Thursday, April 15, 2004

:: I've been visiting the BBC Arabic site in the last few days and I found a forum where people from many Arab countries –including Iraq- post their opinions about some hot topics, the main of those is Iraq and terrorism of course. I wasn't surprised to see that most Arabs (especially from Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria) are forming one side of the debates while Iraqis and people from the rest of the gulf countries are taking the other side. But I was surprised when I found that the almost all the Iraqis who took part in the debates are on our side, maybe 95% of Iraqis expressed their rejection to the violent behavior of some Iraqis and condemned the terrorists attacks on both Iraqis and the coalition saying that the Arab world must stop supporting the terrorists and the thugs from inside Iraq. It's also surprising that many of those Iraqis live in areas that are recognized to have a public anti American attitude in general like A'adhamiya, Diyala and Najaf. I feel that those people are still afraid to voice their points of view in public in such hostile atmospheres but the internet is providing them freedom and safety to say whatever they believe in.
Here, I translated three of the posts made by Iraqis and for those who can read Arabic or have a way to translate web pages, here's the link.

"What's happening in Fallujah and Baghdad now is the doings of the enemies of Iraq and his people and I mean our "brother Muslims and Arabs" who fear that the fire might reach their kingdoms and let Iraqis go to hell. Iran is supporting Muqtada while our Arab brothers are sending us human bombs to kill our children and all this is in the name of Islam and Arab nationality and the satellite channels are tearing apart and distorting the reputation of every honest Iraqi patriot saying that he's a dirty American agent, so for god sake, enough of what you're doing to Iraq and Iraqis. We did nothing to harm you, so what is this all about?".
Zahawi-baghdad

"To put things clear, we should know who is supporting Sadr, they're a bunch of lost men who spent their lives serving in Saddam's army and he found no one else to support him. The solid truth is that those thugs need to be taught a lesson and this may be in various ways. Iraq must be saved from those men in any possible way".
Abdul Hussein – Hilla

"The martial show for the Mahdi army that Muqtada made is tearing apart the national unity and therefore Iraq needs the liberating forces to remain to prevent the country which was the origin of civilization from being ruled by fanatics who can see no far than their chins".
Saad Yaseen-Diyala.

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