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November 11, 2011 Baghdad, Iraq: The good, the bad, the treacherous.

Baghdad, Iraq: The good, the bad, the treacherous.
November 11, 2011 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

In the midst of the good news from Iraq about the emerging civil society organizations and their good non-violent works for peaceful transition to a more democratic society we find ourselves dismayed at the rising violence.

Baghdad is once again a city of fear in which parents, reporting to us, are afraid to let their children go out to play, shopping is becoming scary, and just going to work, if you are lucky enough to have a job, is an event filled with dread. The lack of central electricity is still an issue and generators (one for your house, one for the neighborhood) are still the mainstay.

Journalists are once again under fire, and freedom of the press is no longer guaranteed. Assassinations and attacks  of reporters have increased lately, and press offices are also being attacked by 'them'. The 'them'... Some say these are government backed forces who seek out media critical of the regime, or media trying to publish honest accounts of the situation on the ground. It is a sad, and dangerous, state of affairs.

On the good side of the ledger:

Mercy Corps is expanding its Baghdad offices and continuing its work of building schools and medical clinics, teaching women to read and empowering people with disabilities.

The final declaration of the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative (ICSSI) third conference is now available, offering a window of hope for all who wish for progress in Iraq. Looking at the list of over 100 Iraqi representatives of emerging and growing NGOs yields insight into the current momentum.

All in all we remain hopeful, but it is obvious that the road ahead is treacherous for the good people who still believe that Iraq can find non-violent paths to more peaceful tomorrows.

Please write your representatives to try and alter the distribution of funds slated for Iraq. As it stands now: the non DoD allocations increase the 2012 moneys destined for Iraq's military (about US$ 2 Billion), and decrease the allocations for civil society measures. Foreign Assistance.gov reports that support for Human Rights, Health, Education and Human services have dropped to $300 million each. Allocations for the environment and Humanitarian Assistance have been cut to zero.

 

Today in Iraq:

Baghdad:
#1: A roadside bomb targeted a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing one Iranian and wounding four others in Baghdad's northwestern Kadhimiya district, a police source said.

#2: Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire at an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing one soldier and wounding another in Baghdad's northern Adhamiya district, late on Saturday, police and hospital sources said.

#3: "Two policemen have been injured in an attack by a group of unknown gunmen, who used silencer-fixed guns in their attack on a police patrol in west Iraq's Jami'a district on Monday" the Security Source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency, adding that the attackers have escaped to an unknown destination.

#4: In another incident, "an explosive charge, planted on the roadside blew off close to western Baghdad's Baya'a Garage, wounding 3 civilians and causing severe damage to a number of vehicles, parked in the garage."

#5: Four Iraqi civilians have been injured in an explosive charge blast east of Baghdad on Monday, a security source reported. "An explosive charge, planted on the roadside in one of a main road, leading to east Baghdad's al-Sadr city, has blown up early on Monday, wounding 4 civilians and causing damage to a number of vehicles, parked close to the venue of the blast," the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#6: Three terrorists, wearing explosive belts, have been killed while driving a booby-trapped car in west Baghdad on Monday, according to the Baghdad Operations Command (BOC). "Three terrorists, wearing explosive belts and driving a booby-trapped car close to a checkpoint in west Baghdad's al-Jami'a district, have been killed close to a checkpoint," the BOC statement was announced on the semi-official al-Iraqiya TV Satellite Channel on Monday.

Taji:
#1: Two roadside bombs went off near the car of an Electricity Ministry employee, killing him and wounding seven others, including four policemen, in Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said. The second bomb went off when police rushed to the scene.

Tikrit:
#1: A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol, killing one officer and wounding a soldier north of Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, a source at the police operations centre in Salahuddin province said.

Samarra:
#1: A cop was killed by unknown gunmen in Samarra city, security sources said here today. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that "unknown gunmen with pistols equipped with silencers attacked a group of cops west of Samarra that led to the killing one member of the patrol before fleeing to unknown destination.

Mosul:
#1: A soldier was killed when a mortar shell landed at an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

#2: A bomb attached to a car exploded, wounding a prison guard officer, in eastern Mosul, a local police source said.

#3: Gunmen in a car shot dead a teenager in western Mosul, a local police source said.

Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Gunmen using silenced weapons shot dead a police lieutenant colonel near his house in central Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, late on Saturday, a local police source said.

The Rwandan, Jean-Baptiste: “He was expecting me to want to kill him, ... since he had killed my mother.”

“He was expecting me to want to kill him, which he said would be justice since he had killed my mother.”

Meet Jean-Baptiste Ntakirutimana, a remarkable human being. He sent me this note the other day:

"This is to announce to you that on the 23rd of April 2011 I will bury the remains of my mum, dad and younger borther at my district in Mbazi Sector (Huye District - Rwanda) genocide memorial. The bodies of my mum and younger brother were killed during the 1994 Tutsi genocide and were layed to rest at the ruins of my family compound near my dad who departed late 80's. My brothers & sister and their children were buried in a common grave with other people and then transfered to the genocide memorial earlier. On the 22nd of April 2011 we will spend a commemoration night at my former family's village.

Kindly keep us in your prayers during this time."

I recalled the slow walk we took, back in September, 2006, along a quiet Brooklyn street. Jean-Baptiste spoke his shocking history, and his longing for peace through forgiveness. All his large extended Tutsi family, all save one cousin, were slaughtered, and he was aware of exactly how horribly they had died.

Today he wrote, "One big thing which happened after 2006 is that I went into a forgiveness journey with the killer of my mother. We were able to effect forgiveness/repentence in 2008. From there an International Solidarity for Reconciliation (Solidarite Internationale pour la Réconciliation - SIR -) Initative was born. Up todate we are supporting other people who are still struggling with the past hurts with repencence and forgiveness and we assosicate and mutually offer support to those on the journey of forgiveness. University students and other young people are among our main target group. I will share more on the progress with the SIR Initiative in my next communication."

You can read more of  Jean-Baptiste's journey to forgivess on The Forgiveness Project site. There you will fine many stories of incredible life  journeys. It's a rather wonderful organization.

 

Feb 8 2011 Peter King's (R) crusade against Muslims shields domestic terrorists.

In his misplaced zeal to make a name for himself Peter King, Republican from New York, has targeted Muslims in his planned hearings on the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism.

The FBI does not put Muslims at the top of the threat list. Instead it lists investigating and preventing animal rights extremism and eco-terrorism as one of the FBI’s highest domestic terrorism priorities.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center believes right wing extremists are a greater threat. He believes those following the paths of Rudolph and McVeigh are still a clear and present danger.

Another falsehood propagated by King is the allegation that most Muslim leaders do not cooperate with authorities. In the past, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has praised the community. And in a speech last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said: “The cooperation of Muslim and Arab American communities has been absolutely essential in identifying, and preventing, terrorist threats. We must never lose sight of this.” King's crusadee runs the risk of alienating the many Muslims, clerics as well as ordinary citizens, who are actively cooperating with the FBI to root out terrorists in their own midst.

We do not deny the danger inherent in domestic Islamic terrorism. We do note, however, it is not our largest threat, and taking the focus off of the largest dangers will do little to improve the safety of Americans. King's crusade will only exacerbate the growing Islamophobia haunting fearful Americans in these complex times.

Feb. 8, 2011 by Bruce Wallace, www.121Contact.typepad.com

Jan 17 2011 Sarah Palin gives me nightmares, but in Iraq we unleashed the boogeymen

Yeah, I get scared sometimes when I think about the current swing of the American-politic pendulum, and sometimes I have nightmares; about a Palin Presidency; about extraordinary rendition; about my friends in Iraq being 'directly affected', and then I remember...the nightmares of the Baghdadis, of those who have known carnage for some 30 years now, of prolonged trauma, and of S.

- it's about S. She's very unwell.
- how unwell ?
- she lost much weight lately, she stopped eating, she lives on a glass of water a day, and...
- and what ?!
- she sees masked men barging in the night, killing her and the rest of the family...it's been happening in their neighborhood, where people are slaugthered in the middle of the night in their homes...she stopped sleeping. When your aunt asks her to come and eat, she says she was already fed by Zahra (who passed away 20 years ago), she says that Zahra will protect her from the armed men in black masks. When they wanted to take her to a doctor, she said she was already examined, AbdelRahman (who passed away 15 years ago) already took her in a cart because there is no fuel. Your aunt says she wants to die, that she can't take it anymore, that she can't see her child suffer that way...she added that she's wearing 4 layers of clothes, because the nights are bitterly chilly and there are water cuts, electricity cuts, fuel cuts while they are filling their pockets...she says she's a prisoner in her home, she fears daily what will happen to them, a car bomb, a militia, a corrupt police force, a silencer gun, a kidnapping, an abduction, a disappearance...

posted by Layla, Jan 14 2011

Nov 9 State of Iraqi Health Care: Mercy College: preliminary research assignment

As a preparation assignment for the Nov 9 Mercy College talk:

• Identify the facts in this paper, and
• fact check them.

Submit results by Nov. 8, midnight to: mail@121Contact.org

---

State of Health Care in Iraq

Preparatory notes for panel discussion Nov. 9, 2010

PRE SANCTIONS

Iraq has been through different kinds of wars that greatly affected its different domains. The health system is one of them, but to speak about the present time we have to go back further. Back in the 80’s Iraq was a great nation with an excellent health care system and excellent medical and nursing schools. Health care in Iraq was equal to health care in Britain or the United States.

Iraq had the most advanced equipment, talented physicians, and dedicated and well educated nurses.  The hospital based system was fully subsidized so health care was free for all Iraqis. The most famous of the nursing schools were run by Christian nuns who gave the students a strong sense of dedication to helping patients. Also, Samara had one of the largest medicine manufacturing facilities in the Middle East.  

SANCTIONS

There has been extensive damage to nursing education and training in Iraq over the last two decades through three international wars, counter-insurgency struggles in the north and south, 13 years of economic sanctions, dictatorship and foreign occupation.

In the 90’s sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the United Nations. Because of this a lot of medical equipment was not allowed to be shipped into Iraq. The hospitals suffered a shortage of medicine, supplies for maintenance of equipment, and little by little there were less and less available supplies to care for patients. The infrastructure damaged in the 1990 war was not allowed to be repaired.  Agriculture was disrupted, and food shortages grew. In the 8 months following the 1991 war, mortality rates among children under 5 years of age rose from around 50 per 1,000 live births to 120. By 1999 between three and five thousand children died each month from malnutrition.

Before the invasion doctors and nurses were considered too valuable to leave the country. They were prohibited from leaving.

 

INVASION/OCCUPATION

During the bombardment many people died because the hospitals were emptied of patients and doctors. During the invasion hospitals were bombed and medical supplies were destroyed, power plants and water treatment facilities were also destroyed. In the first days there was widespread looting and and the clinics were robbed of almost everything: medicine, x-ray machines, all kinds of equipment—even beds. The electricity and water supplies were damaged. The water was polluted and clean water was hard to get.  This led to long term health problems, eventually there were outbreaks of cholera. You see the dead bodies in the streets rotting, the smoke filled the air, and everything was unhealthy.

Nurses and doctors were unable to do their jobs because it was too dangerous to move about. Life itself stopped for a while. This condition lasted for months.

When the bombardment stopped, people returned to work and doctors and nurses returned to their jobs. The borders were no longer guarded since the army and police were disbanded. This allowed insurgents to flow into Iraq. At first there were isolated incidents of killings of doctors and nurses as well as other professionals. 

INSURGENCY

In 2006 the insurgents began to attack doctors and nurses in large numbers. We started to hear of groups of doctors, tens of them, were assassinated. The Nun’s Schools of Nursing were targeted. Nuns were kidnapped for ransom, or assassinated. The nuns fled from the country and the schools were effectively closed. In addition to that, doctors were threatened and prevented from working.

Groups of nurses were kidnapped from hospitals and clinics and killed. Many nurses began to work from home, secretly helping patients.

My neighbors, a doctor and his wife who was a nurse, quit their hospital jobs to open a clinic in the neighborhood. Not only this. Even the children who were studying in nursing schools (and medical schools) were targeted, kidnapped, held for ransom, and many were killed.

Now that the borders were open, medical supplies could again enter Iraq. The trouble was that now doctors and nurses could leave Iraq. And they did, in large numbers. 75% of Iraq’s doctors and nurses were killed or fled by 2008. The nursing and medical schools were barely functioning.

WAR RELATED HEALTH EFFECTS

1- Increased Mortality: People dying in greater numbers because of:

• Physical trauma (bullets, bombs, torture, IEDs)
• Infectious disease (cholera, diarrhea, lung diseases)
• Decline in health care (some deaths could have been prevented with better care)

2- Increased Morbidity:  Increase in medical conditions

•       Injuries due to physical trauma (e.g. weapons, burns, poisoning)

o   Depleted uranium left over from weapons

•       Injuries due to increased societal violence, including sexual violence, torture, etc.

•       Infectious diseases:

o   water-related (e.g. cholera, typhoid),

o   vector-borne (e.g. malaria), and other communicable diseases such as TB and Aids.

• Reproductive health: more stillbirths and premature births, more babies with low birth weight and more delivery complications
• Nutrition: acute and chronic malnutrition and deficiency disorders

o   Fallujah

• birth defects
• Mental health: impact

THE PRESENT

What I hear now about the situation is that equipment and medicine is there but there are serious problems. Patients with serious medical conditions are advised to leave the country for treatment. This is because hospitals now lack the experienced professionals. Even though there are now twice as many medical schools in Iraq as there were in 1980, the quality of education has declined-- The best teachers have fled. The level of corruption has increased. Some people use abandoned medical credentials and make believe they are doctors or experienced nurses. Positions in the better hospitals are bought rather than given by merit. The doctors and nurses who remain are less well educated.

Now there is less than one nursing staff of any kind for each physician today. Few of the nursing staff are qualified to what would be minimal standards of professional practice in many countries.

A bright light does shine. The new nursing school opened in Basra, in the South, has a qualified staff, a well stocked library, and offers a four year nursing degree. The first class has 30 students: 16 women, and 14 men.

Sep 6 2010 The Lockdown of Iraqi Refugees

The Lockdown of Iraqi Refugees -- Haider Hamza Sep. 6, 2010

While more than seven years have passed since the U.S.-led coalition took over Baghdad, more than two million Iraqi refugees are living with fear and homesickness – a largely unseen symptom of the war’s aftermath.

In a report issued earlier this year by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), “A Tough Road Home: Uprooted Iraqis in Jordan, Syria and Iraq,” the IRC says while some Iraqi refugees have returned home in the past years from neighboring Jordan and Syria, the vast majority remain uprooted in a vulnerable situation that is growing worse.

In August I visited my family in Syria and Jordan, where they have been residing since they fled Iraq in 2007 after a series of threats and losses.

Most Iraqi refugees still carry the scars and traumas suffered in their homeland, and are now often suffering extreme stress and psychological pressure in their host countries, particularly single Iraqi women.

In my last weekend in Syria, a group of young Iraqi guys suggested to take me to a party in a strip on the outskirts of Damascus. As we were approaching the location, we could see the flashing lights and hear the loud live music.

One of the guys turned to me and said, “Here you’ll find the most beautiful Iraqi refugee women…and they are very affordable.” As we walked in, it was like a scene from a different part of the world. There was a big stage in the middle packed with women wearing heavy make-up and revealing clothes. An Iraqi singer was performing live and the surrounding tables were occupied mostly by Arab men from the wealthy Gulf States and surrounding countries. Alcohol was being served and smoking was permitted. A couple of hours into the night, the singer stepped aside and men from the crowd started joining the women on stage.

Two women approached our table asking if they could join us. From their accents, we could tell they were Iraqi. Once they realized we were Iraqi too, they started talking about Iraq, the war, Bush, Iran, al-Qaeda and their lives in Syria. The two women were cousins; Ananas, a 34 year-old pharmacist, and her cousin Dunya, a 28 year-old poetess. Ananas first came to Syria in 2006 after her brother and father were shot dead by a US military convoy while driving during curfew hours, “They were all I had. Once they were gone, my uncles were forcing me to marry my cousin. He was 21 years older than me and already married. I escaped two days before the wedding date, got on a bus and came to Syria.”

As for Dunya, she got married at the age of 16, “My husband was killed by armed militiamen in our front yard. I saw it…I was looking from the kitchen window. They stormed into our house after and raped me. I didn’t try to resist because I didn’t want them to go upstairs and find my daughter and hurt her. She was only 9 at the time.” Dunya then fled to Syria with her daughter in 2007 and united with her cousin Ananas who had already found her way into the sex industry.

When I asked about Dunya’s daughter, she said, “Her name is Tamara. She is doing alright now…Oh, she is right there in fact,” as she started waving at a young girl, 11 now, wearing wavy hair and heavy make-up. Tamara was on the stage dancing as she is occasionally joined by men to talk or dance with her. When I asked Dunya whether she is worried over Tamara losing her innocence, her reply was, “Innocence?! That is not something for our children. It may be for the children in America or Europe but not us. Tamara is going to grow up in a society that judges her, restricts her and takes advantage of her. Being innocent is only going to make it worse and turn her life harder.” Displaced Iraqi women soon became easy prey for the sex industry once they were removed from their traditional support system in their homeland, which was shattered by war and sectarian violence. Home, tribe, community and extended family is what provided that support system to these women, now they find themselves alone facing the ultimate challenges of survival.

Dunya said that she is willing to marry Tamara to a man who would look after her. For financial survival, forced marriages of young daughters are now common within the Iraqi refugee population. Few days after meeting Ananas and Dunya, I drove to Amman, Jordan, the host country of the second largest Iraqi refugee population, after Syria. During my two weeks in Amman, it was very clear there was a class division within the Iraqi community. Jordan, just like neighboring Syria, admitted Iraqis as “guests” or “tourists” and did not grant them refugee status, as neither one of these countries ratified the 1951 UN convention on refugees.

Jordan however, has set up a system in which Iraqis are granted residency once they deposit $100,000 in special government accounts. So while Jordan can be a safe haven for investors and businessmen, the high cost of living and lack of access to legal work have imposed serious financial challenges on the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees living there today. By the time I was leaving back to the US, it was clear that the Iraqi refugee population varies dramatically. There are two groups of Iraqi refugees, those who lost everything and have nothing left to return to Iraq for, and others who fear losing everything in case they return.

While US President Obama has just recently declared an end to combat mission in Iraq, for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families in Jordan and Syria, their fight and uncertainty of the future are far from over.

Aug 30 2010 Newsweek's John Meacham supports bigoted actions.

by Bruce Wallace, www.121Contact.typepad.org

I'm not sure why, but a friend sent me John Meacham's Aug 28 Newsweek piece, and I read it. I have included the whole piece below so you can judge my opinion for yourself.

Although disclaiming support of bigotry, Meacham goes right ahead and gives actions motivated by bigotry his stamp of approval.

I love this part: "Christianity might offer something of a constructive model in terms of reformation"
Perhaps the model he alludes to includes: Christians publicly burning the Koran, or torching mosques...

and this part: "Still, Islam needs reform"
which paints all of Islam with the brush of the most virulent of its mis-interpreters.

Meacham is quite intelligent and has written words of wisdom about the religious fabric of American culture, but he fails to see the elephant in the room.

Meacham propagates the myth of the unitary thought of 9/11 families with, "The families of 9/11 victims and other people of good will would like to see the center moved to another location: first of all paints all 9/11 families with the same brush, and more importantly ignores the fact that if the opposition did not hold to the bigoted falsities of "Muslim=Terrorist and Islam=Terror" they would have no objection at all the the Park51 project.

Meacham is just another person willing to excuse bigotry in the name of good manners and sensitivity to the feelings a selected group. His arguments are both logically unsound and morally repugnant.

 NEWSWEEK, AUGUST 28.2010

Let Reformation Begin at Ground Zero

by John Meacham

The debate over the Islamic center in lower Manhattan—the mosque with a pool and a prayer room—is not a matter of being for religious liberty and thus for the center, nor is it one of being against the center and therefore a bigot. Sometimes life offers such stark moral crises. This is not one of them.

The attacks of September 11—and subsequent bombings in London, Madrid, and elsewhere—embody the most repulsive of human instincts, the will to power at the price of the lives of others. Elements of Islam were responsible for these deaths of innocents, and extreme interpretations of the Quran have provided—and, inevitably, will provide again—inspiration and justification for terrorist violence. Muslims flew those planes into the towers and the Pentagon; Muslims were in the cockpit when the passengers brought down Flight 93 in the fields of Pennsylvania. To indict a faith for the sins of a few, though, is a tricky business. Christians have massacred innocents before, too, and they have interpreted Scripture in ways to justify slavery, and the subjugation of women, among other things.

Still, Islam needs reform. There are virulent elements of anti-Semitism and sexism abroad in the faith. There are, as we have noted, big strains of extreme anti-Western, specifically anti-American, hatred. Christianity might offer something of a constructive model in terms of reformation (this is coming from a Protestant): large parts of the Christian universe have managed to adapt to modernity in ways that have at least discouraged the worst excesses of religiously motivated believers. Such work is what the leaders of the Islamic center in lower Manhattan say they wish to be about. The test of their sincerity will come with time.

The controversy in New York has helped create something America largely avoided in the aftermath of September 11: a climate of anti-Muslim hatred. My liberal friends think I am wrong about the seemingly distant autumn of 2001, arguing that the country turned nativist then. I disagree: to me, the remarkable thing about the aftermath of the 2001 attacks was the muted reaction to Islam itself from the broad whole of the nation. Certainly there were exceptions, but when you think of how much worse the anti-Muslim backlash could have been in the emotion of that hour, the country comes out quite well.

Now, as New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has pointed out, the lower-Manhattan fight has become fodder for the midterm elections and for the larger politics of opposition to President Obama. What America rightly resisted in the autumn of 2001 is threatening to subsume the autumn of 2010. History offers some guidance. In 1957, President and Mrs. Eisenhower attended the opening of the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington. (They doffed their shoes; the first lady padded about in her nylons.) “And I should like to assure you, my Islamic friends,” the president said, “that under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have here your own church and worship according to your own conscience. This concept is indeed a part of America, and without that concept we would be something else than what we are.”

It is tempting to end with these words of Eisenhower’s, and say that which was true then is true now. But that is too pat. The families of 9/11 victims and other people of good will would like to see the center moved to another location, farther from Ground Zero. That is not an outrageous thought, and it is not a bigoted one. In the end, the right thing to do, in my opinion, is to build the center on the site its organizers and the mayor favor, and hope that those who go there to worship (and to swim, for that matter) do their part to reform their religion. There is little more important in the war on terror.

Aug 23 2010 Lazio Lies and Compassion Dies

Rick Lazio is merely the latest--another politician pandering to those who cannot distinguish between Islam and terrorism. Some politicians will do anything to gain a vote.

It is sad that so many Americans are so ignorant that they cannot make the distinction between Muslim and terrorist. It is revolting that some politicians make believe they think this way in order to gain a few votes. By posturing as bigots they dampen compassion and reason. The Lazios inflame the smoldering paranoia that is such an important component of the legacy of 9/11. They believe this flame of prejudice will gain a few more votes. Perhaps, sadly, they are correct.

It is heartening to see so many people, like Imam Faisal, struggling to change the way people think. The battle of words in newspapers and in the media in general will do little to change hearts. This is because the media will always tend to the inflammatory in order to increase sales.  Media has lesser interest in truth, morality, or justice.

The battle for compassion will only be won by face-to-face deliberations in small social groups like churches, synagogues, mosques, and other civic/social gathering places where leaders of good heart can influence their followers on a personal level.

Aug 8 2010 'Ground Zero Mosque' and the media's distortion of feelings

It is not with any great surprise that as we look at the media coverage of the proposed Muslim Cultural Center (aka the center, aka Ground Zero Mosque, aka Cordoba House, aka Park 51) we find fear-mongering and dissension brought to the fore. Little space is given to support and much given to the opposition.

Support seems to follow the proximity rule, as did trauma after 9/11. New Yorkers who lived near Ground Zero on 9/11 were deeply shaken and Americans who lived further and further away were less directly affected. That is only natural.

Those who live in the neighborhood overwhelmingly support the center, as evidenced by the community board's unanimous-minus-one vote to approve the project. The dissent is mainly allochthonous. The most vocal are the bigoted team of Spencer and Geller who expend enormous amounts of energy masking their intolerance in the shrouds of the victims of 9/11. They don't speak for me. The media seems eager to trumpet the feelings of those hurt by the idea of the center. They mostly ignore my feelings and those, like me, who feel the center is an important step for Americans.

We hear so much about how some of the 9/11 families are hurt by the thought of a mosque so close to Ground Zero. The same people are quoted over and over as if to multiply their numbers. What about the other 9/11 family members who are hurt at the thought of the mosque being denied the right to exist?

I am a member of one of the 250 families of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. My nephew, State Supreme  Court Officer Mitch Wallace, was murdered on 9/11 as he rushed in to help the victims. We have made the conscious choice of turning our grief and anger into works for peace, not revenge. We do not succumb to fear-mongering.

Geller and Spencer don't speak for me. I would be terribly hurt if the loss of our loved ones were turned to fuel for Al Qaeda and the extremists who use the name of Islam to mask their intolerance and hatred. It is sad that Geller and Spencer don't see how much they aid Al Qaeda with their paranoid ranting.

Our loved ones died at the hands of terrorists. The terrorists would love to see the mosque denied. This would prove a valuable recruiting tool as they point to the intolerance of Americans. 

I know loss, and I respect the feelings of others. I also know my feelings about the center, and I would like my feelings taken into account also. Let the center, as envisioned by Imam Faisal, be built, and let us all support the tolerance it stands for.

July 2 2010 R U Talkin' t'Me? Obamaman, bring those trials to New York City! Now!

The OBamamen are sitting on their hands again, trying not to get burned by by the fire they jumped into when they left the frying pan of 'Close Guantanamo.' Too cowardly to take a leadership position on the matter, the Obamamen have chosen to allow a few loud protests to claim the political high ground and so have abandoned the ethical, effective, and sensible solution of holding civilian trials in New York City, where the alleged perps did their deeds.

Civilian trails, over 400 of them, have already been proven effective. We now have some 355 terrorists quietly, without threat to anyone, sitting out their sentences in Federal prisons in the U.S. [Did you know that 139 of these convicts are domestic terrorists?]

The Military Tribunal System, by comparison, has convicted only three terrorists since 9/11.

What's the question? Too costly? Too dangerous? Too what? What is it worth, exactly, to delay the trials and take the chance on a military tribunal system already challenged by Supreme Court rulings on legality?It is cruel and inhuman to force the families of those lost in terrorist attacks have to watch year after year while nothing is being done. Where is the rule of law when we need it?

 Dear, dear, President Obama, bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants to trial in New York's federal court so we family members, especially those of us who are New Yorkers, can finally see justice done. 

by Bruce Wallace, www.121Contact.typepad.com with liberal thanks to Human Rights Watch for facts, unattributed quotes, and figures. If you need more information, a list of those who have signed on to this plea, or a chance to sign on to their official statement-contact:

Andrea J Prasow

Senior Counsel

Terrorism & Counter Terrorism Program

Human Rights Watch

202-612-4352

andrea.prasow@hrw.org