Muslim WakeUp! MWU!: Iraq

August 26, 2005

The Fallacies of 'Phased Withdrawal' in Iraq
By Joshua Frank �I'm tired of waiting on a ship that won't leave shore The water's bloody with the ones, who came before� -Sleater-Kinney, Steep Air Go ahead and get excited about Cindy Sheehan�s overnight popularity. It really is a...

May 28, 2005

Rethinking Iraq: Time for American Muslims to Support Iraqi Democracy
If we withdraw now, Iraq will continue its tragic descent into anarchy. And then civil war and failed state status will be its fate.

January 30, 2005

The Iraqi Elections: Will Women Be the Biggest Losers?
Come election time in Iraq, remember Wijdan al-Khuzai. Her violent death is a brutal warning that although Iraq's Sunnis are said to have the most to lose, it is in fact women, from all sects, who could be the biggest losers of the Iraqi election.

November 30, 2004

Letter from Iraq
Who is responsible? Who will hear us? Where are our human rights? Nobody is answering. Death is everywhere. Bombs are everywhere. Fear is everywhere.

November 29, 2004

Andy Warhol at Abu Ghraib
The War in Iraq is a living historical moment and, yet, many of the images coming from this particular place are diffuse, contextless, agentless, or nonexistent.

November 9, 2004

Praying for Pain: An American Muslim's Anguished Reflections on the Ramadan Battle of Fallujah
I am thinking of the terrified mothers of Fallujah and the worried military-moms all across the US. The �liberation� and �pacification� of Fallujah is going to be as transient as that of Samarra was. So why all this bloodshed? I ask myself.

November 3, 2004

An Appeal for the Release of Abul Kashem Faruk, a Bangladeshi Kidnapped in Iraq
We earnestly appeal to all Iraqi groups for the release of our compatriot, Mr. Abul Kashem Faruk. On behalf of the Bangladeshi people and ourselves, we urge and plead for the release of Mr. Faruk in the name of our common humanity and brotherly compassion.

October 31, 2004

Spooky Ramadan
By Ginan Rauf Think of Ramadan in Iraq. One thinks of Ramadan with a heavy heart. Think of the children in Iraq today and then think of how American children celebrate Halloween. Let�s get to the quick here�freedom means nothing...

October 9, 2004

God Blesses America, the World America Curses
Taking pride In America's refusal to uncover lies Proclaiming love it or leave it But loving it so little That we refuse to demand excellence of it

September 25, 2004

Globalizing Dissent: Arundhati Roy in Seattle
Praising the American people for coming out in protest to the Iraq war in huge numbers, Roy stressed the importance of confronting the threat of empire-building.

September 16, 2004

In the Name of God: An Open Letter to Muslim Extremists Who Kill in Our Name
It is very difficult for me to write this, but I am compelled to do so, because my conscience demands that I speak out. I despise silence more than I fear reprisals for holding the views that I do.

September 13, 2004

Stop Punishing the Innocent In Iraq: Free the Two Simonas!
By Naeem Mohaiemen "Ciao Naeem, Difficult days. My friend Simona was taken by the war. I was with her in Kosovo, I was with her in Iraq. I can't sleep anymore. Now the war has invaded my personal life....

July 8, 2004

Will the 'New Iraq' Be Any Different? Allawi Sows Seeds for Emerging Police State
The news that the new �democratic� Iraq will have all the institutions and laws of a police state should not surprise anyone above the age of 40. We have all seen this before.

July 4, 2004

The Terror of Beheadings: Who Is Responsible?
Today, the terror tactics used by the British and other European colonizers to break the will of their captive populations are being used by a new group of people�the Al Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated the freedom fighters trying to get rid of new occupations.

June 25, 2004

The Lies of War: How the Bush Administration�s Deceptions Fuel Conspiracy Theories
For the past three years, President Bush has painted the world in stark black and white tones�you are either with us or with the terrorists, he told the world soon after the September 11th tragedy. Taking him at his word, major international events are the provenance of either �them� or �us,� so people can be excused if they begin drawing conclusions that if facts indicate that certain catastrophic events have not been perpetrated by �the terrorists,� that they then must have been committed by �us.�

June 11, 2004

�Control Room�: Freedom and Democracy, the Al Jazeera Way
This reluctantly symbiotic relationship�a little-love/little-more-hate kind of thing�between America�s image-makers (both in the media and government) and Al Jazeera is a constant thread running through Noujaim�s brilliant documentary.

June 1, 2004

Abu Ghraib and the Reverend General of Limbaugh Land: America's Passion Play to Change Muslim Hearts and Minds
Why waste money on glossy magazines in the Arab world that nobody bothers reading anyway, when interrogation methods can be exported to soften up idolatrous pagans in the service of Christ and profit. The Muslim infidel must be made to suffer like Jesus in order to accept Jesus.

May 20, 2004

The Shia Rise Up
The decision to go after Al-Sadr and his followers, while ill-timed, was a sign that the occupation authority was beginning to realize that a growing segment of the Shia posed a threat to the occupation and that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the other Shia leaders they�ve been dealing with couldn�t and possibly wouldn�t do anything to keep them in check.

May 14, 2004

The Abu Ghraib Photos: A Mirror for the Age We Live in
From the drawing and quartering of pirates to the beheading of dissenters in London and Paris, the torture and mutilation of prisoners and enemies of the state was something that the feudal monarchs did in the open, as a vivid and public attestation to their power and ability to exercise it.

May 7, 2004

A Comic Apology
Most Americans are kept in the dark, unaware of the actual, the real America � the only kind seen by much of the rest of the world.

May 6, 2004

Bad Show: Bush�s Appearance on Arab TV
Bush started out by trying to convey the horror and shock he and all Americans felt by the pictures. He admitted that they were real and not �alleged� (that the pictures didn�t lie). So far so good. It was downhill from there.

May 5, 2004

Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners: Part of the Dehumanizing Pattern
The irony is inescapable: The American and British soldiers who are in Iraq�so we are told�to �liberate� the country and bring �Freedom� and �democracy� to the country are humiliating, violating, torturing Iraqis.

May 4, 2004

Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: Part of a Pattern of US Human Rights Violations?
More chilling new evidence of the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers emerged this week in a secret report accusing the US army leadership of failings at the highest levels.

April 21, 2004

Why the Arab World Can Thank Bush
Of the myriad reasons that President George W. Bush gave for invading Iraq, the one that Arabs believed the least was that U.S. troops would install democracy in the Middle East. But last week, as I followed the news coming out of Iraq, I couldn't help wonder if Bush really did do it all for democracy.

April 18, 2004

Leading into Darkness: The Unveiling of the Bush Reelection Strategy
A string of disturbing events over the past week may point to the Bush campaign�s real reelection strategy.

April 16, 2004

No One Can Stop This War Machine
It is well known by now that the US forces in Iraq have no sense of direction or purpose. Short of biding their time and cutting their losses before the fateful handover deadline in June, the American army � and its allies � are busy with the task of keeping themselves alive above all else.

April 15, 2004

Justice Is a Process�Not an Event
We must courageously rectify our double standards and hypocrisies before they continue to be employed as ammunition by pernicious characters to further a cause towards our �liberation.�

April 8, 2004

Embracing the Shia Tide: Can Sunnis Succeed Where the US Is Failing?
Having ruled over the Shias in both the former British and the Ottoman colonial administrations, the Sunnis have to assess and strategically consider their options alongside a regional Shia power with significant mineral and energy resources that remain the envy of the west.

April 2, 2004

Lynching: An American Tradition Comes to Iraq
Not long ago, similar scenes were rather regular occurrences in the United States despite having been erased from our collective memory.

Eye on the Prize: Transnational Corporations on the Middle East
Indeed, for �a small handful of neo-conservative thinkers� and their corporate allies, no doubt �Iraq and Palestine are only the beginning,� unless the people of the Middle East in solidarity with progressives in Western democracies are able to stop them.

March 21, 2004

One Year Later: In Shock and Awe I Remain
Before the Iraq fiasco, progressive, pro-democracy, pro-human rights activists had a voice struggling to be heard between the US-backed non-democratic governments and Muslim fundamentalists. Today, people in the Muslim world see democracy and human rights as nothing more than empty slogans, doublespeak and justifications for imposing America�s will.

March 11, 2004

Brother Against Brother: 'A bloodbath that seemed too gory to be real'
They were massacres: Iraqi and Pakistani Shiites suffered a week of carnage and horror as suicide bombers attacked religious sites last Tuesday, killing at least 200 people with some estimates running as high as 300, during the most holy day on the Shiite calendar. In Iraq it was the bloodiest day since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

December 24, 2003

Semantics of Empire
It would appear that the indictment of Saddam gathers power, conviction, irrefutability, by adding the possessive, proprietary, emphatic �own� to the people tortured, gassed or killed. What does the grammar of accusations say about the metrics of American values?

December 18, 2003

The Disheveled Democrats: Pro-War Candidates Show Their True Colors, Attack Dean on Iraq
Howard Dean's latest comments regarding the US capture of the bearded Saddam have been right on the mark. The spiteful reaction from his dreary opponents hardly comes as a shock.

December 16, 2003

Saddam�s Total Recall: The Story of Another American Crony-Dictator Recalled to the Factory
Saddam Hussein must be regretting the fact that while he was a dictator in Iraq he did not abolish the death penalty. For now he faces the prospect of being put on trial before an Iraqi court, interrogated by American and Iraqi intelligence personnel, sent to an Iraqi jail (one of many that he built) and finally made to stand before a firing squad or forced to walk to the gallows � a fate he reserved for hundreds of his own opponents during his long stay in power. The irony of it all is that this is the man who was also lauded in the West during the 1980s as a great modernizer and the father of modern Iraq.

December 14, 2003

Capturing Saddam: Surprise in the Night
Not just the name representing the man, but the name as symbol of everything back home: every arrest, beating, torture, lost limb and life, humiliation, secretive whispering, paranoid thought, forced military service, tapped phone call, and missing family and friends. The stuff of division since the war began, the desire to be rid of him sometimes overcame the desire to stop the inevitable further rape and pillage of Iraq.

November 15, 2003

Looking for Saddam
By Ahmad Abou-Saleh Saddam Hussein's potential whereabouts: 1. The Mediterranean hairy mustachioed man serving you your road kill kebabs. 2. He is currently in Syria sipping strong coffee, enjoying the company of Osama Bin Laden and Bigfoot while using...

September 22, 2003

Mustard Gas Wall of Shame: Colin Powell Joins MWU! in Opening of Halabja Attraction
Thank you Secretary Powell for visiting the little museum of horrors at Halabja. MuslimWakeUp! is celebrating this occasion by inaugurating the giant �Halabja Mustard Gas Wall of Shame� as the next tourist attraction in this tragic little town. Let�s see what is on the plaque.

August 9, 2003

Presidency for the Taking: Latest Pew Poll Shows Weakness of Bush and Democrats
Today, more Americans (37%) disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President than at any time since he took office, according to a study released this week by the Pew Research Center. In fact, all the signs point to a potential political disaster for Bush. So should the President be worried enough to hasten the discovery of that dusty biological weapons canister in the back of a Tikrit warehouse?

July 25, 2003

Why I Am Leaving This Country: Daniel Pipes and the Failure of Democracy in America
Continuing to teach in the US is no longer an option for me, particularly since I will have no chance to clear my name before Congress. So I am moving to Canada in a few days where I will apply for citizenship and try to rebuild my 20-year university career in a functioning democracy.

July 3, 2003

June 2, 2003

The View from Lahore: What Pakistanis Think of Iraq's Liberation
�But war is not some kind of harmless video game,� insists Mohsin, a computer science student (and an enthusiastic video game player himself). Referring to General William Wallace�s statement early in the war-�The enemy we are fighting is different from the one we had war gamed against�- he says, �Personally I would have liked George Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney to be embedded with journalists in the front lines to get a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving of an artillery barrage rather than miles away in the comfort of the White House enjoying live television coverage�.

April 23, 2003

Through Different Lenses
Why do so many people around the world, the vast majority of the people on this planet, see things so differently from the majority of Americans when it comes to Iraq?

April 4, 2003

African Americans Say No to War; Rep. Maxine Waters Condemns Perle�s, Cheney�s War-Profiteering, Bush�s Cuts on Education, Vets, Healthcare
Although they make up one-third of troops serving in the U.S. military services, a recent Gallup poll showed that two thirds of African Americans oppose the war in Iraq. But the black community has not played a prominent role in the anti-war movement, until now.

America in Wonderland
I�m sure that many Americans were shocked and awed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his patently absurd reference to the Fourth Geneva Convention in regard to the American POWs. I�m not sure how the man manages to keep a straight face during his speeches. Perhaps that�s why he�s often seen darting away from the cameras. President George W. Bush also could not help but offer his own share of non sequitur logic and commented that if Iraq is holding POWs then he expects them to be treated well.

March 31, 2003

Nothing But Iraq
I remember Al Sayyab, screaming to the Gulf in vain:
Iraq, Iraq, Nothing But Iraq�
And no one answers except an echo.*
I remember Al Sayyab�In this Sumerian Space
A female overcame the sterility of the galaxy,
And bequeathed us both the land and exile.

I remember Al Sayyab� Poetry is born in Iraq,
Then become an Iraqi, so that you may become a poet my friend!

Death Before Dying: A Retired Lebanese Officer Tells Why He Is Going to Iraq
I could no longer take sitting around for hours as if drugged, or like an idiot, in font of the satellite TV channels, watching my people being killed by bombing raids, or under the rubble of their destroyed homes.

March 26, 2003

Sending Wimps to Baghdad? Or Why Opposing the War Is Supporting the Troops
The United States has managed to convince the whole world that Iraq has to be bombed. Um, well, they have convinced four other countries. Absent from the Coalition of the Killing are the US�s two neighbors (Canada and Mexico), all but two of its NATO allies and every other country on earth.

March 25, 2003

Iraq War Dictionary
By Zahkan al-Akhbar "Shock and Awe": Title of Iraqi resistance strategy, intended to "shock" invading American and British troops and "awe" them with their unexpected ferocity...

March 17, 2003

Turkey's Imperial Troops: How George Bush's War Is Threatening Democracy in Turkey
By Emrah Göker When the Turkish Grand Assembly rejected the joint resolution which would allow U.S. troops in the country and send Turkish troops to Northern Iraq two weeks ago, antiwar groups all around the world cheered and applauded...

March 14, 2003

Peace Activists Arrested for Civil Disobedience at Weapons Manufacturer Raytheon Systems
By Pat McDonnell Twair Photos By Samir Twair In their second act of street theater protesting the pending war on Iraq, 12 Southern Californians were arrested March 11 as they blocked a major intersection in front of the Raytheon...

March 10, 2003

Vive la France? The World Pulls for the French
By Ahmed Nassef Much of the United States movement against war in Iraq revolves around calling for further inspections and demanding Security Council approval before any invasion. On the surface, this seems like a reasonable strategy, given the fact that...

A Tale of One Vicious Man and How He Didn't Listen to His People
By Um AyaImages by Jahanshah Javid, Iranian.com Once upon a time there lived a man whose soul was dark and ugly, whose vicious eyes sought everything that didn�t belong to him, and whose corrupted mind worked out schemes to...

February 18, 2003

Not Your Father's Peace Rally: 17 Million Smart-assy Marchers Hip Hopping to Funky Beats Can't Be Wrong
We had the world to heal, and a war to stop. My two words of kindness were going to speak of unity and love in the language of some other long forgotten Islamic empire. The loonies had better bring their dancing shoes.

February 11, 2003

What First Amendment? Judge Denies Permit for Anti-War March; NYC Grants Permit Only for Stationary Rally at UN
By Mariam Aziz Protesters gathered on a cold, snowy day at Manhattan's Federal Plaza in rejuvenated attempts to obtain a permit for February 15th's anti-war march. Yesterday, however, Federal Judge Barbara Jones ruled that the City of New York could...

February 10, 2003

Bloody Valentine: Reflections on War and Muslim Holidays
By Ahmed Nassef And when (his son) was old enough, (Abraham) said: O my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must sacrifice you. So look, what do you think? He said: O my father! Do what...