Some questions after seeing a heading on facebook:
"We want Jemima Khan to be the next first lady of Pakistan's Wall"
Dear Jemima Khan:
The Muslim community as well as I greatly admire your leap of faith into the Muslim religion, which in my opinion is a very brave and bright advance in the right direction with a little help from only one person that would be Imran Khan. I have admired your husband’s cricket playing for many years and watched the world cup of 1992 with great interest; I have also watched the Sharja Cup of 1986 where your husband was the captain in a great match against arch rival India.I’m curious about some decisions you’ve made in your life and would like to know what convinced you to become a Muslim? And how is your commitment to the Islamic faith today? Not to be very personal but you being a public figure and former wife of a rising political figure, I would like to say I don’t know the reasons surrounding your divorce with cricketer Imran Khan. If you as a person couldn’t foresee the outcome of your marriage with a playboy husband, who still maintains his Muslim faith; despite degradation of character due to womanizing, how’re you going to be the next first lady, leader, of a nuclear country? Your marriage being annulled with Imran Khan would in the Muslim community be foreseen as a lack of commitment and responsibility. Also some of your critics indicate that you’re a Jew and planted by the Jewish lobby to abolish Pakistan’s nuclear ambition. What is your comment regarding this issue?
Since your former faith establishes a great deal of insight and relations into the Jewish community, what changes have you passionately tried to bring to the people in your inner circle? Also were there any habits that were hard to quit like alcoholism after becoming a Muslim (i.e. if you used alcohol in the past)? I would also like to know what is your stand on the Palestine issue? And what practical steps have you taken for helping the people of Palestine after Imran khan’s appealing conversion of you to Islam?
I also admire you as the mother of Imran’s two beautiful sons trying to raise a family. Do you have any message or do you see yourself as a message of hope for mothers of the Muslim community especially mothers raising families in conflicted areas like Kashmir and Palestine?
Regards
Arsalan
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
STRAY OBSERVATIONS ON WORLD NEWS
DOES THE RECENT KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADIN DISILLUSION THE CONCEPT THAT PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD?
Capturing Osama Bin Ladin alive would have lead to further intelligence in keeping America and the west more secure.
There was and still is great speculation as to whether there had been an actual human landing on the moon. The media and the general public are playing the news of the recent death of Osama Bin Ladin flat out in the form of the first human landing on the moon.
The flaw that is inadvertently picked out by the speculative public is in the media video of the American flag being planted on the moon in the manner of having wind movement of the flag in space. And as all of us are aware there isn't any wind on the moon
The compound was not a huge compound as reported in the media. It was a modest size compound and their are tons of those in Abattabod. This is as much as a failure of US intelligence as it is of Pakistani intelligence. Osama was not living in that compound for the past 10 years, infact that compound was sold to its current owner in 2006. Where was he before that? For all the so called superior intelligence that US has, why did it still take them 5 years to find out that Osama was living openly in a compound. Nice coincidence that he got caught just when Obama's approval ratings were dropping to a new low and the US economic crisis keeps on growing. Most importantly the first question I would have been asking as an American is, why did the US not capture him alive. You would think interrogating him would provide them with much more information about who was harbouring him and also much more about the al-Qaeda network, than to just start blaming Pakistan for it. He was unarmed, the so called compound he was living in had absolutely no security, you would think it wouldn't be too difficult for the Navy Seals to capture him? I guess we live in a world where might is right. How would you feel if a foreign country sends its apache helicopters into our air space without our permission, in your neighbourhood to arrest Bush (who is responsible for killing more people that laden is), completely violating the country's sovereignty and ignoring all the UN protocol. I find all these claims of cutting down aid absolutely hilarious. Pakistan would have never needed this aid, had it not been for Pakistan supporting us lot in this so called war on terror. Pakistan was a much much peaceful country back in the 90s. Ever since our support for US following 9-11, we have at least one suicide blast each week, costing us billions of dollars. And sadly unlike US and India Paksitan doesn’t have the media power to blame our problems on other countries. Just because US cant fully secure Iraq, and the fighters their are still resisting the illegal occupation, US can easily blame Syria and Iran. Same as in Afghanistan, every time something happens, it is the insurgents coming in through the Pakistan border. What about all the Afghani insurgents that cross over the border to terrorise Pakistan?
US created these Taliban’s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. All of these Taliban’s including Osama are US creations.
One real fact is known; the war with Iraq was based on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This war really began in order to end the brutal stress related to implementing no fly zones, by which I mean the human effort and risk of life associated with it, besides the known reason of financial expenditure associated with it.
On the political side America didn't feel the engagement of a comprehensive victory over Iraq after 34 countries had to pull Iraq out of Kuwait. The no fly zones were imposed over a 10 year period which felt like bottomless pit, with great expenditure both in financial sense and risk of life, while Sadam Hussein still remained in power despite his defeat in withdrawing from Kuwait. An attempt on President George Bush father's life was a cause of further humiliation for the former President and America, besides the known fact that Iraq had a wealth of oil standing on its territories that could be utilized in a favourable manner in the case of a regime change.
Did this regime change come at the cost of 9/11? This only the public can decide. There is same sort of speculation surrounding Usama Bin Ladin's death. With the price of oil reaching almost $5.00 per gallon and no good conclusive outcome of the economy, is the democratic President lying about the death of Bin Ladin like Bill Clinton was lying about his Monica Lewinsky affair? This seems to be highly unlikely as the CIA head Leon Panetta is on the President's side. But not much can be said about the opposition senators who still haven't debated the legitimacy of the pictures besides calling them fake.
The question "Is Usama Bin Ladin really dead?" could only be concluded if the U.S had trusted members of the Pakistan elite like 'Edhi' by verifying his death with a public display of his body and so forth.
Similarly, we can't make any exact confirmation of Usama Bin Ladin's death until there is verification from the Taliban or Al-Qaeda for that matter. The thing that is really perplexing is the disposal of the body in the sea. There is no reasonable explanation as to why the body was disposed of in this manner, as I know perfectly no body has been dumped in the sea in case of a Muslim burial. The proper Islamic burial is on land with the body given a proper bath before being wrapped in white cloth.
The recent death of 8 C.I.A operatives in northern Afghanistan has rightly been described as Afghani Pearl Harbor.
It has raised concerns in media outlets and general public about the wisdom of decision to send additional 30,000 combat troops to Afghanistan. The Administration main rationale is based on the fact that surge worked in Iraq and, therefore, it is likely to work in Afghanistan. The analogy is not sound. The ground situation in Iraq and Afghanistan are quite different. Afghanistan is exclusively a tribal society dominated by warlords. There is no Afghani national identity. Iraqis are proud of their national and Arab identity.
There is little hope that Afghani Security forces will be able to face the Taliban in 18 months. Moreover, there is long tradition of hatred towards foreign forces on Afghani soil. The surge will result in pushing the Taliban towards Southern Waziristan and thereby further destabilize the shaky government in Islamabad. The Afghan problem cannot be solved without the help of Pakistani Army. But Pakistan Army and the majority of people in Pakistan have a poor opinion about long term goal of U.S.A in the region. People still recall that U.S.A abandoned both Afghanistan and Pakistan after Soviet defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan faced exodus of more than 3 million refuges from Afghanistan in the neighboring province of NWFP which created economic, social and cultural havoc in Peshawar and the surrounding areas.
I feel that U.S.A should not increase the level of combat forces if it really wants to help the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead of sending additional troops in Afghanistan, Obama Administration should consider sending doctors, engineers, social workers, teachers, sociologists, psychologist, para medical staff and commit itself in nation building activities spread over 3-4 decades. Perhaps, it is asking for moon?
Capturing Osama Bin Ladin alive would have lead to further intelligence in keeping America and the west more secure.
There was and still is great speculation as to whether there had been an actual human landing on the moon. The media and the general public are playing the news of the recent death of Osama Bin Ladin flat out in the form of the first human landing on the moon.
The flaw that is inadvertently picked out by the speculative public is in the media video of the American flag being planted on the moon in the manner of having wind movement of the flag in space. And as all of us are aware there isn't any wind on the moon
The compound was not a huge compound as reported in the media. It was a modest size compound and their are tons of those in Abattabod. This is as much as a failure of US intelligence as it is of Pakistani intelligence. Osama was not living in that compound for the past 10 years, infact that compound was sold to its current owner in 2006. Where was he before that? For all the so called superior intelligence that US has, why did it still take them 5 years to find out that Osama was living openly in a compound. Nice coincidence that he got caught just when Obama's approval ratings were dropping to a new low and the US economic crisis keeps on growing. Most importantly the first question I would have been asking as an American is, why did the US not capture him alive. You would think interrogating him would provide them with much more information about who was harbouring him and also much more about the al-Qaeda network, than to just start blaming Pakistan for it. He was unarmed, the so called compound he was living in had absolutely no security, you would think it wouldn't be too difficult for the Navy Seals to capture him? I guess we live in a world where might is right. How would you feel if a foreign country sends its apache helicopters into our air space without our permission, in your neighbourhood to arrest Bush (who is responsible for killing more people that laden is), completely violating the country's sovereignty and ignoring all the UN protocol. I find all these claims of cutting down aid absolutely hilarious. Pakistan would have never needed this aid, had it not been for Pakistan supporting us lot in this so called war on terror. Pakistan was a much much peaceful country back in the 90s. Ever since our support for US following 9-11, we have at least one suicide blast each week, costing us billions of dollars. And sadly unlike US and India Paksitan doesn’t have the media power to blame our problems on other countries. Just because US cant fully secure Iraq, and the fighters their are still resisting the illegal occupation, US can easily blame Syria and Iran. Same as in Afghanistan, every time something happens, it is the insurgents coming in through the Pakistan border. What about all the Afghani insurgents that cross over the border to terrorise Pakistan?
US created these Taliban’s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. All of these Taliban’s including Osama are US creations.
One real fact is known; the war with Iraq was based on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This war really began in order to end the brutal stress related to implementing no fly zones, by which I mean the human effort and risk of life associated with it, besides the known reason of financial expenditure associated with it.
On the political side America didn't feel the engagement of a comprehensive victory over Iraq after 34 countries had to pull Iraq out of Kuwait. The no fly zones were imposed over a 10 year period which felt like bottomless pit, with great expenditure both in financial sense and risk of life, while Sadam Hussein still remained in power despite his defeat in withdrawing from Kuwait. An attempt on President George Bush father's life was a cause of further humiliation for the former President and America, besides the known fact that Iraq had a wealth of oil standing on its territories that could be utilized in a favourable manner in the case of a regime change.
Did this regime change come at the cost of 9/11? This only the public can decide. There is same sort of speculation surrounding Usama Bin Ladin's death. With the price of oil reaching almost $5.00 per gallon and no good conclusive outcome of the economy, is the democratic President lying about the death of Bin Ladin like Bill Clinton was lying about his Monica Lewinsky affair? This seems to be highly unlikely as the CIA head Leon Panetta is on the President's side. But not much can be said about the opposition senators who still haven't debated the legitimacy of the pictures besides calling them fake.
The question "Is Usama Bin Ladin really dead?" could only be concluded if the U.S had trusted members of the Pakistan elite like 'Edhi' by verifying his death with a public display of his body and so forth.
Similarly, we can't make any exact confirmation of Usama Bin Ladin's death until there is verification from the Taliban or Al-Qaeda for that matter. The thing that is really perplexing is the disposal of the body in the sea. There is no reasonable explanation as to why the body was disposed of in this manner, as I know perfectly no body has been dumped in the sea in case of a Muslim burial. The proper Islamic burial is on land with the body given a proper bath before being wrapped in white cloth.
The recent death of 8 C.I.A operatives in northern Afghanistan has rightly been described as Afghani Pearl Harbor.
It has raised concerns in media outlets and general public about the wisdom of decision to send additional 30,000 combat troops to Afghanistan. The Administration main rationale is based on the fact that surge worked in Iraq and, therefore, it is likely to work in Afghanistan. The analogy is not sound. The ground situation in Iraq and Afghanistan are quite different. Afghanistan is exclusively a tribal society dominated by warlords. There is no Afghani national identity. Iraqis are proud of their national and Arab identity.
There is little hope that Afghani Security forces will be able to face the Taliban in 18 months. Moreover, there is long tradition of hatred towards foreign forces on Afghani soil. The surge will result in pushing the Taliban towards Southern Waziristan and thereby further destabilize the shaky government in Islamabad. The Afghan problem cannot be solved without the help of Pakistani Army. But Pakistan Army and the majority of people in Pakistan have a poor opinion about long term goal of U.S.A in the region. People still recall that U.S.A abandoned both Afghanistan and Pakistan after Soviet defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan faced exodus of more than 3 million refuges from Afghanistan in the neighboring province of NWFP which created economic, social and cultural havoc in Peshawar and the surrounding areas.
I feel that U.S.A should not increase the level of combat forces if it really wants to help the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead of sending additional troops in Afghanistan, Obama Administration should consider sending doctors, engineers, social workers, teachers, sociologists, psychologist, para medical staff and commit itself in nation building activities spread over 3-4 decades. Perhaps, it is asking for moon?
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Democracy, Freedom, Leadership and Justice: The Inner Conflict Of A President
Under Construction...
Democracy, Freedom, Leadership and Justice: The Inner Conflict Of A President
Under Construction...
When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a book “Democracy, Freedom, Leadership And Justice: The Inner conflict Of A President” This book is a marvellous feast of imagination and inquiry. Astounding and beautiful the book is a pleasure not only for the subtleties but also for its ingenious and surprising story. I guarantee that you will not be able to put this book down it is a realistic gripping story. The beauty of this book is not that it supplies easy answers to gruelling questions but that it invites you to come in close to the truth about the factors involving 9/11 and its aftermath in which all of us will find hope and healing. While writing this book I realized that the questions unfolding in the book were the questions I was carrying deep within me.
For the most ardent believer or the newest enlightened seeker, this book is a must read. Don’t miss this! If there’s a better book out there capturing the events that lead to 9/11 in an engaging nature and the ability to crawl into our darkest nightmare with love, light and healing, I personally have not seen it.
HOW CUTE BILL CLINTON GOT NAUGHTY
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is clever treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, and shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self- possessed happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot solider. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.
Fear a next turn fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly is wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and you guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while you jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part o f you in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss you last allies hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
BRIEF HISTORY
My memories come in a jumble, but I don’t know if I can put them in order for you. It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names. Witness Simon who is called Peter, Matthew also known as Levi, Nathaniel who is also Bartholomew, Judas, not Iscariot, who took the name Thaddeus, Simeon who went by Niger, Saul who became Paul. The gravity of the situation is that family is at the center of life’s true meaning. The world’s only super power had potentially lost its creditability due to the Monica Lewinsky affair in the public arena especially the Arab/ Muslim world. As the President of the United States of America Bill Clinton made a choice to get involved with an intern with a Jewish background namely Monica Lewinsky. While the Palestine issue apparently was acquiring a slow success in favour of the Arab world. Muslim Arabs by which I mean the grasp root people have a great understanding of ramifications of being in position of power and influence which they have acquired from the life of the Prophet ( Salal-Laho-Aleha-Waslam). As I have heard from elders when the prophet Muhammad (Salal-Laho-Aleha-Waslam)was in power he sent one of his representatives to collect tax. The tax collector returned with a bunch of gifts that were given to him by the people paying taxes, and informed the prophet about the matter. The Prophet Muhammad clarified it to him that the gifts were bribes and belonged to in the treasury as they were given to him in recognition of his position of power. The reason being that all these individuals didn’t end up placing the gifts in his custody when he was in his family home that would be at his mother’s home. Similarly, Monica Lewinsky according to elements in the Muslim intelligence community was considered to be a bribe/distraction. Who was planted by the Jewish lobby to distract the President Clinton’s attention and to discredit him from making hard decisions on the Palestine issue when Yasir Arafat was alive and representing the state of Palestine.
Life is about perception lying under oath by President Bill Clinton on his Monica Lewinsky affair represents the inner conflict and fear this President had to go through for making a decision that could have let him in losing the Presidency and ultimately end up institutionalized. As if after losing the Presidency he would end up facing the harsh reality of the hip hop culture. And if President Bill Clinton ended up in a Psychiatric institution he would end up utilizing his resources in the following manner:
What psychiatric medication does to people:
1. You lose self respect, self dignity, and suffer a stigma that you are a mental case. All antipsychotic medication make you mentally handicapped or disabled.
2. Anti Psychotic, Anti depressants, anti anxiety make you look like you are mister pregnant.
I mean: Too much gain in the abdominal region.
3. Whole physique of the person while on Psychiatric medication makes the person look ugly, out of shape, distorted or twisted.
4. No women ever like a person who takes psychiatric meds because men suffer low sexual libido, sexual impotence, sexual dysfunction.
5. Decrease intelligence level, eventually make a person retarded type with low I.Q.
6. .People can’t function at the normal or average level; hence they can’t hold high function jobs in the community.
7. Psychiatric meds cause bad breath, hence people lose the touch of impeccable oral hygiene, as well as physical hygiene.
8. Make people sluggish, sedated with slurred or broken speech. People can’t even talk very well.
9. Damage the different section of the brain including memory section, speech region, thinking patterns, and much more….
10. DAMAGE THE EYESIGHT or cause visual problems at the early stage of a person’s life.
11. Certain psychiatric meds may or can make you diabetic, can cause heart strokes, may cause hypertension and toxicate the whole blood.
12. People those who take psychiatric drugs become bald or suffer alopecia and develop geek or twisted type of looks.
13. Members of the public laugh at those who suffer medication, living with black spot on their lives.
14. Suffer motor restlessness or akathisia, what I mean, let people spin around they pace up and down all day long.
15. Reduce people life span by causing heart attacks or sudden or premature death.
16. No man, while on meds, can have a steady love relationship with any normal, beautiful woman, and vice versa, or same thing for the woman.
17. Make people teeth filled with fillings or cause cavities, because people become very lazy and sleep most of the time, hence they develop poor dental looks, not impressive for the opposite sex.
18. All beautiful women leave men those who accept or take psychiatric meds.
WHAT IS SCHIZOPHRENIA?
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that involves two primary categories of symptoms: perceptual symptoms and thought disorder. Perceptual symptoms affect one or many of the senses (i.e., illusions and hallucinations such as voices, visions, and more often, subtle distortions of the visual world). Thought disorder refer to the inability to correctly judge the real world (i.e., paranoid thinking, ideas of reference, grandiosity, etc), so that the person concludes that such perceptual changes are real and may or may not act upon them accordingly. Thus, if a person hears voices telling him to burn down his neighbour’s house, and if he does not realize the voice is created by his own sick brain, he may conclude that the voice must be coming from God. If he is a God-fearing person, he will obey and burn the house down. The neighbours will be totally amazed because, although they know that what he has done, they don not know why. This leads to a lot of useless speculation about the “real” motives. Thus a shy, young person commits some heinous act. The neighbours rally round and say he was so quite, so nice, polite, but reserved. They wonder why this could have happened. They do not realize that schizophrenia can so distort the personality of its victims that no matter how normal they were, they are no longer normal after the illness has struck.
The history of how schizophrenia has been defined is interesting and illustrates why there has been so much diagnostic confusion and inadequate treatment to date. Schizophrenia was first described about 200 years ago. By 1900 it was called “dementia praecox” which was later replaced by the term “schizophrenia” meaning a split: a schism between thinking and feeling. This concept has been interpreted to mean that there was a split personality. However, the idea of a split was wrong. The only split was the one that separated the patients for their families and the communities.
Definitions have changed. In England until the 1900, schizophrenia was defined as a disease of perception combined with an inability to tell whether these perceptual changes were real or not. J. Conolly’s book, indications of insanity, provides the best and most accurate description of this disease. After 1900, Dr. E. Bleuler confused the issue by emphasizing thought disorder and relegating the perceptual changes to minor status. This has become today’s standard definition and is one reason for the extensive diagnostic confusion—schizophrenia has been confused with manic depressive disease (bipolar) and, more recently, with border line personality disorder (BPD). If such a diagnostic confusion could be eliminated, earlier diagnosis would be possible and treatment results would improve significantly.
In the United States, however, the diagnosis of schizophrenia had been more precise for twenty to thirty years and has included both the sets of symptoms. Eventually, however, English psychiatrists convinced the Americans that they were too free and easy in their diagnosis and demanded that American physicians restrict the diagnosis of schizophrenia to deteriorated patients. All the others previously labelled schizophrenic were now to be classified as manic depressive or any one of a number of new diagnoses invented by the creative genius of the APA diagnostic manual, the most recent version of which is DSM-IV.
HOW DIAGNOSIS AFFECTS TREATMENT
At one time, the diagnosis determined what the treatment should be. Manic depressives were treated with lithium, schizophrenia were treated with one or more powerful tranquilizing drugs. Today, modern medicine tries to eliminate all traces of schizophrenia. The bias is such that if doctors detect any evidence of mood disorder, the patient is promptly relabelled manic-depressive and given lithium and if patients have prominent changes in personality, they are promptly declared untreatable and dismissed. It does not much matter what the diagnosis is because the treatment will be the same: any of a number of tranquilizers and or antidepressants, psychotherapy, and perhaps for a lucky few, some support patiently given for many years.
MY APPROACH TO DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT
I use the Conolly diagnostic definition. Conolly defined insanity as a disease of perception combined with the inability to determine that the perceptual changes were false. Schizophrenia exists when perceptual symptoms are present, combined with thought disorder as described earlier. Unless tell you what their perceptual disturbances are and talk about how they react to them, it will be impossible to explain their behaviour.
To illustrate, many years ago a clergyman was admitted to the psychiatric ward because he had been caught in the act of behaving inappropriately, chasing a young girl on the main street of a big city. He was very puzzled when he was forced to come to the hospital. When he was examined and asked what he had been doing, he said that while he was walking down town in the late afternoon he suddenly saw the heavens open with a vast illumination from which he heard God tell him, “ You have syphilis. You must have intercourse with a young virgin.” He interpreted this command as an order from God and obediently began to chase the young girl. His visual and auditory experiences were the hallucinations. His determination that the words cam from God was his delusion, and his behaviour resulted from the combination of these two symptoms. He was one of the first patients that was treated with niacin -(vitamin B-3). He recovered, remained well, and rose to a high position in the Church.
FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
In a world of talkers I was a thinker and a doer. I wouldn’t say much unless you asked me directly, which most folks have learned not to do. When I speak you wonder if it isn’t some sort of alien who sees the landscape of human ideas and experiences differently than everybody else.
The thing is, I usually make uncomfortable sense in a world where most folks would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not much of anything. Those who know me generally like me well enough, provided I keep my thoughts mostly to myself. And when I do talk it isn’t that people stop liking me –rather, they are not quite so satisfied with themselves.
Memory can be a tricky companion at times, especially with the accident, and I would not be too surprised, in spite of my concerted effort toward accuracy, if some factual errors and faulty remembrances are reflected in these pages. They are not intentional. I can promise you that the conversations and events are recorded as truthfully as I can remember them, so please try to cut me a little slack. As you’ll see these are not easy things to talk about.
What you are about to read is something that I have struggled with so many years to put into words. It is a little, well… no, it is a lot on the fantastic side. Whether some parts of it are actually true or not, I won’t be the judge.
THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991), commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations led by the United States, against Iraq.
This war has also been referred to (by the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) as the Mother of All Battles, and is commonly, though mistakenly, known as Operation Desert Storm for the operational name of the military response, the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, or the Iraq War before the term became identified with the 2003-2010 Iraq War.
The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces to Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the Coalition. The great majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 23 February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased their advance, and declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the border of Saudi Arabia. However, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel.
ORIGINS
Throughout much of the Cold War, Iraq had been an ally of the Soviet Union, and there was a history of friction between it and the United States. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq's position on Israeli–Palestinian politics, and its disapproval of the nature of the peace between Israel and Egypt.
The United States also disliked Iraqi support for many Arab and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its inclusion on the developing U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism on 29 December 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral after the invasion of Iran in 1980, which became the Iran–Iraq War, although it assisted Iraq covertly. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful counteroffensive — Operation Undeniable Victory, and the United States increased its support for Iraq to prevent Iran from forcing a surrender.
In a U.S. bid to open full diplomatic relations with Iraq, the country was removed from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime’s record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran."
With Iraq's newfound success in the war, and the Iranian rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales to Iraq reached a record spike in 1982. An obstacle, however, remained to any potential U.S.–Iraqi relationship — Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled the group to Syria at the United States' request in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld to meet President Hussein as a special envoy and to cultivate ties.
TENSIONS WITH KUWAIT
By the time the ceasefire with Iran was signed in August 1988, Iraq was virtually bankrupt, with most of its debt owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq pressured both nations to forgive the debts, but they refused. Iraq also accused Kuwait of exceeding its OPEC quotas and driving down the price of oil, thus further hurting the Iraqi economy.
The collapse in oil prices had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. The Iraqi Government described it as a form of economic warfare, which it claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into Iraq's Rumaila oil field.
Map of KuwaitThe Iraq-Kuwait dispute also involved Iraqi claims to Kuwait as a territory of Iraq. After gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1932, the Iraqi government immediately declared that Kuwait was rightfully a territory of Iraq, as it had been an Iraqi territory for centuries until the British creation of Kuwait after World War I and thus stated that Kuwait was a British imperialist invention. Iraq claimed Kuwait had been a part of the Ottoman Empire's province of Basra. Its ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to Britain. Britain drew the border between the two countries, and deliberately tried to limit Iraq's access to the ocean so that any future Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten Britain's domination of the Persian Gulf. Iraq refused to accept the border, and did not recognize the Kuwaiti government until 1963.
In early July 1990, Iraq complained about Kuwait's behavior, such as not respecting their quota, and openly threatened to take military action. On the 23rd, the CIA reported that Iraq had moved 30,000 troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border, and the U.S. naval fleet in the Persian Gulf was placed on alert. On the 25th, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, an American ambassador, in Baghdad. According to an Iraqi transcript of that meeting, Glaspie told the Iraqi delegation,
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts."
According to Glaspie's own account, she stated in reference to the precise border between Kuwait and Iraq,
"(...) that she had served in Kuwait 20 years before; then, as now, we took no position on these Arab affairs."
On the 31st, negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah failed violently.
INVASION OF KUWAIT
M-84 main battle tanks of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces
Kuwait Air Force A-4KU SkyhawksOn 2 August 1990 Iraq launched the invasion by bombing Kuwait City, the Kuwaiti capital. In spite of Iraqi saber-rattling, Kuwait did not have its forces on alert, and was caught unaware. Iraqi commandos infiltrated the Kuwaiti border first to prepare for the major units which began the attack at the stroke of midnight. The Iraqi attack had two prongs, with the primary attack force driving south straight for Kuwait City down the main highway, and a supporting attack entering Kuwait farther west, but then turning and driving due east, cutting off the capital city from the southern half of the country. The commander of a Kuwaiti armored battalion, 35th Armoured Brigade, deployed them against the Iraqi attack and was able to conduct a robust defense near Al Jahra (see The Battle of the Bridges), west of Kuwait City.
Kuwait Air Force aircraft scrambled to meet the invading force, but approximately 20% were lost or captured. An air battle with the Iraqi helicopter airborne forces was fought over Kuwait City, inflicting heavy losses on the Iraqi elite troops, and a few combat sorties were flown against Iraqi ground forces.
The main Iraqi thrust into Kuwait City was conducted by commandos deployed by helicopters and boats to attack the city from the sea, while other divisions seized the airports and two airbases. The Iraqis attacked the Dasman Palace, the Royal Residence of the Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, which was defended by the Emiri Guard supported with M-84 tanks. In the process, the Iraqis killed Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait's youngest brother.
After two days of intense combat, most of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces were either overrun by the Iraqi Republican Guard, or had escaped to neighboring Saudi Arabia. The emir and key ministers were able to get out and head south along the highway for refuge in Saudi Arabia. Iraqi ground forces consolidated their control on Kuwait City, then headed south and redeployed along the border of Saudi Arabia. After the decisive Iraqi victory, Saddam Hussein initially installed a puppet regime known as the "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait" before installing his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid as the governor of Kuwait on August 8.
Saddam Hussein detained several Westerners, with video footage shown on state televisionOn 23 August 1990 President Saddam appeared on state television with Western hostages to whom he had refused exit visas. In the video, he patted a small British boy named Stuart Lockwood on the back with his left hand. Saddam then asks, through his interpreter, Sadoun al-Zubaydi, whether Stuart is getting his milk. Saddam went on to say, "We hope your presence as guests here will not be for too long. Your presence here, and in other places, is meant to prevent the scourge of war.
REASONS AND CAMPAIGN FOR INTERVENTION
The United States and the United Nations gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict, the most prominent being the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. In addition, the United States moved to support its ally Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region, and as a key supplier of oil, made it of considerable geopolitical importance. Shortly after the Iraqi invasion, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney made the first of several visits to Saudi Arabia where King Fahd requested US military assistance. During a speech in a special joint session of the U.S. Congress given on 11 September 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush summed up the reasons with the following remarks: "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression."
The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos showing a buildup of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information, but this was later shown to be false. A reporter for the Saint Petersburg Times acquired commercial satellite images made at the time in question, which showed nothing but empty desert.
Gen. Colin Powell (left), Gen. Schwarzkopf, and Paul Wolfowitz (right) listen as Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney addresses reporters regarding the 1991 Gulf War.Other justifications for foreign involvement included Iraq’s history of human rights abuses under President Saddam. Iraq was also known to possess biological weapons and chemical weapons, which Saddam had used against Iranian troops during the Iran–Iraq War and against his own country's Kurdish population in the Al-Anfal Campaign. Iraq was also known to have a nuclear weapons program.
Although there were human rights abuses committed in Kuwait by the invading Iraqi military, the ones best known in the U.S. were inventions of the public relations firm hired by the government of Kuwait to influence U.S. opinion in favor of military intervention. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the organization Citizens for a Free Kuwait was formed in the U.S. It hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for about $11 million, paid by the Kuwaiti government.
Among many other means of influencing U.S. opinion (distributing books on Iraqi atrocities to U.S. soldiers deployed in the region, 'Free Kuwait' T-shirts and speakers to college campuses, and dozens of video news releases to television stations), the firm arranged for an appearance before a group of members of the U.S. Congress in which a woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor.
The story was an influence in tipping both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52-47 vote. A year after the war, however, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The woman who had testified was found to be a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family, in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. She had not been living in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion.
The details of the Hill & Knowlton public relations campaign, including the incubator testimony, were published in a John R. MacArthur's Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press, 1992), and came to wide public attention when an Op-ed by MacArthur was published in the New York Times. This prompted a reexamination by Amnesty International, which had originally promoted an account alleging even greater numbers of babies torn from incubators than the original fake testimony. After finding no evidence to support it, the organization issued a retraction. President George H. W. Bush then repeated the incubator allegations on television.
At the same time, the Iraqi army committed several well-documented crimes during its occupation of Kuwait, such as the summary execution without trial of three brothers after which their bodies were stacked in a pile and left to decay in a public street. Iraqi troops also ransacked and looted private Kuwaiti homes, one residence was repeatedly defecated in.[56] A resident later commented, "The whole thing was violence for the sake of violence, destruction for the sake of destruction... Imagine a surrealistic painting by Salvador Dalí".
THE END OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES
Civilians and coalition military forces wave Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian flags as they celebrate the retreat of Iraqi forces from Kuwait as a result of Operation Desert StormIn Iraqi territory that was occupied by the coalition, a peace conference was held where a ceasefire agreement was negotiated and signed by both sides. At the conference, Iraq was approved to fly armed helicopters on their side of the temporary border, ostensibly for government transit due to the damage done to civilian infrastructure. Soon after, these helicopters and much of the Iraqi armed forces were used to fight a Shi'ite uprising in the south. The rebellions were encouraged by an airing of "The Voice of Free Iraq" on 2 February 1991, which was broadcast from a CIA run radio station out of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic service of the Voice of America supported the uprising by stating that the rebellion was large, and that they soon would be liberated from Saddam.
In the North, Kurdish leaders took American statements that they would support an uprising to heart, and began fighting, hoping to trigger a coup d'état. However, when no American support came, Iraqi generals remained loyal to Saddam and brutally crushed the Kurdish uprising. Millions of Kurds fled across the mountains to Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iran. These events later resulted in no-fly zones being established in both the North and the South of Iraq. In Kuwait, the Emir was restored, and suspected Iraqi collaborators were repressed. Eventually, over 400,000 people were expelled from the country, including a large number of Palestinians, due to PLO support of Saddam Hussein. Yasser Arafat did not apologize for his support of Iraq, but after his death the Fatah under the authority of Abbas would formally apologize in 2004.
There was some criticism of the Bush administration, as they chose to allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power instead of pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed, Bush and Brent Scowcroft argued that such a course would have fractured the alliance, and would have had many unnecessary political and human costs associated with it.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defence during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
After the end of the first Gulf War it was clearly evident that Sadamm Hussein had not only dogged the bullet of the western coalition, but shown that he could survive the onslaught of thirty four countries, when they failed to oust him out of power; and had to restraint themselves by limiting themselves to imposing no-fly zones. Which was a heavy blow to the investment in the effort of regaining complete victory and an severe economic blow to keep Iraq undermined while Sadamm was in power. While in the U.S. the democratic party had lost it ground and corporate America had lost it investors credibility due to the Monica Lewinsky affair. Investor specially Saudia Arabia and representatives of the Palestine issue where looking else where for the resolution of their problems. This was a great threat for the CIA who not only devastated due to spending thousands of dollars on imposing no fly zones but….also was facing an unstoppable battle of the spread of nuclear arms with the only Muslim country Pakistan having achieved its nuclear ambitions.
And the Taliban were a threat to the established institute of Hollywood who sees Taliban as religious fanatic and stigmatized as oppressors of the female.
THE TIPPING POINT
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it no, species would survive.Undermining Pakistan and the Islamic society after it successful nuclear ambition was hard for the U.S and the international community. As Saudia Arabia would seem to have an initiative to stand on its own feet and looking for its own resources to solve the Palestine and Kashmir issue.
Love is hard to believe ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.
Democracy, Freedom, Leadership and Justice: The Inner Conflict Of A President
Under Construction...
When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a book “Democracy, Freedom, Leadership And Justice: The Inner conflict Of A President” This book is a marvellous feast of imagination and inquiry. Astounding and beautiful the book is a pleasure not only for the subtleties but also for its ingenious and surprising story. I guarantee that you will not be able to put this book down it is a realistic gripping story. The beauty of this book is not that it supplies easy answers to gruelling questions but that it invites you to come in close to the truth about the factors involving 9/11 and its aftermath in which all of us will find hope and healing. While writing this book I realized that the questions unfolding in the book were the questions I was carrying deep within me.
For the most ardent believer or the newest enlightened seeker, this book is a must read. Don’t miss this! If there’s a better book out there capturing the events that lead to 9/11 in an engaging nature and the ability to crawl into our darkest nightmare with love, light and healing, I personally have not seen it.
HOW CUTE BILL CLINTON GOT NAUGHTY
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is clever treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, and shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self- possessed happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot solider. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.
Fear a next turn fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly is wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and you guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while you jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part o f you in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss you last allies hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
BRIEF HISTORY
My memories come in a jumble, but I don’t know if I can put them in order for you. It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names. Witness Simon who is called Peter, Matthew also known as Levi, Nathaniel who is also Bartholomew, Judas, not Iscariot, who took the name Thaddeus, Simeon who went by Niger, Saul who became Paul. The gravity of the situation is that family is at the center of life’s true meaning. The world’s only super power had potentially lost its creditability due to the Monica Lewinsky affair in the public arena especially the Arab/ Muslim world. As the President of the United States of America Bill Clinton made a choice to get involved with an intern with a Jewish background namely Monica Lewinsky. While the Palestine issue apparently was acquiring a slow success in favour of the Arab world. Muslim Arabs by which I mean the grasp root people have a great understanding of ramifications of being in position of power and influence which they have acquired from the life of the Prophet ( Salal-Laho-Aleha-Waslam). As I have heard from elders when the prophet Muhammad (Salal-Laho-Aleha-Waslam)was in power he sent one of his representatives to collect tax. The tax collector returned with a bunch of gifts that were given to him by the people paying taxes, and informed the prophet about the matter. The Prophet Muhammad clarified it to him that the gifts were bribes and belonged to in the treasury as they were given to him in recognition of his position of power. The reason being that all these individuals didn’t end up placing the gifts in his custody when he was in his family home that would be at his mother’s home. Similarly, Monica Lewinsky according to elements in the Muslim intelligence community was considered to be a bribe/distraction. Who was planted by the Jewish lobby to distract the President Clinton’s attention and to discredit him from making hard decisions on the Palestine issue when Yasir Arafat was alive and representing the state of Palestine.
Life is about perception lying under oath by President Bill Clinton on his Monica Lewinsky affair represents the inner conflict and fear this President had to go through for making a decision that could have let him in losing the Presidency and ultimately end up institutionalized. As if after losing the Presidency he would end up facing the harsh reality of the hip hop culture. And if President Bill Clinton ended up in a Psychiatric institution he would end up utilizing his resources in the following manner:
What psychiatric medication does to people:
1. You lose self respect, self dignity, and suffer a stigma that you are a mental case. All antipsychotic medication make you mentally handicapped or disabled.
2. Anti Psychotic, Anti depressants, anti anxiety make you look like you are mister pregnant.
I mean: Too much gain in the abdominal region.
3. Whole physique of the person while on Psychiatric medication makes the person look ugly, out of shape, distorted or twisted.
4. No women ever like a person who takes psychiatric meds because men suffer low sexual libido, sexual impotence, sexual dysfunction.
5. Decrease intelligence level, eventually make a person retarded type with low I.Q.
6. .People can’t function at the normal or average level; hence they can’t hold high function jobs in the community.
7. Psychiatric meds cause bad breath, hence people lose the touch of impeccable oral hygiene, as well as physical hygiene.
8. Make people sluggish, sedated with slurred or broken speech. People can’t even talk very well.
9. Damage the different section of the brain including memory section, speech region, thinking patterns, and much more….
10. DAMAGE THE EYESIGHT or cause visual problems at the early stage of a person’s life.
11. Certain psychiatric meds may or can make you diabetic, can cause heart strokes, may cause hypertension and toxicate the whole blood.
12. People those who take psychiatric drugs become bald or suffer alopecia and develop geek or twisted type of looks.
13. Members of the public laugh at those who suffer medication, living with black spot on their lives.
14. Suffer motor restlessness or akathisia, what I mean, let people spin around they pace up and down all day long.
15. Reduce people life span by causing heart attacks or sudden or premature death.
16. No man, while on meds, can have a steady love relationship with any normal, beautiful woman, and vice versa, or same thing for the woman.
17. Make people teeth filled with fillings or cause cavities, because people become very lazy and sleep most of the time, hence they develop poor dental looks, not impressive for the opposite sex.
18. All beautiful women leave men those who accept or take psychiatric meds.
WHAT IS SCHIZOPHRENIA?
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that involves two primary categories of symptoms: perceptual symptoms and thought disorder. Perceptual symptoms affect one or many of the senses (i.e., illusions and hallucinations such as voices, visions, and more often, subtle distortions of the visual world). Thought disorder refer to the inability to correctly judge the real world (i.e., paranoid thinking, ideas of reference, grandiosity, etc), so that the person concludes that such perceptual changes are real and may or may not act upon them accordingly. Thus, if a person hears voices telling him to burn down his neighbour’s house, and if he does not realize the voice is created by his own sick brain, he may conclude that the voice must be coming from God. If he is a God-fearing person, he will obey and burn the house down. The neighbours will be totally amazed because, although they know that what he has done, they don not know why. This leads to a lot of useless speculation about the “real” motives. Thus a shy, young person commits some heinous act. The neighbours rally round and say he was so quite, so nice, polite, but reserved. They wonder why this could have happened. They do not realize that schizophrenia can so distort the personality of its victims that no matter how normal they were, they are no longer normal after the illness has struck.
The history of how schizophrenia has been defined is interesting and illustrates why there has been so much diagnostic confusion and inadequate treatment to date. Schizophrenia was first described about 200 years ago. By 1900 it was called “dementia praecox” which was later replaced by the term “schizophrenia” meaning a split: a schism between thinking and feeling. This concept has been interpreted to mean that there was a split personality. However, the idea of a split was wrong. The only split was the one that separated the patients for their families and the communities.
Definitions have changed. In England until the 1900, schizophrenia was defined as a disease of perception combined with an inability to tell whether these perceptual changes were real or not. J. Conolly’s book, indications of insanity, provides the best and most accurate description of this disease. After 1900, Dr. E. Bleuler confused the issue by emphasizing thought disorder and relegating the perceptual changes to minor status. This has become today’s standard definition and is one reason for the extensive diagnostic confusion—schizophrenia has been confused with manic depressive disease (bipolar) and, more recently, with border line personality disorder (BPD). If such a diagnostic confusion could be eliminated, earlier diagnosis would be possible and treatment results would improve significantly.
In the United States, however, the diagnosis of schizophrenia had been more precise for twenty to thirty years and has included both the sets of symptoms. Eventually, however, English psychiatrists convinced the Americans that they were too free and easy in their diagnosis and demanded that American physicians restrict the diagnosis of schizophrenia to deteriorated patients. All the others previously labelled schizophrenic were now to be classified as manic depressive or any one of a number of new diagnoses invented by the creative genius of the APA diagnostic manual, the most recent version of which is DSM-IV.
HOW DIAGNOSIS AFFECTS TREATMENT
At one time, the diagnosis determined what the treatment should be. Manic depressives were treated with lithium, schizophrenia were treated with one or more powerful tranquilizing drugs. Today, modern medicine tries to eliminate all traces of schizophrenia. The bias is such that if doctors detect any evidence of mood disorder, the patient is promptly relabelled manic-depressive and given lithium and if patients have prominent changes in personality, they are promptly declared untreatable and dismissed. It does not much matter what the diagnosis is because the treatment will be the same: any of a number of tranquilizers and or antidepressants, psychotherapy, and perhaps for a lucky few, some support patiently given for many years.
MY APPROACH TO DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT
I use the Conolly diagnostic definition. Conolly defined insanity as a disease of perception combined with the inability to determine that the perceptual changes were false. Schizophrenia exists when perceptual symptoms are present, combined with thought disorder as described earlier. Unless tell you what their perceptual disturbances are and talk about how they react to them, it will be impossible to explain their behaviour.
To illustrate, many years ago a clergyman was admitted to the psychiatric ward because he had been caught in the act of behaving inappropriately, chasing a young girl on the main street of a big city. He was very puzzled when he was forced to come to the hospital. When he was examined and asked what he had been doing, he said that while he was walking down town in the late afternoon he suddenly saw the heavens open with a vast illumination from which he heard God tell him, “ You have syphilis. You must have intercourse with a young virgin.” He interpreted this command as an order from God and obediently began to chase the young girl. His visual and auditory experiences were the hallucinations. His determination that the words cam from God was his delusion, and his behaviour resulted from the combination of these two symptoms. He was one of the first patients that was treated with niacin -(vitamin B-3). He recovered, remained well, and rose to a high position in the Church.
FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
In a world of talkers I was a thinker and a doer. I wouldn’t say much unless you asked me directly, which most folks have learned not to do. When I speak you wonder if it isn’t some sort of alien who sees the landscape of human ideas and experiences differently than everybody else.
The thing is, I usually make uncomfortable sense in a world where most folks would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not much of anything. Those who know me generally like me well enough, provided I keep my thoughts mostly to myself. And when I do talk it isn’t that people stop liking me –rather, they are not quite so satisfied with themselves.
Memory can be a tricky companion at times, especially with the accident, and I would not be too surprised, in spite of my concerted effort toward accuracy, if some factual errors and faulty remembrances are reflected in these pages. They are not intentional. I can promise you that the conversations and events are recorded as truthfully as I can remember them, so please try to cut me a little slack. As you’ll see these are not easy things to talk about.
What you are about to read is something that I have struggled with so many years to put into words. It is a little, well… no, it is a lot on the fantastic side. Whether some parts of it are actually true or not, I won’t be the judge.
THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991), commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations led by the United States, against Iraq.
This war has also been referred to (by the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) as the Mother of All Battles, and is commonly, though mistakenly, known as Operation Desert Storm for the operational name of the military response, the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, or the Iraq War before the term became identified with the 2003-2010 Iraq War.
The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces to Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the Coalition. The great majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 23 February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased their advance, and declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the border of Saudi Arabia. However, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and against Israel.
ORIGINS
Throughout much of the Cold War, Iraq had been an ally of the Soviet Union, and there was a history of friction between it and the United States. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq's position on Israeli–Palestinian politics, and its disapproval of the nature of the peace between Israel and Egypt.
The United States also disliked Iraqi support for many Arab and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its inclusion on the developing U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism on 29 December 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral after the invasion of Iran in 1980, which became the Iran–Iraq War, although it assisted Iraq covertly. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful counteroffensive — Operation Undeniable Victory, and the United States increased its support for Iraq to prevent Iran from forcing a surrender.
In a U.S. bid to open full diplomatic relations with Iraq, the country was removed from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime’s record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran."
With Iraq's newfound success in the war, and the Iranian rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales to Iraq reached a record spike in 1982. An obstacle, however, remained to any potential U.S.–Iraqi relationship — Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled the group to Syria at the United States' request in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld to meet President Hussein as a special envoy and to cultivate ties.
TENSIONS WITH KUWAIT
By the time the ceasefire with Iran was signed in August 1988, Iraq was virtually bankrupt, with most of its debt owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq pressured both nations to forgive the debts, but they refused. Iraq also accused Kuwait of exceeding its OPEC quotas and driving down the price of oil, thus further hurting the Iraqi economy.
The collapse in oil prices had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. The Iraqi Government described it as a form of economic warfare, which it claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into Iraq's Rumaila oil field.
Map of KuwaitThe Iraq-Kuwait dispute also involved Iraqi claims to Kuwait as a territory of Iraq. After gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1932, the Iraqi government immediately declared that Kuwait was rightfully a territory of Iraq, as it had been an Iraqi territory for centuries until the British creation of Kuwait after World War I and thus stated that Kuwait was a British imperialist invention. Iraq claimed Kuwait had been a part of the Ottoman Empire's province of Basra. Its ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to Britain. Britain drew the border between the two countries, and deliberately tried to limit Iraq's access to the ocean so that any future Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten Britain's domination of the Persian Gulf. Iraq refused to accept the border, and did not recognize the Kuwaiti government until 1963.
In early July 1990, Iraq complained about Kuwait's behavior, such as not respecting their quota, and openly threatened to take military action. On the 23rd, the CIA reported that Iraq had moved 30,000 troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border, and the U.S. naval fleet in the Persian Gulf was placed on alert. On the 25th, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, an American ambassador, in Baghdad. According to an Iraqi transcript of that meeting, Glaspie told the Iraqi delegation,
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts."
According to Glaspie's own account, she stated in reference to the precise border between Kuwait and Iraq,
"(...) that she had served in Kuwait 20 years before; then, as now, we took no position on these Arab affairs."
On the 31st, negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah failed violently.
INVASION OF KUWAIT
M-84 main battle tanks of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces
Kuwait Air Force A-4KU SkyhawksOn 2 August 1990 Iraq launched the invasion by bombing Kuwait City, the Kuwaiti capital. In spite of Iraqi saber-rattling, Kuwait did not have its forces on alert, and was caught unaware. Iraqi commandos infiltrated the Kuwaiti border first to prepare for the major units which began the attack at the stroke of midnight. The Iraqi attack had two prongs, with the primary attack force driving south straight for Kuwait City down the main highway, and a supporting attack entering Kuwait farther west, but then turning and driving due east, cutting off the capital city from the southern half of the country. The commander of a Kuwaiti armored battalion, 35th Armoured Brigade, deployed them against the Iraqi attack and was able to conduct a robust defense near Al Jahra (see The Battle of the Bridges), west of Kuwait City.
Kuwait Air Force aircraft scrambled to meet the invading force, but approximately 20% were lost or captured. An air battle with the Iraqi helicopter airborne forces was fought over Kuwait City, inflicting heavy losses on the Iraqi elite troops, and a few combat sorties were flown against Iraqi ground forces.
The main Iraqi thrust into Kuwait City was conducted by commandos deployed by helicopters and boats to attack the city from the sea, while other divisions seized the airports and two airbases. The Iraqis attacked the Dasman Palace, the Royal Residence of the Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, which was defended by the Emiri Guard supported with M-84 tanks. In the process, the Iraqis killed Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait's youngest brother.
After two days of intense combat, most of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces were either overrun by the Iraqi Republican Guard, or had escaped to neighboring Saudi Arabia. The emir and key ministers were able to get out and head south along the highway for refuge in Saudi Arabia. Iraqi ground forces consolidated their control on Kuwait City, then headed south and redeployed along the border of Saudi Arabia. After the decisive Iraqi victory, Saddam Hussein initially installed a puppet regime known as the "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait" before installing his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid as the governor of Kuwait on August 8.
Saddam Hussein detained several Westerners, with video footage shown on state televisionOn 23 August 1990 President Saddam appeared on state television with Western hostages to whom he had refused exit visas. In the video, he patted a small British boy named Stuart Lockwood on the back with his left hand. Saddam then asks, through his interpreter, Sadoun al-Zubaydi, whether Stuart is getting his milk. Saddam went on to say, "We hope your presence as guests here will not be for too long. Your presence here, and in other places, is meant to prevent the scourge of war.
REASONS AND CAMPAIGN FOR INTERVENTION
The United States and the United Nations gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict, the most prominent being the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. In addition, the United States moved to support its ally Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region, and as a key supplier of oil, made it of considerable geopolitical importance. Shortly after the Iraqi invasion, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney made the first of several visits to Saudi Arabia where King Fahd requested US military assistance. During a speech in a special joint session of the U.S. Congress given on 11 September 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush summed up the reasons with the following remarks: "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression."
The Pentagon claimed that satellite photos showing a buildup of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information, but this was later shown to be false. A reporter for the Saint Petersburg Times acquired commercial satellite images made at the time in question, which showed nothing but empty desert.
Gen. Colin Powell (left), Gen. Schwarzkopf, and Paul Wolfowitz (right) listen as Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney addresses reporters regarding the 1991 Gulf War.Other justifications for foreign involvement included Iraq’s history of human rights abuses under President Saddam. Iraq was also known to possess biological weapons and chemical weapons, which Saddam had used against Iranian troops during the Iran–Iraq War and against his own country's Kurdish population in the Al-Anfal Campaign. Iraq was also known to have a nuclear weapons program.
Although there were human rights abuses committed in Kuwait by the invading Iraqi military, the ones best known in the U.S. were inventions of the public relations firm hired by the government of Kuwait to influence U.S. opinion in favor of military intervention. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the organization Citizens for a Free Kuwait was formed in the U.S. It hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for about $11 million, paid by the Kuwaiti government.
Among many other means of influencing U.S. opinion (distributing books on Iraqi atrocities to U.S. soldiers deployed in the region, 'Free Kuwait' T-shirts and speakers to college campuses, and dozens of video news releases to television stations), the firm arranged for an appearance before a group of members of the U.S. Congress in which a woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor.
The story was an influence in tipping both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52-47 vote. A year after the war, however, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The woman who had testified was found to be a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family, in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. She had not been living in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion.
The details of the Hill & Knowlton public relations campaign, including the incubator testimony, were published in a John R. MacArthur's Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press, 1992), and came to wide public attention when an Op-ed by MacArthur was published in the New York Times. This prompted a reexamination by Amnesty International, which had originally promoted an account alleging even greater numbers of babies torn from incubators than the original fake testimony. After finding no evidence to support it, the organization issued a retraction. President George H. W. Bush then repeated the incubator allegations on television.
At the same time, the Iraqi army committed several well-documented crimes during its occupation of Kuwait, such as the summary execution without trial of three brothers after which their bodies were stacked in a pile and left to decay in a public street. Iraqi troops also ransacked and looted private Kuwaiti homes, one residence was repeatedly defecated in.[56] A resident later commented, "The whole thing was violence for the sake of violence, destruction for the sake of destruction... Imagine a surrealistic painting by Salvador Dalí".
THE END OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES
Civilians and coalition military forces wave Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian flags as they celebrate the retreat of Iraqi forces from Kuwait as a result of Operation Desert StormIn Iraqi territory that was occupied by the coalition, a peace conference was held where a ceasefire agreement was negotiated and signed by both sides. At the conference, Iraq was approved to fly armed helicopters on their side of the temporary border, ostensibly for government transit due to the damage done to civilian infrastructure. Soon after, these helicopters and much of the Iraqi armed forces were used to fight a Shi'ite uprising in the south. The rebellions were encouraged by an airing of "The Voice of Free Iraq" on 2 February 1991, which was broadcast from a CIA run radio station out of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic service of the Voice of America supported the uprising by stating that the rebellion was large, and that they soon would be liberated from Saddam.
In the North, Kurdish leaders took American statements that they would support an uprising to heart, and began fighting, hoping to trigger a coup d'état. However, when no American support came, Iraqi generals remained loyal to Saddam and brutally crushed the Kurdish uprising. Millions of Kurds fled across the mountains to Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iran. These events later resulted in no-fly zones being established in both the North and the South of Iraq. In Kuwait, the Emir was restored, and suspected Iraqi collaborators were repressed. Eventually, over 400,000 people were expelled from the country, including a large number of Palestinians, due to PLO support of Saddam Hussein. Yasser Arafat did not apologize for his support of Iraq, but after his death the Fatah under the authority of Abbas would formally apologize in 2004.
There was some criticism of the Bush administration, as they chose to allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power instead of pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed, Bush and Brent Scowcroft argued that such a course would have fractured the alliance, and would have had many unnecessary political and human costs associated with it.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defence during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
After the end of the first Gulf War it was clearly evident that Sadamm Hussein had not only dogged the bullet of the western coalition, but shown that he could survive the onslaught of thirty four countries, when they failed to oust him out of power; and had to restraint themselves by limiting themselves to imposing no-fly zones. Which was a heavy blow to the investment in the effort of regaining complete victory and an severe economic blow to keep Iraq undermined while Sadamm was in power. While in the U.S. the democratic party had lost it ground and corporate America had lost it investors credibility due to the Monica Lewinsky affair. Investor specially Saudia Arabia and representatives of the Palestine issue where looking else where for the resolution of their problems. This was a great threat for the CIA who not only devastated due to spending thousands of dollars on imposing no fly zones but….also was facing an unstoppable battle of the spread of nuclear arms with the only Muslim country Pakistan having achieved its nuclear ambitions.
And the Taliban were a threat to the established institute of Hollywood who sees Taliban as religious fanatic and stigmatized as oppressors of the female.
THE TIPPING POINT
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it no, species would survive.Undermining Pakistan and the Islamic society after it successful nuclear ambition was hard for the U.S and the international community. As Saudia Arabia would seem to have an initiative to stand on its own feet and looking for its own resources to solve the Palestine and Kashmir issue.
Love is hard to believe ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
PRAYER FOR JOURNEY OF LIFE
During the journey of my life it came to my knowledge that if man new how he would be rewarded for his unanswered prayers in the world here after he would have wished that none of his prayers would have been answered in this world. So, to help me in the journey of life and achieve excellence in becoming an honorable believer, I wish and pray for a large family that knows the meaning of sacrifice.
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