Iran Scenario

Linda Heard’s “Iran: More Jaw and Less War” (March 7) made for sobering reading. She made out a strong case for seeking peaceful ways to end the Iranian standoff, but that does not mean Washington will listen. It is the bully with the heaviest knuckles in the block, and it knows nobody can stop it. Drunk with power and mean-minded, it is beyond the reach of logic and reason.

The swaggering looks very much like the pride before the fall. Wise men have told us that when God makes a person or nation mad, it is a sign of His will to destroy them. No tears for that. But the tragedy is that when it falls, it will not fall alone. It will take others down with it. Iraq was the first. A nation starving under sanctions and groaning under a dictatorship had to receive more tonnage of bombs in a few months than were dropped in all years of World War II — just to prove to the American public that theirs is the world’s mightiest nation. It must be a mighty sick national psyche that causes a nation like America to seek out such a pathetic case as Iraq to prove its toughness. But for all its down-and-out-ness, Iraq upset all the neocon calculations. Instead of surrendering and singing “Hail the Chief” as any “civilized” people should have when the GIs appeared, the Iraqis turned around and started kicking the world conqueror in the belly button, rubbing the bully’s nose in the mud and making the “Mission Accomplished” show aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln a piece of cinematic art comparable to any Chaplin classic. The mistake, now that it is being admitted frankly, was in poor preparation. The CIA had made no arrangements to screen Hollywood war movies in Baghdad, Fallujah, or Ramadi so that the Iraqis would know the right behavior when the GIs came shooting. The lesson learned, unfortunately, is not that it was wrong to build a war on lies, but that the braver way, and the American Way, is not to get within shooting range of “cowards” who are ready to die for their nation and conviction, but stay bravely out of their range and do the work with missiles and bombs.

That is the neocon scenario for Iran. When evil men get power, the world pays with rivers of innocent blood. It has happened before, it will happen again. May God save us all.

Afsal Sharif, Jeddah published 11 March 2006

Iran Scenario [2]

It was a most excellent article — concise and factual. If only more people in the United States were to read it and understand. The “War on Terror” is a “War on the Muslims We Do Not Like”. As in the Cold War, the US is making friendships with many disreputable nations, ignoring their problems in a narrow-minded focus on the ends while ignoring the consequences of the means.

Andrew Frennier, United States published 11 March 2006

Double Face on Nuke

The West, with Britain in the leading role, not only planted a hostile Israel in the midst of Arabs on Palestinian land, but also provided the Zionist state all the WMDs to threaten its neighbors and create chaos. Top-secret documents have now revealed that Britain secretly supplied Israel with plutonium during Harold Wilson’s Labour government. This revelation has come as Britain is expressing vehement opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. We also remember that it was this very government of Tony Blair that fabricated the story that accused Iraq of buying uranium from Niger, which was subsequently proved a lie. It will be interesting to see how Blair will twist and turn this story of supply of plutonium to Israel.

S.H. Moulana, Riyadh published 11 March 2006

English Accent

Roger Harrison’s article “Pay the Piper and Call the Tune” (March 8) made me wince. But the truth hurts. Accent does count — not only among Saudi parents but Saudi students, too. Students get frustrated — and lose respect — when they know that they can pronounce what their teacher cannot. I have been constantly saddened to see wonderfully fluent, highly qualified, highly competent teachers of English from South Asia being turned down for employment because of only four things: the mispronounced “th”, the heavy, palatal “dhu” for “d”; the explosive “tuh” for “t”: and the “v” for “w”. The financial cost of this loss of employment is frightening: English for intermediate, secondary, college and university education in both the private and the government sector in Saudi Arabia is an industry worth hundreds of millions of riyals a year. Many native English speakers with less education, less teaching ability, and less expertise get the choice jobs, merely because their accent is “better”.

Like it or not, an increasing numbers of people around the world turn to English as a requirement for personal advancement and international communication. The South Asian economy grows every day more strongly, and their media industry becomes daily more cogent — to the extent that the acclaimed David Crystal believes that “Indian” English will become the most likely English standard of the future. With China due to become a world power, the potential for South Asian English speakers to dominate the world English trade is enormous. But, like Saudi Arabia, China has opted for American and British pronunciation. Unless my South Asian colleagues do something about the four basic pronunciation features, their share in the global English market will be limited, with great personal financial loss, and loss of revenue to their countries. They lose the money, but we lose their inimitable qualities and wealth of experience. In every way, it is a lose-lose situation.

Salem bin Daoud, Jeddah published 11 March 2006

Happy News Out There

I recently required elective surgery for a medical problem. Being a Western expatriate, a nurse, and married to a physician, I had the opportunity to schedule this procedure pretty much anywhere in the world. I chose to have it done by a surgeon in Riyadh, and at a Ministry of Health hospital to boot. Was I crazy? My confidence and trust was in the hands of the consultant, who had already earned my husband’s professional respect, and who gained my confidence at my first visit. On admission, I found the hospital facilities, the equipment and the nursing care up to international standards. As I lay on the operating room table under spinal anesthesia, comfortable but a little scared and being gently reassured by the medical team, I had the opportunity to reflect on the fact that the surgeon, assistants and anesthesiologist all were Saudi physicians. Their skills, professionalism, and caring bedside manner were exceptional, above and beyond what I would expect even in Canada. Since my arrival in the Kingdom in 1993, I have seen first-hand the many growing pains of the Saudi health care system. In the media, too often medical mistakes and mismanagement are newsworthy items. There is also happy news and happy customers out there. My sincerest thanks to Dr. Ahmed Al-Bader, urogynecologist, Dr. Mazen, anesthesiologist, and Hessa Rashid, ob/gyn, at the King Fahd Medical City Maternity Hospital.

Lani Wittmann, Alkhobar published 11 March 2006

Varanasi Blasts

The serial blasts in the north Indian town of Varanasi, which killed a least 21 people and left scores wounded, were despicable acts of terrorism. It leaves us Indians with a sense of shock and anger that any group of people could bring such destruction to a place of worship in a town considered holy by our Hindu compatriots. I share the grief of those who have suffered the loss of their family members and also those who themselves suffered injuries.

And as can be expected, human dead are once again proving to be the dream come true for politicians. Baking their bread in the simmering fires is the BJP. It has already blamed the state government for its “minority appeasement policies” thereby laying the blame fair and square at the Muslim’s door. In an already tense situation, as the present one, why does the BJP talk of “minorities”? The group of evil men behind the horrible crime may belong to either minority communities or the majority community. Only further investigation will tell us which. Whichever it turns out to be, that would incriminate only the individuals and the organizations behind them, not the community they belong to. The BJP’s demand should have been about bringing the actual perpetrators, whomever they are, to book. But we can guess why the BJP wants to create communal tension. The judgments in the Best Bakery case, the Justice Bannerjee Commission report on the Godhra train tragedy, and the growing demand to extend judicial investigation into the complicity of the state and central governments, both led by the BJP, to the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat is making it hot for the party. The desire to take the heat off the BJP is behind these irresponsible comments.

Asrar Muhammad Khan, Riyadh published 11 March 2006

Sense of Humor

Was President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan trying to raise a laugh when he complained about “Afghan Agents Conspiring Against Pakistan” (March 7)? Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who has enough problems, is too preoccupied to worry about Pakistan — even if he were so inclined, which he is not. But that is not the point. Look who is complaining about interference: The president of the same nation whose agents — from Hekmatyar to Taleban through its Jamaats and Moulanas — tried to a take over Afghanistan. I am proud of him, as a Muslim, for his sense of humor. Now we can look George Bush right in the eye and say, “We too have humorists. Your joke about Iran’s interference in Iraq was good, but Musharraf’s was better.”

Nadeem Shah, Jeddah published 11 March 2006