Posted by panch from pool0111.cvx25-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.216.111) on Friday, July 19, 2002 at 12:24PM :
There was a military conference held in London that John Nimrod attended as an "observer" last week. Thank god he didn't speak. This was held between American and British military personel and every idiot of an Assyrian leader they could find. There are always plenty who can be counted upon to ooze in the presence of their "saviors".
Anyway...don't ask how, but a copy of the minutes were stolen and wound up in my hot little hands. I wont tell you why my hands were hot at the time...none of your business. But I find some shocking new developments there pertaining to a change in emphasis and direction in Iraq.
The most startling thing is the shifting of the safe haven and that line in the sky that marks the "No Fly Zone".... to the south of Iraq! I'm sure there are strategic reasons for it, but they aren't spelled out. Just imagine to yourselves that the Americans and Brits have decided, for whatever reason, I'm sure with our best interests in mind, to "protect" the south of Iraq now as they were protecting the north all these years. That's all we really need to know...or will be told.
Leaders of ours at the meeting were encourgaed to discuss among themselves and their constituents, if they had any...what this would mean for us as a whole, both on the ground in Iraq and here in the West...and get back to them.
This is a fine kettle of fish. As much as we are grateful to the West for saving us some more...it seems we have to make a radical shift in our attitude about several things we'd grown accustomed to. Will this now mean that there are no Assyrians in the north any longer? I mean ones that count? Does it mean that the recent photos of school children along with their hopeful parents and neat little buildings are to be wiped out from our memories...as they may be wiped out from their own?
Will we have to shift our priorities...dispatch missions to the south to hunt up Assyrians who don't have roofs or medicines? can we lift the roofs we paid for already from homes in the north and take them to the south to put on homes that haven't had roofs all along? Can we remove pumps and telephones...after all, think of the poor and wretched and beloved people of ours in the south who don't have these things. What if we can't raise enough money to start over...would we be wrong in wanting to see one part of our people benefit from the misery of another part?
And what about reporting on the "tragic" conditions of our Assyrians of the north? Now that air raids and bombings and detonation of dams and pollution of land and waterways will be conducted in the north, as it was previously in the south...do we really want to advertise the fact that the Assyrians up there are being killed and attacked and poisoned by this Christian country we all pledge allegience to?
And likewise...now that the West will be "helping" the Swamp Arabs and Assyrians of the south...do we begin to hunt up examples of Muslim "brutality" in the south...of acts injurious to Assyrians committed by barbarous southern Islam...because now there isn't anyone else to blame for the wretched conditions in the south, which we are going to see improved under American "protection" and with our help?...since the Americans will be concentrating on destroying the north...and "saving" the south?
Will a blanket of silence descend on all Assyrians in the north, who were just now dearly loved by us all...seen to be the ONLY Assyrians in Iraq that mattered? How do we shift our love and concern several hundred miles to the south...how do we go about even recognizing, let alone finding, Assyrians down there to "love' when we have ignored them all this time? And just what is our "love" worth to any of them anyway?
Can we that easily forget those bright and eager faces of the Assyrian children we can no longer love because the Americans have a new game plan...one intended, of course, to benefit us-of-the-south? Shall we ask Tiglath and the Doc to pack their concerns along with the cameras and go find Assyrian children for us to coo over in the south of Iraq? Can't they just change the captions...I mean how the hell do we know where these sweet, these dear, these adorable children are? Assuming of course that it matters anyway?
But it does matter. Maybe not to you and I...or to them, but it most definitely matters to the Americans and the Brits. And if it matters to them, then it's most important to Peter and "Ross" and Fred Aspirin....and any number of our Assrin Patrots and National Questions.
And what the hell do we do if, five years down the line, our "allies" decide to shift the No Fly Zone to the east? To the west? What if American policy requires a line drawn diagonally down the country? I forsee all kinds of problems as our leaders over there drive madly all over the country trying to help the "right" Assyrians...who could become the "wrong" ones even before they pull into their village bringing "help".
Boy...it's hard to love Assyrians when the Americans keep changing their policies.
-- panch
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