugliness overnight, when one has met, spoken to, listened to, seen the photos and read about the victims of Abu Ghraib - one's life cannot be the same again. If they can endure & not show bitterness & anger but instead, courage, love & dignity, then they have shamed the rest of us who sit here comfortably enjoying our hot Milo every night, our children free from radiation exposure. These courageous people have shamed the governments of America, Britain & Australia. Their dignity has put to shame the entire military forces sent out by these despicable governments. There is no honour in murder. There is no honour in torture. There is no honour in brutalising children. These barbaric acts have shamed the people of the countries these soldiers have come from. The soldiers have brought dishonour and shame to their respective countries and to their people and the world should hang their heads down in shame to be a witness to so much evil.

I wanted vengeance and retribution - but I know I cannot get dragged down by this anger & hatred. If I do, then this evil would have defeated me. It would have snuffed out whatever light left inside my soul. I cannot see an Iraqi child, a Palestinian child, a Lebanese child in terror and pain but neither can I see or wish for an Israeli child to be in terror & pain. I would not make this choice. The Holy Prophet has laid down the rules of conduct for war, on the treatment of prisoners etc. Torturing and killing children & innocent civilians is forbidden. The world has laid down international laws on the conduct of war - see the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Treaty, the Nuremberg Principles .. but these vile creatures have found ways to circumvent these laws - they have broken every international law there is on the conduct of war. They have passed legislation in their countries to legalise torture, to protect their inhumane soldiers from prosecution and to circumvent the Geneva Conventions by categorising their detainees as "non combatants" and are therefore exempted from the protection of the Geneva Conventions. Are they as cruel as Hitler's Nazi regime? They are more so. Seymour Hersh himself said - never has there been an army so brutal as the one sent by America to Iraq. Trust me, this is not a compliment.

We were told that to date, there are more than 240 complaints filed with the International Criminal Court by the victims of the illegal invasion of Iraq but they all received the same reply from the ICC - that there is insufficient evidence to charge the US on any charges of committing war crimes. I will not dwell on what constitutes a war crime here. I will do it in another posting.

We are soaked in so much blood, we are choking. We must participate in healing the world. If we succumb to this despair then all is lost. If we do not have the courage to stand up and be heard, then all is lost. If we do not take responsibility to heal this evil then we are truly doomed - here on earth and in the hereafter. In order to heal, we must first acknowledge the evil that exists. We must distinguish between the lies and the truth. We must do our own research, our own reading. God's first command to the Holy Prophet is to "READ". For those of you who are not familiar with Islamic history, the Holy Prophet was illiterate at the time the command was given. God's command to the Holy Prophet is God's command to us. We must read and discover the truth for ourselves.

We must pray - pray for love, pray with love and send our prayers to those in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine - for those who are persecuted and tortured. Most importantly we must pray for the safety of the people in Iran. The US threatens to use nuclear weapons against Iran (see the Sunday Times report 25.02.07) We cannot pray for vengeance or death or pain to those who inflict this evil but we must pray to heal them. To heal the perpertrators from this darkness and to heal their victims.

We must bring justice to the people. The prisoners (whom they call "persons under control") must be treated as prisoners of war and therefore all the laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war must apply. Those who have broken those laws - including heads of state - must be brought to trial and if found guilty, be labelled as war criminals and the prescribed punishment must be imposed on them. We must seek this justice. We must demand it. The world cannot heal otherwise. Evil & darkness must be brought to light for the world to see so that it will never be repeated.

We are stuck in a cycle, repeating our mistakes, repeating our atrocities, repeating our acts of barbarism - from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition, to the Holocaust, to Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and now ... Iran...and next... Syria... when will it end? Humanity has not evolved much.

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Join me my friends, in sending our love and prayers to those suffering in Iraq & Palestine. The children of Palestine are dying of starvation from the sanctions imposed by the United States & Israel because they voted, under a democratically held elections which was supervised by President Carter (former US president), for Hamas - a party which US & Israel cannot bully or manipulate and so they are called "terrorists". The Palestinians were punished for electing the wrong party to power - by starving them. This is not unlike the sanctions imposed on Iraq before the illegal invasion in 2003. The Iraqi people suffered greatly for over 10 years under these harsh sanctions.

The United Nations economic sanctions were imposed at the urging of the U.S. to remove Saddam Hussein from power. President George H. W. Bush stated: "By making life uncomfortable for the Iraqi people, [sanctions] would eventually encourage them to remove President Saddam Hussein from power". In the same manner, they want the Palestinians to remove Hamas. The Iraqi sanctions caused the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. Madeline Albright (then US Secretary of State) when asked if the deaths of half a million Iraqi children was a price worth paying for sanctions, callously replied "We think the price is worth it." She justifies the actions of America " If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

The world must tell America that it is a dispensable nation and its barbarism will not be tolerated anymore. The world must call a spade a spade. America is a Rogue Nation. They stand steeped in shame and cannot see beyond their Zionist noses.

The peace talks between Condoleeza Rice, Abbas & Olmert are a farce. They subjugate & starve the Palestinians and try to force them to submit to unreasonable "requests". Submit to the demands of the Israelis. There is no fair bargaining position here. The Palestinian lands have been stolen from them by the Israelis. 80% of the Palestinian Arabs were either driven out of Palestine or killed by the Israelis. The remaining 20% are oppressed and starved by the Israelis with the help of the United States. I will not dwell on the Palestinians now. I will do that in another posting.

So please, inform yourselves my friends. Don't take what you are spoonfed by the western media as gospel truth. Check out Global Research's website. Check Truthout's website. Read John Pilger's book "Freedom Next Time". Read Professor Chossudovsky's book "America's War on Terrorism" . Read Matthias Chang's books ( I forgot the titles but will post them later). There is so much more you can read, I don't want to manipulate your thoughts by spoon-feeding you what to read.

I would like to share with you some beautiful poems by St John of the Cross. St John was born in Spain in 1542. His family were Jewish but became conversos - "forced Christians". At 21 he became a Carmelite friar and met St Teresa of Avila at 25. In 1577, as a result of the attempted reform of the Carmelite order and his alliance with St Teresa, he was kidnapped and imprisoned by his fellow priests in the basement of a monastery. His imprisonment lasted 9 months in which he was not given any clothes to wear or water to wash. (The torture victims of Abu Ghraib told us that the same thing happened to them). St John was confined to a tiny cell, so small that he could not stand up. (The prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are placed in tiny cages in which they cannot stand up). St John had to relieve himself on the floor and his scraps of food was thrown into his faeces & urine. (The torture victims of Abu Ghraib told us that they had to sit or lie in a small bathroom filled with faeces & urine & the American soldiers would urinate on them). St John was regularly beaten by the other priests to an extent that he became a cripple. (Ali Shalah, the man behind the hood, has a deformed hand, it is gnarled ... due to the tortures inflicted upon him and the American soldiers stomping on his already injured hand with their boots). Let me share with you his beautiful poem which I dedicate to the victims of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay:

I Cobbled Their Boots
How could I love my fellow men who tortured me?

One night I was dragged into a room
and beaten near death with
their shoes
striking me hundreds of times
in the face, scarring me
forever.

I cried out for God to help, until I fainted.

That night in a dream, in a dream
more real than this world,
a strap from Christ's sandal
fell upon my bleeding
mouth,

and I looked at Him and He
was weeping, and
spoke,

"I cobbled their boots;
how sorry
I am.

What moves all things
is God."

My friends, I ask you to join me in prayer to send love, faith & strength to the people in Iraq. I ask you to pray for them to be strong enough to drive these illegal invaders out of their country forever for if they are successful in doing that then we will feel safer - that the world would be safe from "pre-emptive" strikes from this Rogue Nation. Join me between 11pm- 12.30am every night in my contemplation and prayer, wherever you are, and send them your prayers. That is what the Iraqi people we met asked of us - please remember us in your prayers. With that I will end it with another beautiful poem from St John:

If You Love
You might quiet the world for a second
if you pray.

And if you love, if you
really love,

our guns will
wilt.