Category Archives: Iraq

All’s Fair in Love and War

Posted in Interracial Relationships, Iraq, Islam, Military, War by

NewsWeek’s cover story“Love and War” explores the hope and sadness surrounding the relationships between Iraqis and Americans.

In Baghdad in May 2003, amid the chaos, fear and hope (it is easy to forget how much hope there was in those early weeks when Americans and Iraqis began meeting face to face after years of tyranny and war), Jimmy and Lena were among the first to fall in love. He was a career officer in the U.S. Army—Capt. James Michael Ahearn from Concord, Calif., winner of two Bronze Stars, veteran of tours in Korea, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. She was from a middle-class Baghdad family that had seen better days.

…
Such romances have been part of the American way of war for as long as anyone alive can remember. In the 1940s, wherever U.S. troops were deployed, whether among steadfast allies or recently conquered enemies, and regardless of culture, language, religion or the best efforts of the military hierarchy to prevent “fraternizing,” soldiers and locals got married. “War brides” (and a handful of grooms) came to the United States from Britain and Australia, Italy, France and eventually Germany and Japan. Their stories were the stuff of comedy (“I Was a Male War Bride” with Cary Grant) and tragedy (James Michener’s “Sayonara,” about thwarted love in occupied Japan in the early 1950s). A reasonable estimate of the total number approaches 1 million from 50 different countries. Certainly there were hundreds of thousands. War brides from Japan, the Philippines, China and Korea, for instance, increased the population from those countries in the United States by 20 percent in just 17 years from 1947 to 1964. By the 1970s, thousands more spouses had been brought to American shores from Vietnam and, sadly, like Miss Saigon, many other partners were left behind.

What is striking about the Iraq War is not that couples have met and fallen for each other and succeeded like Jimmy and Lena in getting married. It’s that so few of them have.

The feature details several couples’ struggles and James and Lena Ahearn’s tragically cut short marriage. James converted to Islam to marry Lena, but had a real interest in the religion. As a convert to Islam, married to an Iraqi, he had hoped to build bridges between Americans and Iraqis. His life was cut short by a roadside bomb.

More on James Michael Ahearn here.

Saddam killed the Mandelas

Posted in Iraq, Politics, South Africa by


The first time we heard of his death through G.W. Bush’s assertion that Saddam killed South Africa’s first democratically elected President, along with his former wife Winnie, and the rest of the Mandela line.

Part of the reason why there is not this instant democracy in Iraq is because people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule. I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas. He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families, and people are recovering from this. So there’s a psychological recovery that is taking place. And it’s hard work for them. And I understand it’s hard work for them. Having said that, I’m not going the give them a pass when it comes to the central government’s reconciliation efforts.

Fortunately for us, news of Mandela’s death are greatly exagrerated. Recent news reports inform us that Nelson Mandela is very much alive.

Diary of a Tired Muslim Woman

Posted in Iraq, Islam, Muslim Communities in America, Muslim Women, Social Justice by

So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people!

Jean-Paul Sartre

Yes I said it. I’m tired. Tired of the insanity. I am sort of speechless and really can’t articulate what I’m upset about. But the madness that is rampant in the world is disturbing. I don’t mean the kind of harmless insanity, but the diabolical, self-righteous insanity. It bothers me that some twisted leaders are using media to indoctrinate children and radicalize them. It is bad enough that they indoctrinate weak minded adult men. People are in denial about the cult of martyrdom that exists in some cultures. I haven’t been to Palestine, so I don’t know the extent of these attitudes in the occupied territories.

The show reminds me that ideologies that justify terrorism (and violence) is spreading in the Muslim world. Not to be mean or racist, but in the 90s many of us Muslims considered suicide bombings a tactic used by Palestinians for their nationalist cause. Every Muslim I knew considered terrorism un-Islamic. We refused to accept the fact that Muslim leaders were manipulating the religion to justify send young men out to die. Over time, the occurences increased and spread to places like the Philipines, Chechnya, London, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, etc… I have to call this the mainstreaming of terrorism. And the acts are so widespread that I can’t buy into the lame conspiracy theories that deny that Muslims are committing atrocities.

The vast majority of Muslims do not agree with terrorism. And in fact, we are more in danger of terrorist violence than non-Muslims. If you look at the casualty figures, you’ll see that more Muslims are killed than anybody else. I’m just afraid that if we stand by silently, that the mainstreaming of terrorism will continue to spread. Terrorism is just one of the issues that wears me down. Violence against women, racism, sectarianism, ethnic violence, tribalism, exploitation, corruption, backwardness, injustice, political ineptitude, repression, oppression, marginalisation, isolation, etc…. all these social ills are exhausting.I’m not saying I’m out for the count a little fatigue can be good. But sometimes I feel like I need a breather from all the drama.

About Time: American Historical Association Denounces War In Iraq

Posted in Academia, Graduate Student, Iraq by

American Historical Association Denounces the War in
Iraq

March 13, 2007
Contact: Alan Dawley 215-843-6754

In an unprecedented step, the nation’s oldest and
largest professional association of historians, the
American Historical Association (AHA), has ratified a
resolution condemning government violations of civil
liberties linked to the war in Iraq. The resolution
urges members “to do whatever they can to bring the
Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.” In electronic
balloting whose results were announced on March 12,
some three-quarters of those voting supported the
resolution, which was originally proposed by members
of
Historians Against the War (HAW), a national network
of
over two thousand scholars on more than four hundred
campuses. The resolution had gained earlier acceptance
from members attending the AHA’s annual meeting in
Atlanta on January 6, 2007, and from the AHA Council,
which decided to send the resolution out for
ratification because of its sensitive nature.

“The outcome indicates the deep disquiet scholars feel
about damage done to scholarly inquiry and democratic
processes by this misbegotten war,” said Alan Dawley,
Professor of History at The College of New Jersey and
a
former winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize, who
was the initial mover of the resolution.

The American Historical Association was chartered by
Congress in 1889. Past Presidents include two United
States presidents who were also historians, Woodrow
Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. President John F.
Kennedy was also a member. According to current
members, there is no instance in its 118-year history
when the AHA has dissented from U.S. foreign policy.
Staughton Lynd, a prominent supporter of a defeated
1969 resolution opposing the Vietnam war, comments:
“Back then we asked historians not only to oppose the
Vietnam war but to protest harassment of the Black
Panthers and to call for freeing political prisoners.
This resolution focuses on government practices that
obstruct the practice of history. It asks the
American
Historical Association only to encourage its members,
as individuals, in finding ways to end the war in
Iraq.”

In the weeks leading to the vote, many of the nation’s
leading historians, such as Eric Foner of Columbia
University and John Coatsworth of Harvard, both former
AHA Presidents endorsed the resolution.

For more information on the AHA and the resolution, go
to http://www.historians.org/. For more information on
Historians Against the War, go to
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org