Bedouins Ride Again
By Mr. George
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Let’s take a look at our always-lively Iraqi specimens today:
UNICEF Reports : UNICEF warns of worsening state of Iraqi
children
9 April 2003
UNICEF issued a warning today that despite
significant progress in humanitarian cross-border
trucking operations, early attempts by UNICEF to
reach Iraqi children and women were being
significantly hampered by what it called "a
residue of fear and chaos."
Praising the courage of civilian contract drivers
venturing into recently fought-over towns and
cities to deliver aid, the UNICEF Executive
Director Carol Bellamy said that all forces which
controlled territory were also obliged to provide
secure access to civilian populations.
"When UNICEF talks about access, we mean ensuring
that humanitarian aid reaches the children and
women who need it most," said Bellamy. "That means
that we have to be able to physically get to a
town, get to those who most urgently need aid and
deliver it in a way that ensures it's being used
by those weakened and besieged by thirst, fear and
hunger. Although we're beginning to reach many
places, we're encountering a residue of fear and
chaos."
In the months prior to the outbreak of the war in
Iraq, UNICEF positioned thousands of tonnes of
life-saving supplies both inside the country, and
in neighbouring countries, in readiness for a
rapid emergency distribution to Iraqis. These
included high-protein biscuits for malnourished
children, therapeutic milk, water purification
tablets and essential medicines.
In recent days, as the trucking operation to
replenish water supplies in southern Iraq has
gained momentum, UNICEF drivers have reported
large-scale looting of schools and government
facilities, in areas through which coalition
forces have passed.
"Even conflicts are guided by rules and
humanitarian conventions. It is the responsibility
of those who retain effective control of a
territory to ensure that there is order and that
there is secure access for the delivery of
life-saving humanitarian aid," said Bellamy.
The UNICEF Representative to Iraq, Mr. Carel de
Rooy, said that the humanitarian picture being
flashed across television screens is stark, dire
and worrying.
"Before this conflict took place, UNICEF had
networks and systems inside Iraq that helped us
achieve our life-saving vaccination campaigns,
nutrition campaigns and work in education," said
De Rooy. "What is horribly worrying about the
looting, chaos and breakdown of order is that
those systems we counted on, may completely
disappear or collapse."
De Rooy added that as of the beginning of this
week, the UNICEF Iraq appeal has received just
one-fifth of its funding.
"This is obviously, and simply, not enough. We
have an emergency on our hands now," he said. "Our
actions in the next few weeks will determine the
physical and mental well-being of a generation of
Iraqi children."
Further information:
Wivina Belmonte, UNICEF Iraq (in Amman): (962 79)
504 2058
Anis Salem, UNICEF Middle East North Africa : (962
79) 557 9991; Damien Personnaz, UNICEF Media,
Geneva: (41-22) 909-5517; Gordon Weiss, UNICEF
Media, New York: (1-212) 326-7426
For interviews in the region, write directly to
the UNICEF NewsDesk in Amman: iraqichild@unicef.org
UNICEF: Iraq survey finds child health sliding
UNICEF finds that acute malnutrition has doubled
in past year
BAGHDAD / GENEVA / NEW YORK, 14 May 2003 – Two
months after the start of the Iraq war, UNICEF has
called for urgent action to halt what it believes
is the plummeting nutritional status of Iraqi
children.
UNICEF today released troubling findings from a
rapid nutrition assessment undertaken in Baghdad,
which has found that acute malnutrition rates in
children under five have nearly doubled since a
previous survey in February 2002.
“We can assume that the situation is as bad if
not much worse in other urban centres throughout
Iraq,� said the UNICEF Representative in Iraq,
Carel De Rooy. “We knew going into the war that
Iraqi children were poorly nourished. These
findings make clear that not enough is being done
to turn the situation around. Instead it has
gotten worse.�
The UNICEF rapid nutrition assessment was confined
to Baghdad because of general insecurity
throughout the country. Nevertheless, it shows
that 7.7 per cent of children under age five are
suffering from acute malnutrition, compared with
last year’s figure of 4 per cent. Acute
malnutrition signifies that a child is actually
wasting away.
Rapid assessments are used by humanitarian
agencies in the immediate aftermath of
emergencies. Although the samples they are based
on are limited, they are considered sufficiently
reliable to guide an initial aid response.
UNICEF says that unsafe water from disrupted water
services may be playing a significant role in the
findings. Poor water quality is largely to blame
for a rapid increase in cases of diarrhoea among
children in recent weeks.
Speaking from Baghdad, UNICEF Health and Nutrition
Officer Dr. Wisam Al-Timini said that the survey
found that more than 1 in 10 children were in need
of treatment for dehydration.
“This suggests exactly what we know: Poor water
and sanitation leads to diarrhoea, and then to
dehydration and malnutrition. These children need
treatment to stop their bodies from wasting
because of an inability to retain vitamins and
nutrients from ordinary foods. Those severely
malnourished who do not get treatment are at very
high risk of dying.�
Hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage are
pumped into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers every
day. Because most Iraqis obtain their drinking
water from these rivers, the water must first pass
through treatment plants, of which there are more
than 1,000 across Iraq.
However, looters have stripped bare many water
plants, including even heavy machinery, rendering
them useless. Supplies of water cleaning chemicals
have been stolen or destroyed. Looters are
piercing water pipes for commercial use,
destroying the pressure needed to supply large
urban areas. As a result, the quality of water
being pumped into homes is extremely poor –
leading to illness and wasting among children.
“Nearly three quarters of the children surveyed
in Baghdad in the assessment had at least one bout
of diarrhoea over the previous month,� said
Al-Timini. “If we compare these results with
earlier findings, we note that children who have
generally grown over the past few years because of
improved nutrition have suddenly and dramatically
wasted. This coincides with war and the breakdown
of social services. It’s not conclusive, but it
suggests that the shift of children into the
acutely malnourished category is recent.�
Two weeks ago, UNICEF warned of an approaching
health crisis because of the loss of stockpiles of
chlorine, and the approach of the dry season
during which water-borne diseases increase in
Iraq. War, the looting of hospitals, the
disruption of the health system, the breakdown of
water services, and a state of insecurity that has
made relief deliveries difficult and has left
looters largely unhindered, have all been
contributing factors.
A tragic corollary to the breakdown of water
services has been the increase in children being
killed and wounded in the south by explosives. The
shortage of fuel to boil water has led children to
scavenge for firewood among ammunition crates
stored in hundreds of depots.
UNICEF’s Response
UNICEF is trucking more than 2 million litres of
clean water into Iraq each day, and importing
supplies of chlorine gas and tablets. Community
water stations have been set up at hospitals and
health stations across the country, and UNICEF is
collaborating with NGOs to detect and treat
malnutrition in order to prevent child mortality.
Supplies of therapeutic milk and high protein
biscuits have been trucked and flown into the
country. Teams have made emergency repairs to
pumping stations, but UNICEF says there is a limit
to what can be done as looting continues on a
daily basis.
“We know the risks that Iraq’s children face,
and we know what to do,� said De Rooy. “But we
are humanitarian workers, not police. Secure aid
delivery equals effective aid delivery. Weeks
later, we are still calling on somebody to deliver
that security.�
***
UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary
contributions of individuals, foundations,
businesses, and governments. Contributions to
UNICEF's ongoing support for Iraq children can be
made at http://www.supportunicef.org/
For further information please contact us:.
Geoffrey Keele, UNICEF Iraq (Amman), Mob.:
(00962-79 692 6191)
Rawhi Abeidoh, UNICEF Newsdesk, (Amman), Mob.:
(00962-79 504 2058)
Anis Salem, UNICEF - Regional Office, Jordan,
Mob.: (00962-79 557 9991)
Damien Personnaz, UNICEF Media, Geneva: (4122)
909-5517
Alfred Ironside, UNICEF Media, New York: (212)
326-7261
For interviews in the region, write or call
directly to the UNICEF NewsDesk in Amman:
(962-79) 50 422 058
iraqichild@unicef.org
So what happened to all those UN Supplies then?
THE IRAQIS STOLE THEM FOR RE-SALE ON THE BLACK MARKET!
The Iraqis are heavily BEDOUINS – BEDOINS ARE TRADITIONALLY THIEVES, DRUG SMUGGLERS. TWO-BIT CROOKS AND MURDERERS (Remember “Alli Baba and the Forty Thieves”?)
But these CREATURES DO NOT CARE – THEY FORNICATE ALL DAY AND NIGHT AND PRODUCE SO MANY KIDS THEY ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD SUPPLY OF SOME MORE!
(And when the girls are too tired they sodomize the young boys!)
SO THEY COULD CARE LESS HOW MANY CHILDREN DIE!
THEY DO NOT EVEN BOTHER TO CARE OF THEIR OWN KIDS ANYWAY!
THE FIRST WE HAVE TO DO IS TO CASTRATE ALL IRAQI MALES TO PUT AN END TO THIS TRAVESTY!
Let’s round these guys up and then SEND ‘EM ALL BACK TO HELL!
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Palestinians ¡§Deeply Disturbed¡¨? YOU BET!
By Mr.George
Saturday, June 21, 2003
From Gulf News:
Palestinian children in occupied areas 'deeply disturbed'
London |By Mustapha Karkouti | 18-10-2002
A recent study on the mental condition of
Palestinian children living under Israeli
occupation reveals a rapid increase in the
number of those suffering from acute
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The study, conducted by the internationally
respected Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
(GCMHP) found that 54.6 per cent of Palestinian
children living in the area that were bombarded
or shelled started to developed acute cases of
PTSD symptoms.
To commemorate International Mental Health Day:
Save Childhood in Palestine, GCMHP's chairman,
Dr Eyad El Sarraj, told Gulf News that
Palestinian children are enduring unprecedented
suffering.
He said: "Between September 2000 and August
2002, brutal Israeli violence and occupation
have led to the deaths of approximately 322
children and the injuring of more than 7,000."
Daily violence, bombardment, home demolitions
and death "are some of the traumatic events
which constantly affect all aspects of
children's lives, including their mental
well-being," Dr El Sarraj said.
Additionally, the GCMHP study found that 13.3
per cent of children are suffering from =
„h sleeping disorders
„h hyperactivity
„h speech disorders
„h lack of concentration and
„h aggressive behaviour.
"Furthermore, 36 per cent of the children living
in areas of clashes and bombardment suffer from
bedwetting," the survey discovered.
"Alongside the psychological suffering, the
two-year closure on the Palestinian areas has
affected children's physical well-being, as
about 45 per cent of these children are
suffering from acute malnutrition."
Commenting on its findings, the survey said the
continuation of "the current Israeli occupation
and its brutal nature of humiliation and
destruction throughout Gaza and the West Bank,
is the root of the evil."
It warned that children "who were traumatised
during the first Intifada (1987-1993) by the
Israeli military are today's suicide bombers,
killing themselves and Israeli civilians,
including children: thus completing the cycle of
violence."
Dr El Sarraj, known for his integrity and
independent thinking, said that since "peace in
the Middle East is one of the cornerstones of
world peace, instability in the region will
spread to the rest of the world. The current
situation breeds hatred, vengeance and violence."
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=65998
Arafart also suffers from bedwetting and many Palestinian adults must also wear ¡¥safety¡¦ shields (Diapers) under their robes.
Now if we studiously examine the conduct of PLA ¡§negotiators¡¨ it is easy to see the presence of:
„h sleeping disorders
„h hyperactivity
„h speech disorders
„h lack of concentration and
„h aggressive behaviour.
WATCH THEM CAREFULLY! Sad, but this is true of MANY ADULTS IN ¡§PALESTINE¡¨ AS WELL.
I work with poor black children in the Ghetto that demonstrate many of these same problems ¡V we refer to these students as ¡§Special Education¡¨ children who require personalized instruction and care. But since the PLO and most Arab countries SPEND SO MANY BILLIONS ON ARMS, GUNS, BOMBS and WMD¡¦S (mostly to protect themselves from OTHER ARABS!) they HAVE NO MONEY FOR THEIR CHILDREN!
In the last 4 years THREE BILLION DOLLARS WAS GIVEN TO THE PLA to help ameliorate these awful health conditions ¡V AND IT ALL DISSAPEARED INTO THE POCKETS OF ARAFART AND HIS THIEVES!
THESE CREATUTERS SPEND BILLIONS TO ¡¥KILL THE INFIDEL¡¦ BUT ARE TOO DAMN CHEAP TO HELP THEIR OWN SUFFERING CHILDREN!
So what happens to these poor kids?
This short piece provides a partial answer: THEY GROW UP TO BE HOMICIDE BOMBERS!
But that is an over-simplification for it only deals with a miniscule part of the population ¡V what about the rest of them?
THEY GROW UP TO BE FIRST CLASS PSYCHOS!
And these are those ¡§Palestinians¡¨ ¡V A BUNCH OF LOONEY TUNES!
Study these creatures and you will find out for yourself.
Wait ¡V there¡¦s MORE:
Crisis in occupied Palestinian Territories
1 May 2002
humanitarian relief work in the Palestinian
Territories.
At a glance
The humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and
Gaza continues. The withdrawal of the Israeli
Defense Forces to the edges of cities has not
brought an end to the problems of thousands of
Palestinians. Damage as a result of the
incursions has encompassed the destruction of
roads, electricity and water infrastructure.
Palestinian Authority ministries in Ramallah,
government facilities in towns, and a range of
NGO clinics, offices and schools have also been
badly damaged. According to the World Bank,
estimates of the damage incurred are in the
range of $2 billion.
Inhabitants in the affected areas are in need of
protection, as well as food, water, shelter, and
medical supplies. Hundreds of houses have been
destroyed or so badly damaged that they cannot
be inhabited, especially in the Old City of
Nablus, and Jenin Camp. Closures mean that
people cannot work and have left the economy in
ruins. Many parts of these towns are also
without electricity or fresh food. There are
continuing bread shortages in Gaza, and Jenin
reportedly has enough flour to last just a few
more days. Serious water and sanitation issues
at the sources have been compromised and there
is a strong likelihood of cross pollution from
uncollected waste.
Continuing closures in the West Bank mean that
200 checkpoints still operate and the towns of
the Northern West Bank are effectively isolated
from one another. Periodic repeated incursions
such as in Tulkarem and Hebron, continue to
occur.
Key issues for children
In many areas children have no access to clean
water - there is a risk of disease from the
amount of waste still uncollected.
Many schools have been damaged and those that
can re-open often have no teachers because they
are unable to access the schools.
Since the incursions, over 2,000 children have
reportedly been born without medical attention.
Children have to come to terms with the
consequences of three weeks of terror, isolation
and uncertainty.
Poor families and their children have no
economic resources left and the possibilities of
economic recovery while the closures are in
force are minimal.
Save the Children's Response
ECHO has released 150,000 EURO to Save the
Children to deliver supplies of food, water, and
medicines to Jenin. Save the Children is still
awaiting access to the interior of the town so
that it can provide humanitarian aid unhindered.
Save the Children is working with the Food
Crisis Group to assess the impact of the
incursions on the food security of vulnerable
homes and to design new ways of targeting food
aid in the event of further incursions. Save the
Children will work with partners to repair
damages to water networks in the villages of the
southern and northern West Bank. Save the
Children will work with the Ministry of
Education and partners to provide children with
extracurricular activities to help them recover
from the impact of the fear and uncertainty of
the last few weeks.
Save the Children has called upon the
international community to ensure respect for
the survival, protection and care of children
affected by armed conflict. Save the Children
urges that the following measures be taken:
free, safe and unrestricted access for
humanitarian organisations, the deployment of
international human rights observers to the West
Bank and Gaza strip to ensure the respect of
children's rights by all parties; an end to the
current incursions and a concerted effort to
establish a just and lasting peace in the area.
Save the Children UK's presence in the Middle
East dates back to 1949 when it provided health
services to Palestinian refugees sheltering in
camps in northern Lebanon. Save the Children's
work in the West Bank and Gaza started in the
mid-1980s, when it provided water, sanitation,
and environmental health services to poor
communities. Save the Children has also been
working for many years in non-formal education
with young Palestinians within four refugee
camps in south and north Lebanon.
Visit our Eye-to-Eye website which allows
Palestinian children, who are isolated within
refugee camps to communicate with the outside
world.
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/emer_updates/palestine.html
So there you have the TRUTH ¡V the Arabs can FORNICATE LIKE DEMONS TO BRING MILLIONS OF KIDS INTO THE WORLD BUT THEY DON¡¦T EVEN CARE FOR THEIR OWN CHILDREN!
„h Their ¡§Islamic Charities¡¨ (LIKE THE MUSLIM WORLD LEAGUE) are TOO DAMN BUSY GIVING MILLIONS TO THE TERRORISTS TO HELP THESE KIDS!
„h The ¡§Princes¡¨ in Saudi Arabia with THEIR BILLIONS ARE TOO WORRIED ABOUT WHISKY, PORN and PROSTITUTES (mostly MALE!) to HELP THEIR ¡§ARAB BROTHERS¡¨!
„h The ¡§Emirs¡¨ in the GCC States are TOO WORRIED ABOUT THEIR NEW LIMOS AND THE OIL MARKET TO HELP OUT WITH A FEW BUCKS!
„h The ¡§Gay Clerics¡¨ in Iran are TOO WORRIED ABOUT THEIR OIL PROFITS AND SUPRESSING FREE SPEECH AND PRESS TO BE CONCERNED!
„h The IDIOTIC ¡§Islamic Terror¡¨ Groups like HAMAS and HIZBULLAH ARE TOO OCCUPIED MAKING BOMBS AND PLANNING ¡§JIHAD¡¨ TO BE CONCERNED!
„h The list goes on and on and¡K.
BUT THESE CHEEZY BUMS BLAME IT ON EVERYONE ELSE!
THESE ARE A BUNCH OF ROTTEN NO GOOD BASTARDS!
THESE FOLKS MERIT AN ¡V
ETERNITY IN HELL!!
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
By Mr.George
Saturday, June 21, 2003
From Gulf News:
Palestinian children in occupied areas 'deeply disturbed'
London |By Mustapha Karkouti | 18-10-2002
A recent study on the mental condition of
Palestinian children living under Israeli
occupation reveals a rapid increase in the
number of those suffering from acute
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The study, conducted by the internationally
respected Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
(GCMHP) found that 54.6 per cent of Palestinian
children living in the area that were bombarded
or shelled started to developed acute cases of
PTSD symptoms.
To commemorate International Mental Health Day:
Save Childhood in Palestine, GCMHP's chairman,
Dr Eyad El Sarraj, told Gulf News that
Palestinian children are enduring unprecedented
suffering.
He said: "Between September 2000 and August
2002, brutal Israeli violence and occupation
have led to the deaths of approximately 322
children and the injuring of more than 7,000."
Daily violence, bombardment, home demolitions
and death "are some of the traumatic events
which constantly affect all aspects of
children's lives, including their mental
well-being," Dr El Sarraj said.
Additionally, the GCMHP study found that 13.3
per cent of children are suffering from =
„h sleeping disorders
„h hyperactivity
„h speech disorders
„h lack of concentration and
„h aggressive behaviour.
"Furthermore, 36 per cent of the children living
in areas of clashes and bombardment suffer from
bedwetting," the survey discovered.
"Alongside the psychological suffering, the
two-year closure on the Palestinian areas has
affected children's physical well-being, as
about 45 per cent of these children are
suffering from acute malnutrition."
Commenting on its findings, the survey said the
continuation of "the current Israeli occupation
and its brutal nature of humiliation and
destruction throughout Gaza and the West Bank,
is the root of the evil."
It warned that children "who were traumatised
during the first Intifada (1987-1993) by the
Israeli military are today's suicide bombers,
killing themselves and Israeli civilians,
including children: thus completing the cycle of
violence."
Dr El Sarraj, known for his integrity and
independent thinking, said that since "peace in
the Middle East is one of the cornerstones of
world peace, instability in the region will
spread to the rest of the world. The current
situation breeds hatred, vengeance and violence."
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=65998
Arafart also suffers from bedwetting and many Palestinian adults must also wear ¡¥safety¡¦ shields (Diapers) under their robes.
Now if we studiously examine the conduct of PLA ¡§negotiators¡¨ it is easy to see the presence of:
„h sleeping disorders
„h hyperactivity
„h speech disorders
„h lack of concentration and
„h aggressive behaviour.
WATCH THEM CAREFULLY! Sad, but this is true of MANY ADULTS IN ¡§PALESTINE¡¨ AS WELL.
I work with poor black children in the Ghetto that demonstrate many of these same problems ¡V we refer to these students as ¡§Special Education¡¨ children who require personalized instruction and care. But since the PLO and most Arab countries SPEND SO MANY BILLIONS ON ARMS, GUNS, BOMBS and WMD¡¦S (mostly to protect themselves from OTHER ARABS!) they HAVE NO MONEY FOR THEIR CHILDREN!
In the last 4 years THREE BILLION DOLLARS WAS GIVEN TO THE PLA to help ameliorate these awful health conditions ¡V AND IT ALL DISSAPEARED INTO THE POCKETS OF ARAFART AND HIS THIEVES!
THESE CREATUTERS SPEND BILLIONS TO ¡¥KILL THE INFIDEL¡¦ BUT ARE TOO DAMN CHEAP TO HELP THEIR OWN SUFFERING CHILDREN!
So what happens to these poor kids?
This short piece provides a partial answer: THEY GROW UP TO BE HOMICIDE BOMBERS!
But that is an over-simplification for it only deals with a miniscule part of the population ¡V what about the rest of them?
THEY GROW UP TO BE FIRST CLASS PSYCHOS!
And these are those ¡§Palestinians¡¨ ¡V A BUNCH OF LOONEY TUNES!
Study these creatures and you will find out for yourself.
Wait ¡V there¡¦s MORE:
Crisis in occupied Palestinian Territories
1 May 2002
humanitarian relief work in the Palestinian
Territories.
At a glance
The humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and
Gaza continues. The withdrawal of the Israeli
Defense Forces to the edges of cities has not
brought an end to the problems of thousands of
Palestinians. Damage as a result of the
incursions has encompassed the destruction of
roads, electricity and water infrastructure.
Palestinian Authority ministries in Ramallah,
government facilities in towns, and a range of
NGO clinics, offices and schools have also been
badly damaged. According to the World Bank,
estimates of the damage incurred are in the
range of $2 billion.
Inhabitants in the affected areas are in need of
protection, as well as food, water, shelter, and
medical supplies. Hundreds of houses have been
destroyed or so badly damaged that they cannot
be inhabited, especially in the Old City of
Nablus, and Jenin Camp. Closures mean that
people cannot work and have left the economy in
ruins. Many parts of these towns are also
without electricity or fresh food. There are
continuing bread shortages in Gaza, and Jenin
reportedly has enough flour to last just a few
more days. Serious water and sanitation issues
at the sources have been compromised and there
is a strong likelihood of cross pollution from
uncollected waste.
Continuing closures in the West Bank mean that
200 checkpoints still operate and the towns of
the Northern West Bank are effectively isolated
from one another. Periodic repeated incursions
such as in Tulkarem and Hebron, continue to
occur.
Key issues for children
In many areas children have no access to clean
water - there is a risk of disease from the
amount of waste still uncollected.
Many schools have been damaged and those that
can re-open often have no teachers because they
are unable to access the schools.
Since the incursions, over 2,000 children have
reportedly been born without medical attention.
Children have to come to terms with the
consequences of three weeks of terror, isolation
and uncertainty.
Poor families and their children have no
economic resources left and the possibilities of
economic recovery while the closures are in
force are minimal.
Save the Children's Response
ECHO has released 150,000 EURO to Save the
Children to deliver supplies of food, water, and
medicines to Jenin. Save the Children is still
awaiting access to the interior of the town so
that it can provide humanitarian aid unhindered.
Save the Children is working with the Food
Crisis Group to assess the impact of the
incursions on the food security of vulnerable
homes and to design new ways of targeting food
aid in the event of further incursions. Save the
Children will work with partners to repair
damages to water networks in the villages of the
southern and northern West Bank. Save the
Children will work with the Ministry of
Education and partners to provide children with
extracurricular activities to help them recover
from the impact of the fear and uncertainty of
the last few weeks.
Save the Children has called upon the
international community to ensure respect for
the survival, protection and care of children
affected by armed conflict. Save the Children
urges that the following measures be taken:
free, safe and unrestricted access for
humanitarian organisations, the deployment of
international human rights observers to the West
Bank and Gaza strip to ensure the respect of
children's rights by all parties; an end to the
current incursions and a concerted effort to
establish a just and lasting peace in the area.
Save the Children UK's presence in the Middle
East dates back to 1949 when it provided health
services to Palestinian refugees sheltering in
camps in northern Lebanon. Save the Children's
work in the West Bank and Gaza started in the
mid-1980s, when it provided water, sanitation,
and environmental health services to poor
communities. Save the Children has also been
working for many years in non-formal education
with young Palestinians within four refugee
camps in south and north Lebanon.
Visit our Eye-to-Eye website which allows
Palestinian children, who are isolated within
refugee camps to communicate with the outside
world.
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/emer_updates/palestine.html
So there you have the TRUTH ¡V the Arabs can FORNICATE LIKE DEMONS TO BRING MILLIONS OF KIDS INTO THE WORLD BUT THEY DON¡¦T EVEN CARE FOR THEIR OWN CHILDREN!
„h Their ¡§Islamic Charities¡¨ (LIKE THE MUSLIM WORLD LEAGUE) are TOO DAMN BUSY GIVING MILLIONS TO THE TERRORISTS TO HELP THESE KIDS!
„h The ¡§Princes¡¨ in Saudi Arabia with THEIR BILLIONS ARE TOO WORRIED ABOUT WHISKY, PORN and PROSTITUTES (mostly MALE!) to HELP THEIR ¡§ARAB BROTHERS¡¨!
„h The ¡§Emirs¡¨ in the GCC States are TOO WORRIED ABOUT THEIR NEW LIMOS AND THE OIL MARKET TO HELP OUT WITH A FEW BUCKS!
„h The ¡§Gay Clerics¡¨ in Iran are TOO WORRIED ABOUT THEIR OIL PROFITS AND SUPRESSING FREE SPEECH AND PRESS TO BE CONCERNED!
„h The IDIOTIC ¡§Islamic Terror¡¨ Groups like HAMAS and HIZBULLAH ARE TOO OCCUPIED MAKING BOMBS AND PLANNING ¡§JIHAD¡¨ TO BE CONCERNED!
„h The list goes on and on and¡K.
BUT THESE CHEEZY BUMS BLAME IT ON EVERYONE ELSE!
THESE ARE A BUNCH OF ROTTEN NO GOOD BASTARDS!
THESE FOLKS MERIT AN ¡V
ETERNITY IN HELL!!
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
Mental Illness and the Middle East
By Mr. George
Sunday, June 22, 2003
As promised here are some of the mental conditions seen daily amongst our Arab associates:
Firstly the most obvious seen daily:
Bi-Polar Disorder
What Is Bi-Polar Disorder? (Manic Depression)
What is Manic Depression?
Manic depression involves wide mood alterations, with periods of both depression and mania. A person experiencing depression or mania may have intense mood swings and consequent changes in thinking and behaviour. The term that is professionally used for this illness is Bipolar Affective Disorder. Bipolar means sharing two poles (high and low) and Affective Disorder means a disorder having to do with mood.
What Causes Manic Depression and Who Are The People At Risk?
The cause is not known. Any person can develop manic depression, however, studies indicate that highly creative, sensitive people, people tending to be perfectionists and high achievers, have a higher incidence of bipolar affective disorder. Although biological factors seem to play a major role in producing the illness, a person's personality make up and or stresses in the environment may
also play a part in bringing on an acute episode.
How Many People Are Affected and What Are The Symptoms?
It is estimated that 1% of the population will have a manic depressive illness.
Environmental factors such as death, separation and divorce may trigger the disorder. The illness manifests itself with the individual experiencing episodes of mania or elation followed by low mood or depression. The number of manic and depressive episodes varies greatly from person to person and most individuals experience "normal" periods between their manic and depressive episodes.
Manic depression can send a person plunging from a high state, where one may believe one has superhuman energy and abilities, into a pit of despair, where it may seem as if the only way out is suicide. In fact, however, there are very effective treatments available. The symptoms of depression and mania are described separately:
Depressive state:
The chief symptom is a sad, despairing mood, which may be
accompanied by some or all of the following, depending on
the severity of the illness:
-lack of energy
-sleep problems where a person may sleep too much or too little
-loss of interest in work, family and friends
-change in eating habits
-preoccupation with failures and inadequacies
-loss of self-esteem
-feelings of guilt
-excessive concern about physical complaints
-decreased sexual drive
-crying easily, suicidal and occasional homicidal thoughts
Manic State: A person feels total "euphoria" and strength.
However, in the early stages of the illness, the person may appear
to be more sociable, active, talkative, self-confident, perceptive,
and creative than usual. As his/her mood elevates, he or she may
experience some or all of the following:
-increased stength and energy, decreased sleep
-extreme irritability
-rapid, unpredictable emotional changes
-racing thoughts, flight of ideas
-increased interest in activities, overspending
-grandiosity, inflated self-esteem
-increased sexual drive
-poor judgment
What Are The Treatments?
There is no real cure for manic depression at present, but through the use of monitored medication programs it is possible to smooth out and reduce the frequency of the highs and the lows, and in some cases episodes may be altogether prevented. Some factors that determine the type of treatment care the nature of the symptoms and also the number of previous episodes, severity and duration of the illness and previous response to treatments. Counselling and therapy can be helpful. Self help support groups can be very beneficial.
Whatever the recommended treatment, it is important to be informed. If you are not certain about treatment, ask questions.
Where Can I Go For Help?
Remember you are not alone. Reaching out for help and knowing where to go for positive support can help to make a person recover from their negative state of crisis. You may want to contact your family doctor, local branch (in Canada) of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the Depressive and Manic Depressive Association of Ontario (Canada), Tel. (416) 481-5413
And more information from the Mayo Clinic:
Causes
Doctors and researchers don't know exactly what causes bipolar disorder. But a variety of biologic, genetic and environmental factors seem to be involved in causing and triggering episodes of
the illness.
Evidence indicates that differences in the chemical messengers
between nerve cells in the brain (neurotransmitters) occur in people who have bipolar disorder. In many cases people with bipolar disorder may have a genetic disposition for the disorder. The abnormality may be in genes that regulate neurotransmitters.
Factors that may contribute to or trigger episodes of bipolar
disorder include drug abuse and stressful or psychologically
traumatic events.
Risk Factors
Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. A family history appears to exist in about 60 percent of cases of bipolar disorder.
Researchers are attempting to identify genes that may make people
susceptible to bipolar disorder.
Signs and Symptoms
Bipolar disorder is characterized by an alternating pattern of
emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression). The intensity of the signs and symptoms varies. Bipolar disorder can range from a mild condition to a severe condition.
For many people, the manic signs and symptoms include:
„h Feelings of euphoria, extreme optimism and inflated self-esteem
„h Rapid speech, racing thoughts, agitation and increased physical activity
„h Poor judgment and recklessness
„h Difficulty sleeping
„h Tendency to be easily distracted
„h Inability to concentrate
„h Extreme irritability
In the depression phase, signs and symptoms include:
„h Persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt or hopelessness
„h Disturbances in sleep and appetite
„h Fatigue and loss of interest in your daily activities
„h Difficulty in concentrating
„h Recurring thoughts of suicide
„h Depression
Causes
Doctors and researchers don't know exactly what causes bipolar
disorder. But a variety of biologic, genetic and environmental
factors seem to be involved in causing and triggering episodes of
the illness.
Evidence indicates that differences in the chemical messengers
between nerve cells in the brain (neurotransmitters) occur in people who have bipolar disorder. In many cases people with bipolar disorder may have a genetic disposition for the disorder. The abnormality may be in genes that regulate neurotransmitters.
Factors that may contribute to or trigger episodes of bipolar
disorder include drug abuse and stressful or psychologically
traumatic events.
Risk Factors
Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. A family history appears to exist in about 60 percent of cases of bipolar disorder.
Researchers are attempting to identify genes that may make people
susceptible to bipolar disorder.
When to Seek Medical Advice
People with bipolar disorder often don't recognize how impaired they are when experiencing a mood episode and how greatly the disorder is affecting their lives and the lives of others. Friends, family and primary care physicians are important in recognizing possible signs of bipolar disorder and urging the person to seek professional help.
If a family member or friend shows the apparent signs of bipolar
disorder, encourage that person to seek the care of psychiatrist.
Now I understand that this is pretty advanced stuff for a region that is still worried about Measles and Polio but the WAR ON TERROR has made it painfully obvious that MILLIONS (if not hundreds of Millions) are suffering from these mental disorders to one degree or another.
The CRIMINALLY INSANE folks in Hamas and al-Qaeda are beyond all hope ¡V they must either be put out of their misery or STUDIED UNDER CAREFUL LABORATORY CONDITIONS (but It would also be a LOT OF FUN to put some in the zoo ¡V if you can talk the lowland gorillas into it!) to further scientific knowledge of this new and unusual anthropoid species which I suspect may be a GENUINE recurrence of the Neanderthals.
The evidence of WIDE-SPREAD MENTAL DISORDERS amongst our Asian neighbors can NO LONGER BE IGNORED ¡V as it has for so many centuries.
I don¡¦t know how we can help these folks but I DO KNOW that many of them are very sick and need real aid.
Along with food, medicine, education AND DEODERANT we also WILL NEED MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF ANTI-DEPRESSANT DRUGS (Prozac, Thorazine, Lithium, etc) for these sad folks and may have to also BUILD THOUSANDS OF MENTAL HOSPITALS to help them beyond this.
THIS IS NO JOKE ¡V I HAVE FRIENDS WITH BI-POLAR DISORDER ¡V and when taking their medication, and with proper therapy they can be productive and useful citizens and many can even LEAVE THE HOSPITAL and live on their own after sufficient therapy and with proper medication. Without their psychiatrists and meds, however ¡V they are FIRST CLASS WHACKOS and can often be dangerous to themselves and others.
But how are we going to do this for the many Millions in Asia?
BI-Polar Disorders are amongst the other depressive conditions ¡V mas manana.
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
By Mr. George
Sunday, June 22, 2003
As promised here are some of the mental conditions seen daily amongst our Arab associates:
Firstly the most obvious seen daily:
Bi-Polar Disorder
What Is Bi-Polar Disorder? (Manic Depression)
What is Manic Depression?
Manic depression involves wide mood alterations, with periods of both depression and mania. A person experiencing depression or mania may have intense mood swings and consequent changes in thinking and behaviour. The term that is professionally used for this illness is Bipolar Affective Disorder. Bipolar means sharing two poles (high and low) and Affective Disorder means a disorder having to do with mood.
What Causes Manic Depression and Who Are The People At Risk?
The cause is not known. Any person can develop manic depression, however, studies indicate that highly creative, sensitive people, people tending to be perfectionists and high achievers, have a higher incidence of bipolar affective disorder. Although biological factors seem to play a major role in producing the illness, a person's personality make up and or stresses in the environment may
also play a part in bringing on an acute episode.
How Many People Are Affected and What Are The Symptoms?
It is estimated that 1% of the population will have a manic depressive illness.
Environmental factors such as death, separation and divorce may trigger the disorder. The illness manifests itself with the individual experiencing episodes of mania or elation followed by low mood or depression. The number of manic and depressive episodes varies greatly from person to person and most individuals experience "normal" periods between their manic and depressive episodes.
Manic depression can send a person plunging from a high state, where one may believe one has superhuman energy and abilities, into a pit of despair, where it may seem as if the only way out is suicide. In fact, however, there are very effective treatments available. The symptoms of depression and mania are described separately:
Depressive state:
The chief symptom is a sad, despairing mood, which may be
accompanied by some or all of the following, depending on
the severity of the illness:
-lack of energy
-sleep problems where a person may sleep too much or too little
-loss of interest in work, family and friends
-change in eating habits
-preoccupation with failures and inadequacies
-loss of self-esteem
-feelings of guilt
-excessive concern about physical complaints
-decreased sexual drive
-crying easily, suicidal and occasional homicidal thoughts
Manic State: A person feels total "euphoria" and strength.
However, in the early stages of the illness, the person may appear
to be more sociable, active, talkative, self-confident, perceptive,
and creative than usual. As his/her mood elevates, he or she may
experience some or all of the following:
-increased stength and energy, decreased sleep
-extreme irritability
-rapid, unpredictable emotional changes
-racing thoughts, flight of ideas
-increased interest in activities, overspending
-grandiosity, inflated self-esteem
-increased sexual drive
-poor judgment
What Are The Treatments?
There is no real cure for manic depression at present, but through the use of monitored medication programs it is possible to smooth out and reduce the frequency of the highs and the lows, and in some cases episodes may be altogether prevented. Some factors that determine the type of treatment care the nature of the symptoms and also the number of previous episodes, severity and duration of the illness and previous response to treatments. Counselling and therapy can be helpful. Self help support groups can be very beneficial.
Whatever the recommended treatment, it is important to be informed. If you are not certain about treatment, ask questions.
Where Can I Go For Help?
Remember you are not alone. Reaching out for help and knowing where to go for positive support can help to make a person recover from their negative state of crisis. You may want to contact your family doctor, local branch (in Canada) of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the Depressive and Manic Depressive Association of Ontario (Canada), Tel. (416) 481-5413
And more information from the Mayo Clinic:
Causes
Doctors and researchers don't know exactly what causes bipolar disorder. But a variety of biologic, genetic and environmental factors seem to be involved in causing and triggering episodes of
the illness.
Evidence indicates that differences in the chemical messengers
between nerve cells in the brain (neurotransmitters) occur in people who have bipolar disorder. In many cases people with bipolar disorder may have a genetic disposition for the disorder. The abnormality may be in genes that regulate neurotransmitters.
Factors that may contribute to or trigger episodes of bipolar
disorder include drug abuse and stressful or psychologically
traumatic events.
Risk Factors
Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. A family history appears to exist in about 60 percent of cases of bipolar disorder.
Researchers are attempting to identify genes that may make people
susceptible to bipolar disorder.
Signs and Symptoms
Bipolar disorder is characterized by an alternating pattern of
emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression). The intensity of the signs and symptoms varies. Bipolar disorder can range from a mild condition to a severe condition.
For many people, the manic signs and symptoms include:
„h Feelings of euphoria, extreme optimism and inflated self-esteem
„h Rapid speech, racing thoughts, agitation and increased physical activity
„h Poor judgment and recklessness
„h Difficulty sleeping
„h Tendency to be easily distracted
„h Inability to concentrate
„h Extreme irritability
In the depression phase, signs and symptoms include:
„h Persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt or hopelessness
„h Disturbances in sleep and appetite
„h Fatigue and loss of interest in your daily activities
„h Difficulty in concentrating
„h Recurring thoughts of suicide
„h Depression
Causes
Doctors and researchers don't know exactly what causes bipolar
disorder. But a variety of biologic, genetic and environmental
factors seem to be involved in causing and triggering episodes of
the illness.
Evidence indicates that differences in the chemical messengers
between nerve cells in the brain (neurotransmitters) occur in people who have bipolar disorder. In many cases people with bipolar disorder may have a genetic disposition for the disorder. The abnormality may be in genes that regulate neurotransmitters.
Factors that may contribute to or trigger episodes of bipolar
disorder include drug abuse and stressful or psychologically
traumatic events.
Risk Factors
Bipolar disorder tends to run in families. A family history appears to exist in about 60 percent of cases of bipolar disorder.
Researchers are attempting to identify genes that may make people
susceptible to bipolar disorder.
When to Seek Medical Advice
People with bipolar disorder often don't recognize how impaired they are when experiencing a mood episode and how greatly the disorder is affecting their lives and the lives of others. Friends, family and primary care physicians are important in recognizing possible signs of bipolar disorder and urging the person to seek professional help.
If a family member or friend shows the apparent signs of bipolar
disorder, encourage that person to seek the care of psychiatrist.
Now I understand that this is pretty advanced stuff for a region that is still worried about Measles and Polio but the WAR ON TERROR has made it painfully obvious that MILLIONS (if not hundreds of Millions) are suffering from these mental disorders to one degree or another.
The CRIMINALLY INSANE folks in Hamas and al-Qaeda are beyond all hope ¡V they must either be put out of their misery or STUDIED UNDER CAREFUL LABORATORY CONDITIONS (but It would also be a LOT OF FUN to put some in the zoo ¡V if you can talk the lowland gorillas into it!) to further scientific knowledge of this new and unusual anthropoid species which I suspect may be a GENUINE recurrence of the Neanderthals.
The evidence of WIDE-SPREAD MENTAL DISORDERS amongst our Asian neighbors can NO LONGER BE IGNORED ¡V as it has for so many centuries.
I don¡¦t know how we can help these folks but I DO KNOW that many of them are very sick and need real aid.
Along with food, medicine, education AND DEODERANT we also WILL NEED MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF ANTI-DEPRESSANT DRUGS (Prozac, Thorazine, Lithium, etc) for these sad folks and may have to also BUILD THOUSANDS OF MENTAL HOSPITALS to help them beyond this.
THIS IS NO JOKE ¡V I HAVE FRIENDS WITH BI-POLAR DISORDER ¡V and when taking their medication, and with proper therapy they can be productive and useful citizens and many can even LEAVE THE HOSPITAL and live on their own after sufficient therapy and with proper medication. Without their psychiatrists and meds, however ¡V they are FIRST CLASS WHACKOS and can often be dangerous to themselves and others.
But how are we going to do this for the many Millions in Asia?
BI-Polar Disorders are amongst the other depressive conditions ¡V mas manana.
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
The Wage of Sin is Death
By Mr. George
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Back to the always-entertaining Palestinians:
Save the Children UK begins humanitarian convoys to Palestinians
11 April 2002
(London) - Welcoming today's statement by United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressing
serious concern about the humanitarian situation
in the West Bank and calling on Israel to protect
Palestinian civilian life and property, Save the
Children staff working in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories expressed deep concern at the
intensifying and increasingly desperate violence
in the area, drawing attention particularly to the
appalling impact events are having on children.
The organisation, together with other local and
international aid organisations, has already
accompanied one relief convoy containing food,
water and medical supplies to Nablus, and plans to
provide humanitarian supplies for a second joint
convoy to Jenin on Saturday.
"The suffering currently being experienced by
children in the West Bank and Gaza is enormous and
we must get supplies in to them as soon as
possible," said Marie-Louise Weighill, Field
Officer of Save the Children UK in Jerusalem.
"However, the efforts of the international and
national humanitarian organisations can only be a
temporary and partial solution - the real need is
to lift the curfew, bring an end to the violence
and end the closures which are crippling the
Palestinian economy."
"The international community must use its
influence to enforce adherence to the norms and
standards of international humanitarian law -
particularly those concerning the welfare of
children affected by the conflict, and insist that
the Israeli military allow free, safe and
unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations
desperately trying to help these children," said
Weighill.
Save the Children staff working in the area report
that the humanitarian crisis is escalating by the
hour. Concerns include:
„h the towns of Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus are without running water,
leaving over 200,000 children deprived of access to clean water
„h many parts of these towns are also without electricity
„h fresh food has run out in the towns of Bethlehem and Nablus, while the continuing curfew in Jenin
„h this means that many poorer households ha ve little or no food at all
„h the curfews and closures are affecting over 300,000 children confining them to their homes, denying them access to educational facilities and subjecting them to continuing fear and distress
„h children are exposed to witnessing brutal arrests and killing of family members and friends and destruction and reported looting of their homes and neighborhoods
„h restrictions on the entry of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red
Crescent Society medical personnel mean that there is a significant risk of disease from decomposing bodies that cannot be buried.
Save the Children UK called upon the international
community to ensure respect for the survival,
protection and care of children affected by armed
conflict, urging that the following measures be
taken:
„h free, safe and unrestricted access for humanitarian organisations
„h the deployment of international human rights
„h observers to the West Bank and Gaza Strip to ensure respect for children's rights by all parties
„h an end to the current Israeli incursions and a concerted effort to establish a just and lasting settlement in the area.
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk
But the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE. Amen.
Hamas, Hizbullah, the Murder Brigage, Islamic Jihad do NOT CARE HOW MANY CHILDREN DIE ¡V all they care about is their ¡§Jihad¡¨ ¡V ASK THEM!
SORRY CHARLIE!
As long as the homicide bombings and attacks continue so does the curfew and the checkpoints ¡V and MORE CHILDREN WILL SUFFER AND DIE.
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
By Mr. George
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Back to the always-entertaining Palestinians:
Save the Children UK begins humanitarian convoys to Palestinians
11 April 2002
(London) - Welcoming today's statement by United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressing
serious concern about the humanitarian situation
in the West Bank and calling on Israel to protect
Palestinian civilian life and property, Save the
Children staff working in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories expressed deep concern at the
intensifying and increasingly desperate violence
in the area, drawing attention particularly to the
appalling impact events are having on children.
The organisation, together with other local and
international aid organisations, has already
accompanied one relief convoy containing food,
water and medical supplies to Nablus, and plans to
provide humanitarian supplies for a second joint
convoy to Jenin on Saturday.
"The suffering currently being experienced by
children in the West Bank and Gaza is enormous and
we must get supplies in to them as soon as
possible," said Marie-Louise Weighill, Field
Officer of Save the Children UK in Jerusalem.
"However, the efforts of the international and
national humanitarian organisations can only be a
temporary and partial solution - the real need is
to lift the curfew, bring an end to the violence
and end the closures which are crippling the
Palestinian economy."
"The international community must use its
influence to enforce adherence to the norms and
standards of international humanitarian law -
particularly those concerning the welfare of
children affected by the conflict, and insist that
the Israeli military allow free, safe and
unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations
desperately trying to help these children," said
Weighill.
Save the Children staff working in the area report
that the humanitarian crisis is escalating by the
hour. Concerns include:
„h the towns of Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus are without running water,
leaving over 200,000 children deprived of access to clean water
„h many parts of these towns are also without electricity
„h fresh food has run out in the towns of Bethlehem and Nablus, while the continuing curfew in Jenin
„h this means that many poorer households ha ve little or no food at all
„h the curfews and closures are affecting over 300,000 children confining them to their homes, denying them access to educational facilities and subjecting them to continuing fear and distress
„h children are exposed to witnessing brutal arrests and killing of family members and friends and destruction and reported looting of their homes and neighborhoods
„h restrictions on the entry of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red
Crescent Society medical personnel mean that there is a significant risk of disease from decomposing bodies that cannot be buried.
Save the Children UK called upon the international
community to ensure respect for the survival,
protection and care of children affected by armed
conflict, urging that the following measures be
taken:
„h free, safe and unrestricted access for humanitarian organisations
„h the deployment of international human rights
„h observers to the West Bank and Gaza Strip to ensure respect for children's rights by all parties
„h an end to the current Israeli incursions and a concerted effort to establish a just and lasting settlement in the area.
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk
But the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE. Amen.
Hamas, Hizbullah, the Murder Brigage, Islamic Jihad do NOT CARE HOW MANY CHILDREN DIE ¡V all they care about is their ¡§Jihad¡¨ ¡V ASK THEM!
SORRY CHARLIE!
As long as the homicide bombings and attacks continue so does the curfew and the checkpoints ¡V and MORE CHILDREN WILL SUFFER AND DIE.
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Help is available
By Mr. George
Friday, June 20, 2003
For those suffering from bi-polar disorders we have found that the judicious application of Medication in combination with a good Therapist and Group Therapy (if the sufferer is stable enough to socialize) seems to offer the best chance of arresting and controlling these debilitating mental conditions:
(from: A Primer on Depression and Bipolar Disorder by Dimitri Mihalas(2002)
C. Treatment
As has been mentioned several times above, the most effective tools available for the treatment of depression and bipolar disorder are medications (i.e. drugs). Nevertheless, many victims of these illnesses are often concerned and confused about taking medication, and therefore resist treatment. From my experience with hundreds of people who have CMI, I have concluded this resistance originates from two erroneous ideas.
„Y First, there is a confusion of therapeutic psychiatric medication with illegal psychoactive ``street drugs''. Anyone beginning treatment with psychiatric medication needs to understand clearly that there is no more connection between the former and the latter than there is between a Greyhound bus and a miller moth. The street drugs are chosen because they interfere with normal operation of the brain and produce abnormal and often bizarre mental responses. They actually destroy normal brain function, and if abused in sufficient quantity for sufficient time, can lead to injury or even death. In contrast, psychiatric medication has been very carefully chosen, perhaps even ``designed'', to restore normal brain function to the greatest extent possible. They are very carefully tested for efficacy and safety. Only after passing a rigorous review procedure are they released for public use. Subsequent to release, their performance is continuously monitored as they are used in thousands to millions of doses each year. In short, one need not have any fear whatsoever that psychiatric medication will have the same harmful effects as illegal street drugs.
„Y Second, many potential users are fearful that psychiatric medication will degrade or interfere with their mental abilities. These fears are rarely a problem for people with deep depression (who basically will do anything reasonable to gain release from the depression), but often are quite strong for people who are mildly to moderately manic because those people feel ``good'', and believe that they have superior mental (and sometimes physical) abilities and performance. These people don't want anyone tinkering with their ``mind''. They need to be convinced and reassured that controlling their mania will not degrade their intelligence, insight, cognitive and learning abilities; I can vouch first-hand for this statement. What they will lose is speed: the same tasks take a little longer. But those tasks will typically be done more carefully. It's a tradeoff: one loses the manic sense of speed and power, but one also is no longer driven obsessively, scattered by dozens of intrusive ideas and thoughts. And one loses the sense of isolation that characterizes mania because one is unable to make meaningful person-to-person contact with those around oneself. For me, the manic state always produced the sensation of my seeming to be living in someone else's mind, or someone else living in mine. That is an unpleasant experience. I am more than happy to sacrifice manic ``facility'' in order to get rid of the other unpleasant, threatening, and destructive aspects of mania.
I will not go through the catalog of medications here because it has grown quite large, and excellent and authoritative discussions are easily available in the books cited in the Bibliography. In broadest terms, there are three groups of medications used to treat depression:
(1) the tricyclics
(2) the MAO inhibitors
(3) SSRIs (Selective Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors).
The tricyclics were discovered first, and sometimes remain useful treatment strategies to this day. The MAOIs have restrictive dietary constraints for their use, and can have troublesome side effects; but for some people they provide effective relief. The breakthrough came with the development of the SSRIs. They work by inhibiting the reuptake of the essential neurotransmitter serotonin from a synapse between two nerve cells that have just fired, thus leaving it in place for the next time it is needed. These drugs (e.g. Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin,
Effexor) have proven to be extraordinarily effective in treating depression, while having only minor side effects. They have the advantage of not introducing something new to the ``ecology'' of the brain, but merely inducing the brain to leave one of its own natural ``ingredients'' in place so that it can be used when next needed.
It must be emphasized that specific person may respond to several of these drugs, just a few or even just one, or none. The challenge to the therapist is to discover, as quickly as possible, the drug that works best for each individual treated. If he/she is skilled (and lucky!), the first choice may work effectively and quickly. But if it doesn't, it is imperative to continue to try other possibilities until one is found that works! This requires strong commitment on the part of both the victim and the physician. For example, in 1985, I started off with Desyrel, chosen by my doctor because it was the current ``wonder drug'' and putatively had few side effects. For me Desyrel was a disaster: it gave me no relief from depression after months of treatment (typically an antidepressant begins to work within 3 weeks of when it was
started), it confused me, it made me uncontrollably sleepy during the day, and interfered with thinking and cognition. Only after months of being so ``treated'' did I get effective help from Drs. Grace and Dubovsky, who switched me to a tricyclic, desipramine. As described above, within three weeks this different medication broke the depression. If you are not getting relief after a reasonable time, don't be shy about talking to your doctor about trying a
different medication. The change might save your life. In 1997, when Desipramine had failed for me, it was clear what to do: Dr. Johnson immediately phased it out, and moved me to the SSRI Effexor without a hitch. That has made a world of difference!
Until recently, the first line of defense against mania was lithium (carbonate). It was discovered by John Cade in Australia in 1949, but was not used therapeutically in the U.S. for almost another 20 years. Sometimes in emergency cases the victim is started off on an antipsychotic drug such as Thorazine, Mellaril, or Trilafon; these are designed to help the victim calm down and make closer contact with reality. In cases of extreme mania -- someone totally out of
control, needing to be restrained -- the effects of these antipsychotic drugs are often downright amazing. In the space of a very few days the victim becomes calm, and fairly normal in terms of overall behavior. In 1997 this approach, including restraint, was necessary for me. If lithium fails to control the mania sufficiently, or has undesirable side effects, the therapist will then try other anti-manic agents such as Valproic Acid (Depakote), Tegretol, or Klonopin. These
days Valproic Acid has generally become the preferred treatment for mania. It is also worth mentioning that the effects of anti-manic treatment generally improve with time. In my own case, for example, I have noticed a definite, continuous ``ramping up'' in my general sense of well being, and my objective job performance. At the same time, it has been possible to reduce by almost half the amount of the medication I originally took. On the other hand, when lithium failed me, it failed suddenly, and I would have needed intensive medical supervision to have detected the transition. After I was moved to Depakote, I felt much better than before; a persistent hand tremor that I had while taking
lithium vanished, and I feel generally ``calm'' all the time. It is a blessing.
All of these experiences point to the fact that it is essential to stay in close contact with your doctor while being treated for these illnesses; the disease is chronic, and your fight against it is likely to last a lifetime!
There are a number of practical issues to be faced when taking psychiatric medications. Like all medications, psychiatric drugs have side effects. Many of them are inconsequential, some are more serious. For example, with the antidepressants, it is common to experience a dry mouth. Sometimes this is so serious as to prevent one from speaking, and a drink of water doesn't solve the problem because what is needed is saliva produced by the body. This one has been a problem for me because when I was a professor, I gave lectures. I solved the
problem by chewing sugarless chewing gum when I felt the dryness start. It's a bit vulgar in appearance, but I simply explained to my students why I did it, and they accepted it. Lithium can have two troublesome side effects. One mentioned above is that it often causes small-muscle tremor. I remember a period of time when I could not drink tea because I couldn't lift the cup from the table to my mouth without spilling it all over the table. Tremor was especially troublesome for me because it got so bad that I simply could not write; this seriously interfered with my daily professional activities. My doctor told me
there was another drug to control the tremor, but I decided not to take any drugs that I didn't have to; eventually the tremor went away, seen only under extreme stress, and even then only a little. A more serious side effect of lithium is that if its concentration in your bloodstream gets too large it can damage your kidneys. This problem can be avoided by having blood tests to measure the lithium level in your blood. Typically this will be done fairly frequently (monthly or maybe even weekly) when you first start lithium, but later, if your level is pretty constant, your doctor will check it maybe every 3
months. Similar remarks apply to Depakote. Finally there is the very serious problem lithium caused me during rehabilitation from my auto accident: the margin between the therapeutic and toxic levels of lithium in the bloodstream is small. And because I became dehydrated while in the hospital, my lithium blood-level soared way above the toxic level, and induced the terrible coma I have described above. With Depakote, the known therapeutic range is about a factor of four, and the highest dose is still much below toxic. Thus compared to
lithium, there is an enormous safety factor. In my case, I take almost the minimum dose, so I never expect to have any trouble with it.
It is crucial to take your medications exactly as your doctor prescribes. Do not ``experiment'' with changing the dose on your own. Sometimes it is hard for people to remember whether or not they have already taken a pill that day, but it is vital not to take too many or too few. I beat the problem of an aging memory by using the small compartmented pill dispensers available in drug stores. They usually have seven compartments labeled with the days of the week,
so one can tell immediately whether the correct number of pills have been taken.
It must also be stressed that you should never stop taking your pills all at once (``cold turkey''); to do so shocks the nervous system, and could precipitate a very severe psychiatric episode. If your doctor agrees that you should give up on a medication, always ramp the dosage down slowly over several days. For someone like me this is probably useless advice because it seems plain that I will be on my medications for the remainder of my life. One other note is that it is important to realize that, like most medications, psychiatric drugs can be lethal if taken in large quantity. If you are very seriously depressed,
your psychiatrist may not give you more than a few days worth of your
medication: a sublethal dose. This does not imply a lack of trust on the doctor's part, but rather a well-placed concern. Later, when you are back to normal, he/she will probably let you have them by the bucketful if you want.
Last, a word about cost. Psychiatric medications can be cheap or quite
expensive. For example, lithium is very inexpensive, which is one reason it is widely prescribed. Antidepressants, especially the modern SSRIs, are more expensive. As is Depakote. I personally think they are cheap compared to the benefit I derive from them (my life), but for someone on a small and/or fixed income, such costs can be very hard to bear. The cost can often be reduced by using generic drugs. For example, if one buys generic desipramine, which is much
cheaper than the brand-name Norpramine, the monthly bill can be reduced by almost a factor of three. In many cases medication costs will be covered by insurance: my group policy pays for all but a relatively small copayment for each prescription. To be sure, many people don't have any insurance at all, especially if they have a history of mental illness.
This is a severe social problem that must be faced and solved!
A final remark about meds: I cannot stress too strongly that the success rate for controlling depression and bipolar disorder with medication is quite high. We don't have perfect ``cures'' yet, but we are clearly well along the right track.
Thus far I have mentioned only medication. There is an alternative treatment for extreme depression, used when other methods have failed or when there is an urgent need to achieve results quickly (e.g. the victim has tried to commit suicide). This is known as electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT for short. ECT generally has a bad image with most people, probably because of grim portrayals of ``shock therapy'' they have seen in old movies. As it is employed today, ECT is a simple, painless, safe technique which is astonishingly effective in
breaking severe depression. To prepare for a treatment the patient is given a muscle relaxant (to avoid damage when muscular contraction occurs in response to the mild electric current applied), and is partially sedated to relieve anxiety. Then a low-power electric current is directed into the brain for a carefully controlled period of time (seconds). When the patient recovers from sedation, he/she feels no pain, and typically has no memory of the procedure. Usually
several treatments are given over a short period of days. No one knows in detail why this method works at all, let alone so well. One can speculate that perhaps the applied current disrupts totally the existing pattern of electrical activity within the brain, and forces it to start all over from the beginning in the correct pattern, much like pressing the ``reset'' button on a PC. The worst side effect of the method is a temporary loss of memory. Usually short-term memory is
affected more than long-term memory. Most people recover most or all of the lost memory over a period of time, but some suffer some permanent memory loss.
I would like to close the discussion of treatment with a few words about fighting back. If you have the misfortune to experience a deep depression, at first you will feel as if a large truck has run over you. You may be extremely unhappy, confused, apathetic, exhausted, and feel helpless. As your therapy makes progress, you should begin to feel better. But it is not enough to leave it up to the pills and your physician. People get better faster when they are not just passive, but instead actively resist. The point is that, if you let it, the illness will destroy any enjoyment you might get in your life. Just as
surely as you would resist someone trying to injure or kill you physically, it is essential that you resist the ravages of depression. A very typical pattern of recovery is that the victim begins to experience a gentle lifting of his/her mood, day by day, week by week. Unfortunately it often happens that along this long-term rise one will experience a number of temporary ``dips'' back downward to a lower mood level. When this happens, the victim often feels as if he/she has just plummeted all the way back down to the bottom, and begins to doubt the
efficacy of the therapy, and may begin to despair (``Will this never end?!'').
Eventually one learns to trust what is going on, and to understand that the setback is only temporary -- a day or two. But this kind of backslide can be very demoralizing, and it is important to have methods you can use to fight actively the discouragement and mental paralysis that might ensue. Thus it is very important for you and your physician to consult, as early into treatment as possible, about what you can do to make yourself feel better. For example:
1) exercise programs
2) meditation
3) keeping a journal
4) community service
5) participation in activist groups
6) socializing with family and friends
7) participation in church activities.
I have used all these methods to very good effect. Daily jogging keeps the body fit, and better able to fight on your side than if it is out of shape.
In 1986 I learned a couple of meditation techniques, and found them both restful and a source of insight; by accident I discovered that I could completely eliminate episodes of very severe anxiety I occasionally had by meditation (I threw away the tranquilizer!). My journal allowed me to compare how I felt currently with how I felt days and weeks before; even though I might be feeling rotten at the moment, I had clear evidence (in my own handwriting) of how much worse I had felt then, and how much progress I had really made. Nothing can make
a person feel better about him/herself than giving some time, effort, and love to a group or project that will benefit needy people in the community. I don't like the prospect of nuclear war; helping anti-bomb activist groups was stimulating, thrilling sometimes, and improved my self-esteem. And socializing with family and friends need be only what it always is: fun! These are only examples; your job is to make up a list of things that will work for you, of things that you can actually do. Then do them! One final thing to consider is using cognitive therapy to restructure how you feel about yourself and your
surroundings. For some people this technique produces amazingly good results. It is fully described in David Burns's excellent book Feeling Good listed in the Bibliography.
A final word: one should never forget that after a severe incident of depression or bipolar disorder, one is, at best, only in remission; it is not a cure. It is therefore essential to stay in contact with one's psychiatrist, so that he/she can monitor one's behavior through regular observation. You need to work out a definite timetable for regular visits; I personally recommend that they should be no less frequent than once a month, but this a question to be worked out with
your doctor.
Now if you¡¦ve read this entire paper you hopefully have a handle on this debilitating mental disease. I sincerely hope that you have read it in total and begin to understand what we are dealing with in the Middle East.
I was very fortunate in my nearly 20 years of alcohol abuse: my mind remained alert and undamaged (yeah sure Mr. George!) and in my first few years of sobriety the strongest medication that was prescribed for me was Valium, and went that ¡§went out of vogue¡¨ Librium ¡V both of these are mild nerve tranquilizers which are commonly used with chronic alcoholics to ¡§calm them down¡¨ after a severe bout of nerve jitters. God was very kind to me ¡V in a 5 year period I was afflicted with the DT¡¦s (Delirium Tremens) thrice, which we believe is a breakdown of the central nervous system which can easily lead to insanity or death (and I¡¦m certain some of my readers are giggling and thinking, ¡§Oh, NOW IS SEE WHAT Mr. George¡¦s problem is!¡¨). The ignorant are free to ridicule, but I trust that the erudite ¡¥get it¡¦.
Now let¡¦s relate this to a few questions about the ¡§Middle East¡¨ shall we?
„h Why can¡¦t so many of these folks stay in school and get a decent education?
„h Why are so many chronically unemployed and fundamentally unemployable?
„h Why are they easily prey to drug abuse, excessive violence and sexual perversions?
„h Why have ALL ¡¥governments¡¦ in the Middle East been such a PHENOMENAL FAILURE?
„h Why have such HUGE NUMBERS of folks made BARELY ANY PROGRESS AT ALL in 5,000 years?
Because a significant percentage of their populations are MENTALLY CHALLENGED (the term we use in schools today; it used to be ¡¥retarded¡¦) ¡V that is why.
Now if you are from the Middle East or related to someone there you are probably MAD AS HELL at me right now and plotting to BOMB SOMETHING FOR RELEASE OF YOUR TENSIONS (these bombings are also merely substitutes for unrealized ORGASMS also but that is the subject of another essay) ¡V that is ok bro!
„h GO KICK THE DOG!
„h GO HOLLER AT BUSH ON THE CORNER!
„h SMASH THE TV!
„h BANG YOUR FIST AGAINST THE WALLS!
GET YOUR FRUSTRATIONS OUT!
It is healthy and normal ¡V YOU CAN BASH YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL FROM NOW UNTIL DOOMSDAY AND YOU¡¦LL STILL BE AS SICK AS YOU ARE RIGHT NOW - but when you are done consider these matters quite diligently. One of the BIGGEST DIFFICULTIES to overcome with alcoholics and addicts is to CONVINCE THEM THEY HAVE A MENTAL PROBLEM ¡V most folks will only get angry, walk out, tell YOU that YOU ARE THE CRAZY PERSON and nothing gets done at all ¡V we see this in the ¡§Arab Press¡¨ daily (the Saudis are TRULY MASTERS AT THIS!) ¡V it is called ¡§DENIAL¡¨ ¡V the sick person(s) simply DENIES THAT HE/SHE IS ILL (has a ¡§Problem¡¨) and the cycle continues unabated.-and the afflicted stumble on to the sanitarium, prison or DEATH. (but in the Arab Alley they can also become ¡§Clerics¡¨, ¡§Politicians¡¨ or ¡§Journalists¡¨)- So I beg of you:
THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT THESE THINGS?
And PLEASE GET HELP!
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
By Mr. George
Friday, June 20, 2003
For those suffering from bi-polar disorders we have found that the judicious application of Medication in combination with a good Therapist and Group Therapy (if the sufferer is stable enough to socialize) seems to offer the best chance of arresting and controlling these debilitating mental conditions:
(from: A Primer on Depression and Bipolar Disorder by Dimitri Mihalas(2002)
C. Treatment
As has been mentioned several times above, the most effective tools available for the treatment of depression and bipolar disorder are medications (i.e. drugs). Nevertheless, many victims of these illnesses are often concerned and confused about taking medication, and therefore resist treatment. From my experience with hundreds of people who have CMI, I have concluded this resistance originates from two erroneous ideas.
„Y First, there is a confusion of therapeutic psychiatric medication with illegal psychoactive ``street drugs''. Anyone beginning treatment with psychiatric medication needs to understand clearly that there is no more connection between the former and the latter than there is between a Greyhound bus and a miller moth. The street drugs are chosen because they interfere with normal operation of the brain and produce abnormal and often bizarre mental responses. They actually destroy normal brain function, and if abused in sufficient quantity for sufficient time, can lead to injury or even death. In contrast, psychiatric medication has been very carefully chosen, perhaps even ``designed'', to restore normal brain function to the greatest extent possible. They are very carefully tested for efficacy and safety. Only after passing a rigorous review procedure are they released for public use. Subsequent to release, their performance is continuously monitored as they are used in thousands to millions of doses each year. In short, one need not have any fear whatsoever that psychiatric medication will have the same harmful effects as illegal street drugs.
„Y Second, many potential users are fearful that psychiatric medication will degrade or interfere with their mental abilities. These fears are rarely a problem for people with deep depression (who basically will do anything reasonable to gain release from the depression), but often are quite strong for people who are mildly to moderately manic because those people feel ``good'', and believe that they have superior mental (and sometimes physical) abilities and performance. These people don't want anyone tinkering with their ``mind''. They need to be convinced and reassured that controlling their mania will not degrade their intelligence, insight, cognitive and learning abilities; I can vouch first-hand for this statement. What they will lose is speed: the same tasks take a little longer. But those tasks will typically be done more carefully. It's a tradeoff: one loses the manic sense of speed and power, but one also is no longer driven obsessively, scattered by dozens of intrusive ideas and thoughts. And one loses the sense of isolation that characterizes mania because one is unable to make meaningful person-to-person contact with those around oneself. For me, the manic state always produced the sensation of my seeming to be living in someone else's mind, or someone else living in mine. That is an unpleasant experience. I am more than happy to sacrifice manic ``facility'' in order to get rid of the other unpleasant, threatening, and destructive aspects of mania.
I will not go through the catalog of medications here because it has grown quite large, and excellent and authoritative discussions are easily available in the books cited in the Bibliography. In broadest terms, there are three groups of medications used to treat depression:
(1) the tricyclics
(2) the MAO inhibitors
(3) SSRIs (Selective Serotonin-Reuptake Inhibitors).
The tricyclics were discovered first, and sometimes remain useful treatment strategies to this day. The MAOIs have restrictive dietary constraints for their use, and can have troublesome side effects; but for some people they provide effective relief. The breakthrough came with the development of the SSRIs. They work by inhibiting the reuptake of the essential neurotransmitter serotonin from a synapse between two nerve cells that have just fired, thus leaving it in place for the next time it is needed. These drugs (e.g. Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin,
Effexor) have proven to be extraordinarily effective in treating depression, while having only minor side effects. They have the advantage of not introducing something new to the ``ecology'' of the brain, but merely inducing the brain to leave one of its own natural ``ingredients'' in place so that it can be used when next needed.
It must be emphasized that specific person may respond to several of these drugs, just a few or even just one, or none. The challenge to the therapist is to discover, as quickly as possible, the drug that works best for each individual treated. If he/she is skilled (and lucky!), the first choice may work effectively and quickly. But if it doesn't, it is imperative to continue to try other possibilities until one is found that works! This requires strong commitment on the part of both the victim and the physician. For example, in 1985, I started off with Desyrel, chosen by my doctor because it was the current ``wonder drug'' and putatively had few side effects. For me Desyrel was a disaster: it gave me no relief from depression after months of treatment (typically an antidepressant begins to work within 3 weeks of when it was
started), it confused me, it made me uncontrollably sleepy during the day, and interfered with thinking and cognition. Only after months of being so ``treated'' did I get effective help from Drs. Grace and Dubovsky, who switched me to a tricyclic, desipramine. As described above, within three weeks this different medication broke the depression. If you are not getting relief after a reasonable time, don't be shy about talking to your doctor about trying a
different medication. The change might save your life. In 1997, when Desipramine had failed for me, it was clear what to do: Dr. Johnson immediately phased it out, and moved me to the SSRI Effexor without a hitch. That has made a world of difference!
Until recently, the first line of defense against mania was lithium (carbonate). It was discovered by John Cade in Australia in 1949, but was not used therapeutically in the U.S. for almost another 20 years. Sometimes in emergency cases the victim is started off on an antipsychotic drug such as Thorazine, Mellaril, or Trilafon; these are designed to help the victim calm down and make closer contact with reality. In cases of extreme mania -- someone totally out of
control, needing to be restrained -- the effects of these antipsychotic drugs are often downright amazing. In the space of a very few days the victim becomes calm, and fairly normal in terms of overall behavior. In 1997 this approach, including restraint, was necessary for me. If lithium fails to control the mania sufficiently, or has undesirable side effects, the therapist will then try other anti-manic agents such as Valproic Acid (Depakote), Tegretol, or Klonopin. These
days Valproic Acid has generally become the preferred treatment for mania. It is also worth mentioning that the effects of anti-manic treatment generally improve with time. In my own case, for example, I have noticed a definite, continuous ``ramping up'' in my general sense of well being, and my objective job performance. At the same time, it has been possible to reduce by almost half the amount of the medication I originally took. On the other hand, when lithium failed me, it failed suddenly, and I would have needed intensive medical supervision to have detected the transition. After I was moved to Depakote, I felt much better than before; a persistent hand tremor that I had while taking
lithium vanished, and I feel generally ``calm'' all the time. It is a blessing.
All of these experiences point to the fact that it is essential to stay in close contact with your doctor while being treated for these illnesses; the disease is chronic, and your fight against it is likely to last a lifetime!
There are a number of practical issues to be faced when taking psychiatric medications. Like all medications, psychiatric drugs have side effects. Many of them are inconsequential, some are more serious. For example, with the antidepressants, it is common to experience a dry mouth. Sometimes this is so serious as to prevent one from speaking, and a drink of water doesn't solve the problem because what is needed is saliva produced by the body. This one has been a problem for me because when I was a professor, I gave lectures. I solved the
problem by chewing sugarless chewing gum when I felt the dryness start. It's a bit vulgar in appearance, but I simply explained to my students why I did it, and they accepted it. Lithium can have two troublesome side effects. One mentioned above is that it often causes small-muscle tremor. I remember a period of time when I could not drink tea because I couldn't lift the cup from the table to my mouth without spilling it all over the table. Tremor was especially troublesome for me because it got so bad that I simply could not write; this seriously interfered with my daily professional activities. My doctor told me
there was another drug to control the tremor, but I decided not to take any drugs that I didn't have to; eventually the tremor went away, seen only under extreme stress, and even then only a little. A more serious side effect of lithium is that if its concentration in your bloodstream gets too large it can damage your kidneys. This problem can be avoided by having blood tests to measure the lithium level in your blood. Typically this will be done fairly frequently (monthly or maybe even weekly) when you first start lithium, but later, if your level is pretty constant, your doctor will check it maybe every 3
months. Similar remarks apply to Depakote. Finally there is the very serious problem lithium caused me during rehabilitation from my auto accident: the margin between the therapeutic and toxic levels of lithium in the bloodstream is small. And because I became dehydrated while in the hospital, my lithium blood-level soared way above the toxic level, and induced the terrible coma I have described above. With Depakote, the known therapeutic range is about a factor of four, and the highest dose is still much below toxic. Thus compared to
lithium, there is an enormous safety factor. In my case, I take almost the minimum dose, so I never expect to have any trouble with it.
It is crucial to take your medications exactly as your doctor prescribes. Do not ``experiment'' with changing the dose on your own. Sometimes it is hard for people to remember whether or not they have already taken a pill that day, but it is vital not to take too many or too few. I beat the problem of an aging memory by using the small compartmented pill dispensers available in drug stores. They usually have seven compartments labeled with the days of the week,
so one can tell immediately whether the correct number of pills have been taken.
It must also be stressed that you should never stop taking your pills all at once (``cold turkey''); to do so shocks the nervous system, and could precipitate a very severe psychiatric episode. If your doctor agrees that you should give up on a medication, always ramp the dosage down slowly over several days. For someone like me this is probably useless advice because it seems plain that I will be on my medications for the remainder of my life. One other note is that it is important to realize that, like most medications, psychiatric drugs can be lethal if taken in large quantity. If you are very seriously depressed,
your psychiatrist may not give you more than a few days worth of your
medication: a sublethal dose. This does not imply a lack of trust on the doctor's part, but rather a well-placed concern. Later, when you are back to normal, he/she will probably let you have them by the bucketful if you want.
Last, a word about cost. Psychiatric medications can be cheap or quite
expensive. For example, lithium is very inexpensive, which is one reason it is widely prescribed. Antidepressants, especially the modern SSRIs, are more expensive. As is Depakote. I personally think they are cheap compared to the benefit I derive from them (my life), but for someone on a small and/or fixed income, such costs can be very hard to bear. The cost can often be reduced by using generic drugs. For example, if one buys generic desipramine, which is much
cheaper than the brand-name Norpramine, the monthly bill can be reduced by almost a factor of three. In many cases medication costs will be covered by insurance: my group policy pays for all but a relatively small copayment for each prescription. To be sure, many people don't have any insurance at all, especially if they have a history of mental illness.
This is a severe social problem that must be faced and solved!
A final remark about meds: I cannot stress too strongly that the success rate for controlling depression and bipolar disorder with medication is quite high. We don't have perfect ``cures'' yet, but we are clearly well along the right track.
Thus far I have mentioned only medication. There is an alternative treatment for extreme depression, used when other methods have failed or when there is an urgent need to achieve results quickly (e.g. the victim has tried to commit suicide). This is known as electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT for short. ECT generally has a bad image with most people, probably because of grim portrayals of ``shock therapy'' they have seen in old movies. As it is employed today, ECT is a simple, painless, safe technique which is astonishingly effective in
breaking severe depression. To prepare for a treatment the patient is given a muscle relaxant (to avoid damage when muscular contraction occurs in response to the mild electric current applied), and is partially sedated to relieve anxiety. Then a low-power electric current is directed into the brain for a carefully controlled period of time (seconds). When the patient recovers from sedation, he/she feels no pain, and typically has no memory of the procedure. Usually
several treatments are given over a short period of days. No one knows in detail why this method works at all, let alone so well. One can speculate that perhaps the applied current disrupts totally the existing pattern of electrical activity within the brain, and forces it to start all over from the beginning in the correct pattern, much like pressing the ``reset'' button on a PC. The worst side effect of the method is a temporary loss of memory. Usually short-term memory is
affected more than long-term memory. Most people recover most or all of the lost memory over a period of time, but some suffer some permanent memory loss.
I would like to close the discussion of treatment with a few words about fighting back. If you have the misfortune to experience a deep depression, at first you will feel as if a large truck has run over you. You may be extremely unhappy, confused, apathetic, exhausted, and feel helpless. As your therapy makes progress, you should begin to feel better. But it is not enough to leave it up to the pills and your physician. People get better faster when they are not just passive, but instead actively resist. The point is that, if you let it, the illness will destroy any enjoyment you might get in your life. Just as
surely as you would resist someone trying to injure or kill you physically, it is essential that you resist the ravages of depression. A very typical pattern of recovery is that the victim begins to experience a gentle lifting of his/her mood, day by day, week by week. Unfortunately it often happens that along this long-term rise one will experience a number of temporary ``dips'' back downward to a lower mood level. When this happens, the victim often feels as if he/she has just plummeted all the way back down to the bottom, and begins to doubt the
efficacy of the therapy, and may begin to despair (``Will this never end?!'').
Eventually one learns to trust what is going on, and to understand that the setback is only temporary -- a day or two. But this kind of backslide can be very demoralizing, and it is important to have methods you can use to fight actively the discouragement and mental paralysis that might ensue. Thus it is very important for you and your physician to consult, as early into treatment as possible, about what you can do to make yourself feel better. For example:
1) exercise programs
2) meditation
3) keeping a journal
4) community service
5) participation in activist groups
6) socializing with family and friends
7) participation in church activities.
I have used all these methods to very good effect. Daily jogging keeps the body fit, and better able to fight on your side than if it is out of shape.
In 1986 I learned a couple of meditation techniques, and found them both restful and a source of insight; by accident I discovered that I could completely eliminate episodes of very severe anxiety I occasionally had by meditation (I threw away the tranquilizer!). My journal allowed me to compare how I felt currently with how I felt days and weeks before; even though I might be feeling rotten at the moment, I had clear evidence (in my own handwriting) of how much worse I had felt then, and how much progress I had really made. Nothing can make
a person feel better about him/herself than giving some time, effort, and love to a group or project that will benefit needy people in the community. I don't like the prospect of nuclear war; helping anti-bomb activist groups was stimulating, thrilling sometimes, and improved my self-esteem. And socializing with family and friends need be only what it always is: fun! These are only examples; your job is to make up a list of things that will work for you, of things that you can actually do. Then do them! One final thing to consider is using cognitive therapy to restructure how you feel about yourself and your
surroundings. For some people this technique produces amazingly good results. It is fully described in David Burns's excellent book Feeling Good listed in the Bibliography.
A final word: one should never forget that after a severe incident of depression or bipolar disorder, one is, at best, only in remission; it is not a cure. It is therefore essential to stay in contact with one's psychiatrist, so that he/she can monitor one's behavior through regular observation. You need to work out a definite timetable for regular visits; I personally recommend that they should be no less frequent than once a month, but this a question to be worked out with
your doctor.
Now if you¡¦ve read this entire paper you hopefully have a handle on this debilitating mental disease. I sincerely hope that you have read it in total and begin to understand what we are dealing with in the Middle East.
I was very fortunate in my nearly 20 years of alcohol abuse: my mind remained alert and undamaged (yeah sure Mr. George!) and in my first few years of sobriety the strongest medication that was prescribed for me was Valium, and went that ¡§went out of vogue¡¨ Librium ¡V both of these are mild nerve tranquilizers which are commonly used with chronic alcoholics to ¡§calm them down¡¨ after a severe bout of nerve jitters. God was very kind to me ¡V in a 5 year period I was afflicted with the DT¡¦s (Delirium Tremens) thrice, which we believe is a breakdown of the central nervous system which can easily lead to insanity or death (and I¡¦m certain some of my readers are giggling and thinking, ¡§Oh, NOW IS SEE WHAT Mr. George¡¦s problem is!¡¨). The ignorant are free to ridicule, but I trust that the erudite ¡¥get it¡¦.
Now let¡¦s relate this to a few questions about the ¡§Middle East¡¨ shall we?
„h Why can¡¦t so many of these folks stay in school and get a decent education?
„h Why are so many chronically unemployed and fundamentally unemployable?
„h Why are they easily prey to drug abuse, excessive violence and sexual perversions?
„h Why have ALL ¡¥governments¡¦ in the Middle East been such a PHENOMENAL FAILURE?
„h Why have such HUGE NUMBERS of folks made BARELY ANY PROGRESS AT ALL in 5,000 years?
Because a significant percentage of their populations are MENTALLY CHALLENGED (the term we use in schools today; it used to be ¡¥retarded¡¦) ¡V that is why.
Now if you are from the Middle East or related to someone there you are probably MAD AS HELL at me right now and plotting to BOMB SOMETHING FOR RELEASE OF YOUR TENSIONS (these bombings are also merely substitutes for unrealized ORGASMS also but that is the subject of another essay) ¡V that is ok bro!
„h GO KICK THE DOG!
„h GO HOLLER AT BUSH ON THE CORNER!
„h SMASH THE TV!
„h BANG YOUR FIST AGAINST THE WALLS!
GET YOUR FRUSTRATIONS OUT!
It is healthy and normal ¡V YOU CAN BASH YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL FROM NOW UNTIL DOOMSDAY AND YOU¡¦LL STILL BE AS SICK AS YOU ARE RIGHT NOW - but when you are done consider these matters quite diligently. One of the BIGGEST DIFFICULTIES to overcome with alcoholics and addicts is to CONVINCE THEM THEY HAVE A MENTAL PROBLEM ¡V most folks will only get angry, walk out, tell YOU that YOU ARE THE CRAZY PERSON and nothing gets done at all ¡V we see this in the ¡§Arab Press¡¨ daily (the Saudis are TRULY MASTERS AT THIS!) ¡V it is called ¡§DENIAL¡¨ ¡V the sick person(s) simply DENIES THAT HE/SHE IS ILL (has a ¡§Problem¡¨) and the cycle continues unabated.-and the afflicted stumble on to the sanitarium, prison or DEATH. (but in the Arab Alley they can also become ¡§Clerics¡¨, ¡§Politicians¡¨ or ¡§Journalists¡¨)- So I beg of you:
THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT THESE THINGS?
And PLEASE GET HELP!
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neocons/
http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=5364250
Let America Be America the Liberator Again!
By Stephen Schwartz
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 11, 2003
Iraq is free. The dictatorship has fallen. The
process that began with the end of Marcos, the
fall of the Berlin wall, and other democratic
victories has reached the last redoubt of tyrant
and terror. The time has now come to address the
overall nature of the American mission in
liberating the Arab and Muslim countries. I
would begin such a discussion with the issue of
Wahhabism, which was the topic of my book The
Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud From
Tradition to Terror (Doubleday).
Let me be clear: I do not think victory in Iraq
means we must wage war on Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Rather, I believe democratization in Iraq will
provide a powerful incentive to the
consolidation of democracy in Iran and the
commencement of a transition to a new social
order in Arabia.
The ideology known as Khomeinism is in full
decline. The people of Iran, overwhelmingly
young and forward-looking, supported by
important Shi’a Muslim clerics, wish to end the
period of religious rule that Khomeini
initiated. The reformist clerics put it well:
the experiment failed, and it is now time to
craft a new political system in Iran that will
separate religion from the state, and which will
be based on popular sovereignty.
But the menace of Saudi-backed Wahhabism
remains. Al-Qaida represents Wahhabism in its
purest form. Wahhabism, the official sect in
Saudi Arabia, is a fundamentalist, violent
movement that rejects all existing Islam as
unbelief – especially Islamic spirituality – as
well as seeking the ultimate destruction of
Shi’a Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism.
Wahhabism is not an old Islamic tradition, and
the House of Sa’ud, contrary to Western beliefs,
does not enjoy a major historic claim to
rulership over Arabia.
Wahhabism emerged in the 18th century in central
Arabia – only 250 years ago. The founder of the
Wahhabi dispensation, an obscure figure named
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, formed an alliance
with a clan of desert bandits, the al-Sa’ud. The
area where these events transpired is located on
the main route for pilgrims going to Mecca, on
the Muslim hajj, from Kuwait – especially Indian
pilgrims, who in the 18th century were a rich
source of plunder for the al-Sa’ud.
Wahhabism was observed and commented upon by
Western journalists and authors in its own time.
For example, the 19th century English aesthete
Thomas Hope wrote a novel, titled Anastasius,
that made a tremendous impression in the 1830s.
Therein, Hope, who had traveled widely in the
Islamic world, painted the Wahhabi sect in
colors strikingly familiar to a modern reader:
as extremist Puritans bent on total control over
the world’s Muslims, beginning with the
destruction of the Ottoman empire; as Arab
ultranationalists, to use a contemporary term,
and as terrorists. In one of his most
extraordinary passages, for a modern reader,
Hope described Wahhabi agents scoping out
targeted buildings in Baghdad in the 1790s, an
activity chillingly reminiscent of what we know
about how al-Qaida works.
The house of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the house of
Sa’ud created a theological and political
alliance, in which the Wahhabis directed
religious affairs and the Saudis exercised
political control. This alliance seized control
of the main holy sites of Islam, Mecca and
Medina, twice, murdering thousands of people in
the process. In 1924, with the complicity of the
British, the Wahhabis seized Mecca for the
second and last time. After that came the oil,
and the oil money, and with what seemed to be
limitless resources, the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance
began, in the late 1970s, a serious attempt to
take over world Islam. The result was a series
of conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that
culminated in the emergence of al-Qaida, and,
finally, the horrific events of September 11th.
Today, as it did before September 11th, the
Wahhabi religious bureaucracy and the Saudi
state foster Islamic extremist ideology, and the
terrorism enabled by it. When bombs go off in
Israel, in Indonesia, in Kenya, and elsewhere,
and when terrorists strike at the democratic
coalition forces in Iraq, the main source of
money is, without exception, found in Saudi
Arabia.
Those who argue that Islamist extremism is a
product of U.S.-hegemonic support for corrupt
regimes have a point. But they ignore that the
main source of ideology, incitement, and funds
for Islamist terror has always been none other
than official Saudi Arabia. The rulers of the
Saudi kingdom now try to confuse Western opinion
by proclaiming that they, too, are targets of
Osama bin Laden, while their real intent is to
mask their own complicity in his financing and
organization. In reality, Islamist terrorism is
only partially a protest movement by Saudi
subjects aggrieved at the monarchy’s alliance
with the West. It is, in much greater part, a
phenomenon directly supported by Saudi
authorities. Al-Qaida would not exist without
Saudi money.
We must stop telling ourselves and others that
Saudi Arabia represents some ineffably
mysterious, ancient, and traditional society
that we must approach reluctantly, with extreme
caution, and at arm’s length – especially when
discussing the need for political change there.
In particular, we must stop telling ourselves
and others that the main danger of political
change in the kingdom would involve a shift to a
more extreme Islamist regime.
There is no mystery to Saudi Arabia. It
represents the worst example in modern times of
a corrupt and reactionary absolute monarchy,
whose rulers have great difficulty perceiving
the depth of the crisis that faces them, as well
as the way out of the crisis. The Saudi royal
family can no longer rule in the old way, and
their subjects, with a growing youthful
majority, increasingly refuse to live in the old
way. There is nothing novel about this. The same
problem characterized the regime of the Iranian
shah.
Nor does it represent anything ancient or
traditional. To emphasize, Wahhabi Islam is not
traditional Islam. It is an extremely
destructive, nihilistic and radical form of
Islam.
Wahhabism preaches an ultra-Puritanical way of
life while the Saudi elite swims in whisky and
dizzies itself with pornography. Wahhabism
claims to be the purest form of Islam while the
Saudi monarchy depends on Christian bayonets for
its protection. These mixed signals, or, more
bluntly, these forms of hypocrisy, have a
deranging effect on Saudi society. But they are
also the essential source of Islamist extremism
and terrorism. To close the gap between Wahhabi
blandishments and Saudi reality, and in a
desperate attempt to recover their credibility,
particularly in the 20 years since the emergence
of Khomeini in Iran, the reactionary faction of
the Saudi monarchy has financed terrorism and
infiltration throughout the Islamic world: in
Central Asia, Pakistan, Kashmir, the Balkans,
Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, the
Caucasus, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kurdistan
and in the Iraqi war zones.
Wahhabi extremism has nothing to do with
humiliation of the Islamic world by the West.
Saudi Arabia has never been subjugated by the
West. Rather, its rulers have been pampered,
coddled, and bribed by the West. Its need for
military support from the West, the pretext for
al-Qaida terrorism against Americans, is hardly
new. To emphasize, over its two-and-a-half
centuries of existence, Wahhabism has always
depended on its alliances with the Christian
powers – Britain, the U.S., and France – to
protect its rule in the Arabian peninsula. At
the same time, to its own population, it
preaches a toxic mix of ferocious separatism,
exclusionism, and murderous violence directed
against non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims. The
former aspect has led gullible policy experts in
the West to view the Wahhabi faction around King
Fahd and princes Sultan and Nayef as friends of
the U.S., and to stigmatize all opponents of the
regime as extremists.
In contrast both with Wahhabi separatism and
Western stereotypes about dissent in the
kingdom, traditionalists under Saudi rule call
for general religious liberty, to accommodate
Arab Christians now underground, the many
thousands of Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist
guest workers in the kingdom, and foreign
Christian and Jewish visitors. While issues
involving activist Christian proselytism would
doubtless remain sensitive, traditionalists see
no justification for preventing Christians from
worshipping. Saudis claim falsely that exclusion
of non-Muslim religious rituals in the Arabian
Peninsula reflects Islamic tradition, but Qatar,
the only other Wahhabi state, has authorized the
erection of new Christian churches, of which
there are many in Bahrein, where Jews and Hindus
also flourish, and there is a Hindu temple in
Oman.
Make no mistake – even non-extremist Saudi
subjects experience hopelessness and
frustration. But their resentment does not flow
from abject poverty. Saudi Arabia faces great
discontent in its populace. But this discontent
does not reflect a desire, except among the
clerical bureaucracy and the Wahhabi faction of
the royal family, for Wahhabism to be maintained
or reinforced. The vast majority of Saudi
subjects are restive because of three factors:
q Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern Province and
southern region are tired of the violent
discrimination they have suffered at the hands
of the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance. These Shi’as are
not prone to Islamist extremism.
q Two generations of Saudi subjects are educated
and entrepreneurial. They know how the real
world works. They have access to satellite
television and the internet. They are tired of
their educated and entrepreneurial ambitions
being blocked by the corrupt and sclerotic
system. They want to live in a modern society,
such as would most resemble Malaysia – a
constitutional and parliamentary Islamic
monarchy.
q Finally, and most significantly, non-Wahhabi
Islamic scholars, especially in Hejaz, the
region of Mecca and Medina, seek the restoration
of theological pluralism. In recent discussions
with dissident Saudi subjects, I have learned
that thousands of young people are turning to
the peaceful and spiritual form of Islam known
as Sufism as an expression of opposition to the
Wahhabi dictatorship in their country.
Furthermore, a necessary and inevitable
transformation of Saudi Arabia need not turn
into a bloody collapse. There is sufficient
possibility for a managed transition to a
Malaysian model. I have called this the "Juan
Carlos/Windsor/Malaysia" solution. Like King
Juan Carlos in Spain, a member of the royal
family such as Crown Prince Abdullah can sever
the links between the monarchy and Wahhabi
ideology. Like the Windsors in Britain, the
Saudi royal family may retain their wealth and
even their status as heads of state, but without
ruling the country; and the Malaysian model may
therefore emerge as the best alternative for
Arabia.
In addition, it is absurd to believe that a
successor political regime would reflect a more
extreme Islamist position. None of the elements
that led to the establishment of the Khomeini
regime in Iran are present in Saudi Arabia.
Unlike the Iranian scholars of 1978, the
Wahhabis do not have a record of real opposition
to the state, nor do they have a tradition of
collective action or of political sophistication
in the management of crises or even the
exploitation of political opportunities that
appear in times of crisis. Unlike Iran, Saudi
Arabia has produced no unifying, charismatic
figure comparable to Khomeini; and above all,
Iran represented an experiment, and Iranians had
not experienced strict Islamic rule. By
contrast, Saudi subjects are, simply, sick of
Wahhabism.
But while Saudi Arabia need not go the way of
Iran internally, the U.S. faces the serious
threat of repetition of its error in Iran in
Saudi Arabia, by remaining faithful to an
alleged ally and questionable friend, and
propping up a corrupt regime even as it
collapses. This danger will be especially
pernicious in the aftermath of victory in Iraq.
The beginning of democracy in Iraq can lead to
consolidation of reform in Iran and the
commencement of a transition to a constitutional
and parliamentary monarchy in Saudi Arabia. We
cannot liberate Iraq while helping to maintain
tyranny in the Saudi kingdom.
Such an outcome would be devastating for
American credibility, and would tragically
reinforce the Islamist claim that our power
exists only to support oppressive rulers.
Although it is impossible to imagine a worse
regime than that of Saudi Arabia in its
relations with its subjects, U.S. intransigence
in defending the most reactionary elements of
the royal family could produce a less-repressive
but more anti-American successor government.
I do not come to this discussion from an
academic or government background. I am somewhat
like Thomas Hope myself: I came to examine Islam
as a poet and political intellectual. I have
flattered myself in saying that I learned about
Wahhabism the way George Orwell learned about
Stalinism. To understand global Stalinist
ideological aggression, Orwell did not go to
Moscow; he went to Republican Spain during that
country’s civil war, where he witnessed the
nefarious activities of the Soviet secret
police. I did not go to Saudi Arabia to study
Wahhabism; I witnessed the attempt of
Wahhabi-Saudi agents to take over Balkan Islam,
in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania. I first heard
the term Wahhabi in a Yugoslav context more than
10 years ago.
I consider journalistic objectivity to mean
accuracy, not neutrality. After much study,
interviewing, and publishing on these topics, I
went to the Balkans to live in 1999. Among
Albanians, from 1999 to 2001 – only weeks before
September 11, 2001 –I witnessed, and had the
honor of participating in, the resistance of the
local Muslims to Saudi-Wahhabi efforts at
control and indoctrination.
As I have come back to the United States, Balkan
Muslim intellectuals with whom I am close have
called on me to expose Wahhabi-Saudi religious
colonialism to the Western public. This profound
charge became even more serious after September
11th.
Hostility to Wahhabi extremism is prevalent
throughout the Muslim world. In researching my
book, I drew on informants, most of them
confidential, that included Saudi subjects, West
Africans, Moroccans, Algerians, Egyptians,
Somalis, Chechens, Ingushes, Uzbeks, Pakistanis,
Indian Muslims, Malaysians, and Iraqis as well
as Balkan and American Muslims.
What is the main goal of the Wahhabi-Saudi
alliance? To destroy the traditional Islam
present from Bosnia-Hercegovina to South Africa,
and from Morocco to the Philippines, and to
replace it with their extremist, ultra-rigid,
and Puritanical version of Islam.
I personally observed the failure of
Wahhabi-Saudi infiltrators to take control of
Balkan Islam. This profoundly cynical effort was
motivated by the belief that the terrible
martyrdom undergone by the Bosnian Muslims in
particular, would induce these victims of an
attempted genocide to turn away from their
European roots and open, tolerant, Ottoman
Islamic traditions, and to embrace Wahhabi
extremism. I do not think any Islamic community
in the world can be said to have suffered, in
the last half century, a comparable agony to
that of the Bosnians: tens of thousands of women
and girls raped, a quarter of a million dead, 40
percent of mosques leveled, more than half a
million people dispossessed of their homes. Yet
the Bosnian believers, their eyes focused
clearly and unwaveringly on their own Sunni
legacy as well as their distinctive traditions,
refused to submit to Saudi control.
Still, the repudiation of Saudi-Wahhabi
pretensions by the Kosovar Muslims has been even
more dramatic. Put simply, the entire Albanian
nation is acutely conscious that it owes the
survival of 2.5 million Kosovars to action by
the democratic West, by the Christian leaders of
the U.S., and to the noble activities of the
Jewish religious and civic leaders in the West,
who demanded action to stop the Serbian terror.
In Kosovo, the Wahhabi-Saudi fake jihad has
failed completely.
But the extensions of the Wahhabi conspiracy –
centered in such organizations as the Muslim
World League and the World Assembly of Muslim
Youth, both headquartered in Saudi Arabia – are
visible throughout the world, wherever Muslims
are found, including on U.S. soil.
The failure of Western political and
intellectual leaders to adequately understand
the internal crisis in Islam, and the conflict
between tradition and extremism, led not only to
obliviousness in the face of the terror revealed
on September 11th, but also to heedlessness in
dealing with Islam on American soil. At this
point, certain measures have become imperative.
One of them is for the U.S. to demand a full,
transparent accounting of Saudi involvement in
September 11th from the Saudi authorities.
Another is to demand that the Saudi government,
like the Soviet government and various
right-wing dictatorships before it, entirely cut
off its subsidies to the extremist Wahhabi
ideological establishment.
Third and most important, is to protect,
support, and otherwise encourage American and
other Muslims opposed to Wahhabism to develop
and preserve their own community institutions
and to produce a new, articulate network of
authoritative advocates who can bring the truth
about traditional Islam to the Western public.
More importantly, the moment has come to shift
from the struggle to warn the West about
jihadism to the campaign to organize mainstream,
traditional Muslims, throughout the world, for
the liberation of their communities and their
faith from the grip of corrupt rulers – whether
in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere
throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. The last
is the mission of the Islam and Democracy
program created by the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies. I believe this concept
crystallizes the liberation strategy pursued in
Iraq by our commander-in-chief, President George
W. Bush.
I should like to conclude these remarks with
some observations relevant to the present
conflict, in which our great and noble cause is
led by a Republican president.
I will confess to a peculiar and
counter-intuitive understanding of history,
which led me to my observance and investigation
of how our Saudi ally fosters international
Islamist terrorism.
Today, I see our armies and those of our
coalition partners arrayed against the forces of
terrorism. And I see in this conflict a
repetition of a conflict of the past. Some have
asked if the horror of September 11th should not
be considered parallel to the assassination in
Sarajevo in 1914, which began the first world
war. In 1991 I stood in the footprints of
Princip, the Serbian terrorist who fired the
fatal shots at Sarajevo 89 years ago, and in the
decade after I stood there, in the atrocious war
that shook the Balkans anew, I observed Serbian
terrorism reborn. The city of Sarajevo and the
city of New York have something in common, in
that both experienced the evil of terrorism
inflicted on an innocent, civilian population.
But there is a higher parallel to September 11th
and to the present war, and it is greatly
counter-intuitive, and may be rejected out of
hand by many people. It is with Fort Sumter and
our own Civil War, in which the Republican Party
of President Lincoln, and of secretary of state
William Henry Seward, who had been governor of
the great state of New York, secured the end of
human slavery in this country, and preserved our
union as a mighty power in the world.
We have long been told our Civil War involved
only us, and was irrelevant to the rest of the
world. This is wrong, for our Civil War involved
more than a conflict between our own people. It
also defined who we are as a nation: America the
liberator, a representative of the transforming
idea of freedom, throughout the world.
I see today the mighty battles of our Civil War
transferred to the planetary scale, and the
emergence of a global Civil War, to determine
whether freedom or tyranny will dominate the
future of humanity.
I see today an evil, terrorism, that like the
evil of slavery, reflects the power of vast,
entrenched interests.
I see today a commodity, oil, that like cotton
then, is treated as a value above all others,
determining the fates of whole nations.
I see today a captive people, the Muslims of the
world, who like the African Americans of a
century and a half ago, labor under the tyranny
of terror and the terror of tyranny.
I see today a Europe that, like Europe in the
1860s, disrespects the moral values that inspire
the leaders of our cause.
At the time of our Civil War, the European
statesmen declared they would support the Union
if it truly sought freedom for the slaves, but
they scoffed and argued that our intentions were
low and mercenary, and that we were fighting
merely to maintain our colossal presence in the
world, and not for any higher principle. They
called our Civil War a war over cotton,
impossible to win against the hardy and
committed southern forces. So today they scoff
and argue that our intentions are imperialistic,
and that this is a war over oil, impossible to
win against millions of Arabs.
At the time of our Civil War, the European
statesmen revealed that although they hated
slavery they feared American power more, just as
today they show that while they fear terrorism
they fear our power more.
At the time of our Civil War, many among those
in Britain who supported the cause of our Union,
nonetheless believed peace and order were
superior to liberty, and shrank from the
recognition that blood might have to be spilled
to pay the cost of freedom, just as today many
who support our struggle to rid the world of
terrorism draw back when they see the sacrifices
that will be demanded by it.
At the time of our Civil War, the European press
portrayed our secretary of state, William Henry
Seward, as a fanatic willing to turn the Civil
War into a world war should the European powers
obstruct our path, just as the neoconservatives
within the present administration have been
painted as ideological extremists. And the
European press described secretary Seward’s
defiance of European meddling as a gambit to
divert attention from the failures of the
Lincoln administration by starting a foreign
war, just as the European media, and a section
of our American media, describe the liberation
of Iraq as an attempt to distract our people
from the alleged domestic failures of the Bush
administration.
At the time of our Civil War, the rotten powers
of Europe proposed to halt the conflict between
north and south and to impose peace upon us,
without removing the cancer of slavery and
liberating the oppressed millions in our
southern states, just as the United Nations has
sought peace in Iraq without removing the
terrorist dictatorship of Saddam.
At the time of our Civil War, our president was
slow to embrace direct action to free the
slaves, as the present administration was slow
to commit itself to the strategy of liberation
in the Arab and Muslim lands, but, once having
taken the decision, followed through with it.
And the European powers, which had demanded that
the war be fought over slavery, then described
the Emancipation Proclamation, the 140th
anniversary of which we mark this year, as a
dangerous act that might provoke a slave
uprising and a race war, just as today they
predict that the liberation of the Iraqi people
will produce a wholesale war of all against all
in that martyred land.
Secretary of state Seward commented then, "at
first, the [Union] government was considered
unfaithful to humanity in not proclaiming
emancipation, and when it appeared that slavery,
by being thus forced into this contest, must
suffer, and perhaps perish in the conflict, then
the war had become an tolerable propagandism of
emancipation by the sword."
So are we told today that our president has
committed our nation to an intolerable program
of democratization by the sword.
But our cause is that of all humanity, as it was
140 years ago. Our cause, as it was then, is
that of Moses, for when God commanded him to
free the House of Israel from bondage, God did
not tell him to inform Pharaoh that inspectors
would be sent into Egypt and the United Nations
entrusted with the work of liberation. And I
will tell you that traditional Muslims love the
Prophet Moses, and will not oppose our cause if
we act in loyalty to the great inspiration of
freedom that moved him.
But today the United Nations has come to
resemble our congress as it existed in the
decades before the Civil War: a place wherein
the evil influence of tyranny and terror hold
sway, serving only to prevent the actions of
brave and moral leaders from carrying out the
worthy mission of defeating the oppressors.
And I recall to you, in reflecting upon the
degeneracy of the United Nations, the great
words of secretary of state Seward, who declared
that such deliberative bodies have "no power to
inhibit any duty commanded by God on Mount
Sinai," or by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount
of Olives.
Seward also spoke with clarity in 1858, as the
Civil War drew near, of the Democratic party of
that time, a party that had made itself the
protector of the slave power. He said, in words
I believe apply fully to the Muslim and Arab
peoples, "I know, and you know, that a
revolution has begun. I know, and all the world
knows, that revolutions never go backward.
[S]enators and… representatives proclaim boldly
in Congress today sentiments and opinions and
principles of freedom which hardly so many men,
even in this free State [of New York], dared to
utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While
the government of the United States, under the
conduct of the Democratic party, [have]
surrender[ed] one plain and castle after another
to slavery" – and if we substitute the word
"terrorism" for that of "slavery" his words
become truly exact in their parallel – "the
people of the United States have been no less
steadily and perseveringly gathering together
the forces with which to recover back again all
the fields and all the castles which have been
lost, and to confound and overthrow, by one
decisive blow, the betrayers of the constitution
and freedom forever."
Today I see the Republican party reborn in its
original, magnificent incarnation, as the party
of liberation, the party of American power in
the service of freedom, the party of Lincoln.
And I will say that I am grateful to God for
having allowed me to live to see this mighty
outcome.
We have turned a page in our history. As our
president has said, our cause is just. Freedom
has come for the Iraqi people. Liberation will
come to the Muslim and Arab peoples. Let America
be America the liberator again!
Stephen Schwartz, an author and journalist, is
author of The Two Faces of Islam: The House of
Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. A vociferous
critic of Wahhabism, Schwartz is a frequent
contributor to National Review, The Weekly
Standard, and other publications.
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"The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Georgetown Republicans, 1809. ME 16:349
"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134
God Bless America, Mr. George
Georgemvw69@hotmail.com
http://groups.msn.com/NeoCons
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By Stephen Schwartz
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 11, 2003
Iraq is free. The dictatorship has fallen. The
process that began with the end of Marcos, the
fall of the Berlin wall, and other democratic
victories has reached the last redoubt of tyrant
and terror. The time has now come to address the
overall nature of the American mission in
liberating the Arab and Muslim countries. I
would begin such a discussion with the issue of
Wahhabism, which was the topic of my book The
Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud From
Tradition to Terror (Doubleday).
Let me be clear: I do not think victory in Iraq
means we must wage war on Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Rather, I believe democratization in Iraq will
provide a powerful incentive to the
consolidation of democracy in Iran and the
commencement of a transition to a new social
order in Arabia.
The ideology known as Khomeinism is in full
decline. The people of Iran, overwhelmingly
young and forward-looking, supported by
important Shi’a Muslim clerics, wish to end the
period of religious rule that Khomeini
initiated. The reformist clerics put it well:
the experiment failed, and it is now time to
craft a new political system in Iran that will
separate religion from the state, and which will
be based on popular sovereignty.
But the menace of Saudi-backed Wahhabism
remains. Al-Qaida represents Wahhabism in its
purest form. Wahhabism, the official sect in
Saudi Arabia, is a fundamentalist, violent
movement that rejects all existing Islam as
unbelief – especially Islamic spirituality – as
well as seeking the ultimate destruction of
Shi’a Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism.
Wahhabism is not an old Islamic tradition, and
the House of Sa’ud, contrary to Western beliefs,
does not enjoy a major historic claim to
rulership over Arabia.
Wahhabism emerged in the 18th century in central
Arabia – only 250 years ago. The founder of the
Wahhabi dispensation, an obscure figure named
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, formed an alliance
with a clan of desert bandits, the al-Sa’ud. The
area where these events transpired is located on
the main route for pilgrims going to Mecca, on
the Muslim hajj, from Kuwait – especially Indian
pilgrims, who in the 18th century were a rich
source of plunder for the al-Sa’ud.
Wahhabism was observed and commented upon by
Western journalists and authors in its own time.
For example, the 19th century English aesthete
Thomas Hope wrote a novel, titled Anastasius,
that made a tremendous impression in the 1830s.
Therein, Hope, who had traveled widely in the
Islamic world, painted the Wahhabi sect in
colors strikingly familiar to a modern reader:
as extremist Puritans bent on total control over
the world’s Muslims, beginning with the
destruction of the Ottoman empire; as Arab
ultranationalists, to use a contemporary term,
and as terrorists. In one of his most
extraordinary passages, for a modern reader,
Hope described Wahhabi agents scoping out
targeted buildings in Baghdad in the 1790s, an
activity chillingly reminiscent of what we know
about how al-Qaida works.
The house of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the house of
Sa’ud created a theological and political
alliance, in which the Wahhabis directed
religious affairs and the Saudis exercised
political control. This alliance seized control
of the main holy sites of Islam, Mecca and
Medina, twice, murdering thousands of people in
the process. In 1924, with the complicity of the
British, the Wahhabis seized Mecca for the
second and last time. After that came the oil,
and the oil money, and with what seemed to be
limitless resources, the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance
began, in the late 1970s, a serious attempt to
take over world Islam. The result was a series
of conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that
culminated in the emergence of al-Qaida, and,
finally, the horrific events of September 11th.
Today, as it did before September 11th, the
Wahhabi religious bureaucracy and the Saudi
state foster Islamic extremist ideology, and the
terrorism enabled by it. When bombs go off in
Israel, in Indonesia, in Kenya, and elsewhere,
and when terrorists strike at the democratic
coalition forces in Iraq, the main source of
money is, without exception, found in Saudi
Arabia.
Those who argue that Islamist extremism is a
product of U.S.-hegemonic support for corrupt
regimes have a point. But they ignore that the
main source of ideology, incitement, and funds
for Islamist terror has always been none other
than official Saudi Arabia. The rulers of the
Saudi kingdom now try to confuse Western opinion
by proclaiming that they, too, are targets of
Osama bin Laden, while their real intent is to
mask their own complicity in his financing and
organization. In reality, Islamist terrorism is
only partially a protest movement by Saudi
subjects aggrieved at the monarchy’s alliance
with the West. It is, in much greater part, a
phenomenon directly supported by Saudi
authorities. Al-Qaida would not exist without
Saudi money.
We must stop telling ourselves and others that
Saudi Arabia represents some ineffably
mysterious, ancient, and traditional society
that we must approach reluctantly, with extreme
caution, and at arm’s length – especially when
discussing the need for political change there.
In particular, we must stop telling ourselves
and others that the main danger of political
change in the kingdom would involve a shift to a
more extreme Islamist regime.
There is no mystery to Saudi Arabia. It
represents the worst example in modern times of
a corrupt and reactionary absolute monarchy,
whose rulers have great difficulty perceiving
the depth of the crisis that faces them, as well
as the way out of the crisis. The Saudi royal
family can no longer rule in the old way, and
their subjects, with a growing youthful
majority, increasingly refuse to live in the old
way. There is nothing novel about this. The same
problem characterized the regime of the Iranian
shah.
Nor does it represent anything ancient or
traditional. To emphasize, Wahhabi Islam is not
traditional Islam. It is an extremely
destructive, nihilistic and radical form of
Islam.
Wahhabism preaches an ultra-Puritanical way of
life while the Saudi elite swims in whisky and
dizzies itself with pornography. Wahhabism
claims to be the purest form of Islam while the
Saudi monarchy depends on Christian bayonets for
its protection. These mixed signals, or, more
bluntly, these forms of hypocrisy, have a
deranging effect on Saudi society. But they are
also the essential source of Islamist extremism
and terrorism. To close the gap between Wahhabi
blandishments and Saudi reality, and in a
desperate attempt to recover their credibility,
particularly in the 20 years since the emergence
of Khomeini in Iran, the reactionary faction of
the Saudi monarchy has financed terrorism and
infiltration throughout the Islamic world: in
Central Asia, Pakistan, Kashmir, the Balkans,
Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan, the
Caucasus, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kurdistan
and in the Iraqi war zones.
Wahhabi extremism has nothing to do with
humiliation of the Islamic world by the West.
Saudi Arabia has never been subjugated by the
West. Rather, its rulers have been pampered,
coddled, and bribed by the West. Its need for
military support from the West, the pretext for
al-Qaida terrorism against Americans, is hardly
new. To emphasize, over its two-and-a-half
centuries of existence, Wahhabism has always
depended on its alliances with the Christian
powers – Britain, the U.S., and France – to
protect its rule in the Arabian peninsula. At
the same time, to its own population, it
preaches a toxic mix of ferocious separatism,
exclusionism, and murderous violence directed
against non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims. The
former aspect has led gullible policy experts in
the West to view the Wahhabi faction around King
Fahd and princes Sultan and Nayef as friends of
the U.S., and to stigmatize all opponents of the
regime as extremists.
In contrast both with Wahhabi separatism and
Western stereotypes about dissent in the
kingdom, traditionalists under Saudi rule call
for general religious liberty, to accommodate
Arab Christians now underground, the many
thousands of Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist
guest workers in the kingdom, and foreign
Christian and Jewish visitors. While issues
involving activist Christian proselytism would
doubtless remain sensitive, traditionalists see
no justification for preventing Christians from
worshipping. Saudis claim falsely that exclusion
of non-Muslim religious rituals in the Arabian
Peninsula reflects Islamic tradition, but Qatar,
the only other Wahhabi state, has authorized the
erection of new Christian churches, of which
there are many in Bahrein, where Jews and Hindus
also flourish, and there is a Hindu temple in
Oman.
Make no mistake – even non-extremist Saudi
subjects experience hopelessness and
frustration. But their resentment does not flow
from abject poverty. Saudi Arabia faces great
discontent in its populace. But this discontent
does not reflect a desire, except among the
clerical bureaucracy and the Wahhabi faction of
the royal family, for Wahhabism to be maintained
or reinforced. The vast majority of Saudi
subjects are restive because of three factors:
q Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern Province and
southern region are tired of the violent
discrimination they have suffered at the hands
of the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance. These Shi’as are
not prone to Islamist extremism.
q Two generations of Saudi subjects are educated
and entrepreneurial. They know how the real
world works. They have access to satellite
television and the internet. They are tired of
their educated and entrepreneurial ambitions
being blocked by the corrupt and sclerotic
system. They want to live in a modern society,
such as would most resemble Malaysia – a
constitutional and parliamentary Islamic
monarchy.
q Finally, and most significantly, non-Wahhabi
Islamic scholars, especially in Hejaz, the
region of Mecca and Medina, seek the restoration
of theological pluralism. In recent discussions
with dissident Saudi subjects, I have learned
that thousands of young people are turning to
the peaceful and spiritual form of Islam known
as Sufism as an expression of opposition to the
Wahhabi dictatorship in their country.
Furthermore, a necessary and inevitable
transformation of Saudi Arabia need not turn
into a bloody collapse. There is sufficient
possibility for a managed transition to a
Malaysian model. I have called this the "Juan
Carlos/Windsor/Malaysia" solution. Like King
Juan Carlos in Spain, a member of the royal
family such as Crown Prince Abdullah can sever
the links between the monarchy and Wahhabi
ideology. Like the Windsors in Britain, the
Saudi royal family may retain their wealth and
even their status as heads of state, but without
ruling the country; and the Malaysian model may
therefore emerge as the best alternative for
Arabia.
In addition, it is absurd to believe that a
successor political regime would reflect a more
extreme Islamist position. None of the elements
that led to the establishment of the Khomeini
regime in Iran are present in Saudi Arabia.
Unlike the Iranian scholars of 1978, the
Wahhabis do not have a record of real opposition
to the state, nor do they have a tradition of
collective action or of political sophistication
in the management of crises or even the
exploitation of political opportunities that
appear in times of crisis. Unlike Iran, Saudi
Arabia has produced no unifying, charismatic
figure comparable to Khomeini; and above all,
Iran represented an experiment, and Iranians had
not experienced strict Islamic rule. By
contrast, Saudi subjects are, simply, sick of
Wahhabism.
But while Saudi Arabia need not go the way of
Iran internally, the U.S. faces the serious
threat of repetition of its error in Iran in
Saudi Arabia, by remaining faithful to an
alleged ally and questionable friend, and
propping up a corrupt regime even as it
collapses. This danger will be especially
pernicious in the aftermath of victory in Iraq.
The beginning of democracy in Iraq can lead to
consolidation of reform in Iran and the
commencement of a transition to a constitutional
and parliamentary monarchy in Saudi Arabia. We
cannot liberate Iraq while helping to maintain
tyranny in the Saudi kingdom.
Such an outcome would be devastating for
American credibility, and would tragically
reinforce the Islamist claim that our power
exists only to support oppressive rulers.
Although it is impossible to imagine a worse
regime than that of Saudi Arabia in its
relations with its subjects, U.S. intransigence
in defending the most reactionary elements of
the royal family could produce a less-repressive
but more anti-American successor government.
I do not come to this discussion from an
academic or government background. I am somewhat
like Thomas Hope myself: I came to examine Islam
as a poet and political intellectual. I have
flattered myself in saying that I learned about
Wahhabism the way George Orwell learned about
Stalinism. To understand global Stalinist
ideological aggression, Orwell did not go to
Moscow; he went to Republican Spain during that
country’s civil war, where he witnessed the
nefarious activities of the Soviet secret
police. I did not go to Saudi Arabia to study
Wahhabism; I witnessed the attempt of
Wahhabi-Saudi agents to take over Balkan Islam,
in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania. I first heard
the term Wahhabi in a Yugoslav context more than
10 years ago.
I consider journalistic objectivity to mean
accuracy, not neutrality. After much study,
interviewing, and publishing on these topics, I
went to the Balkans to live in 1999. Among
Albanians, from 1999 to 2001 – only weeks before
September 11, 2001 –I witnessed, and had the
honor of participating in, the resistance of the
local Muslims to Saudi-Wahhabi efforts at
control and indoctrination.
As I have come back to the United States, Balkan
Muslim intellectuals with whom I am close have
called on me to expose Wahhabi-Saudi religious
colonialism to the Western public. This profound
charge became even more serious after September
11th.
Hostility to Wahhabi extremism is prevalent
throughout the Muslim world. In researching my
book, I drew on informants, most of them
confidential, that included Saudi subjects, West
Africans, Moroccans, Algerians, Egyptians,
Somalis, Chechens, Ingushes, Uzbeks, Pakistanis,
Indian Muslims, Malaysians, and Iraqis as well
as Balkan and American Muslims.
What is the main goal of the Wahhabi-Saudi
alliance? To destroy the traditional Islam
present from Bosnia-Hercegovina to South Africa,
and from Morocco to the Philippines, and to
replace it with their extremist, ultra-rigid,
and Puritanical version of Islam.
I personally observed the failure of
Wahhabi-Saudi infiltrators to take control of
Balkan Islam. This profoundly cynical effort was
motivated by the belief that the terrible
martyrdom undergone by the Bosnian Muslims in
particular, would induce these victims of an
attempted genocide to turn away from their
European roots and open, tolerant, Ottoman
Islamic traditions, and to embrace Wahhabi
extremism. I do not think any Islamic community
in the world can be said to have suffered, in
the last half century, a comparable agony to
that of the Bosnians: tens of thousands of women
and girls raped, a quarter of a million dead, 40
percent of mosques leveled, more than half a
million people dispossessed of their homes. Yet
the Bosnian believers, their eyes focused
clearly and unwaveringly on their own Sunni
legacy as well as their distinctive traditions,
refused to submit to Saudi control.
Still, the repudiation of Saudi-Wahhabi
pretensions by the Kosovar Muslims has been even
more dramatic. Put simply, the entire Albanian
nation is acutely conscious that it owes the
survival of 2.5 million Kosovars to action by
the democratic West, by the Christian leaders of
the U.S., and to the noble activities of the
Jewish religious and civic leaders in the West,
who demanded action to stop the Serbian terror.
In Kosovo, the Wahhabi-Saudi fake jihad has
failed completely.
But the extensions of the Wahhabi conspiracy –
centered in such organizations as the Muslim
World League and the World Assembly of Muslim
Youth, both headquartered in Saudi Arabia – are
visible throughout the world, wherever Muslims
are found, including on U.S. soil.
The failure of Western political and
intellectual leaders to adequately understand
the internal crisis in Islam, and the conflict
between tradition and extremism, led not only to
obliviousness in the face of the terror revealed
on September 11th, but also to heedlessness in
dealing with Islam on American soil. At this
point, certain measures have become imperative.
One of them is for the U.S. to demand a full,
transparent accounting of Saudi involvement in
September 11th from the Saudi authorities.
Another is to demand that the Saudi government,
like the Soviet government and various
right-wing dictatorships before it, entirely cut
off its subsidies to the extremist Wahhabi
ideological establishment.
Third and most important, is to protect,
support, and otherwise encourage American and
other Muslims opposed to Wahhabism to develop
and preserve their own community institutions
and to produce a new, articulate network of
authoritative advocates who can bring the truth
about traditional Islam to the Western public.
More importantly, the moment has come to shift
from the struggle to warn the West about
jihadism to the campaign to organize mainstream,
traditional Muslims, throughout the world, for
the liberation of their communities and their
faith from the grip of corrupt rulers – whether
in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere
throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. The last
is the mission of the Islam and Democracy
program created by the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies. I believe this concept
crystallizes the liberation strategy pursued in
Iraq by our commander-in-chief, President George
W. Bush.
I should like to conclude these remarks with
some observations relevant to the present
conflict, in which our great and noble cause is
led by a Republican president.
I will confess to a peculiar and
counter-intuitive understanding of history,
which led me to my observance and investigation
of how our Saudi ally fosters international
Islamist terrorism.
Today, I see our armies and those of our
coalition partners arrayed against the forces of
terrorism. And I see in this conflict a
repetition of a conflict of the past. Some have
asked if the horror of September 11th should not
be considered parallel to the assassination in
Sarajevo in 1914, which began the first world
war. In 1991 I stood in the footprints of
Princip, the Serbian terrorist who fired the
fatal shots at Sarajevo 89 years ago, and in the
decade after I stood there, in the atrocious war
that shook the Balkans anew, I observed Serbian
terrorism reborn. The city of Sarajevo and the
city of New York have something in common, in
that both experienced the evil of terrorism
inflicted on an innocent, civilian population.
But there is a higher parallel to September 11th
and to the present war, and it is greatly
counter-intuitive, and may be rejected out of
hand by many people. It is with Fort Sumter and
our own Civil War, in which the Republican Party
of President Lincoln, and of secretary of state
William Henry Seward, who had been governor of
the great state of New York, secured the end of
human slavery in this country, and preserved our
union as a mighty power in the world.
We have long been told our Civil War involved
only us, and was irrelevant to the rest of the
world. This is wrong, for our Civil War involved
more than a conflict between our own people. It
also defined who we are as a nation: America the
liberator, a representative of the transforming
idea of freedom, throughout the world.
I see today the mighty battles of our Civil War
transferred to the planetary scale, and the
emergence of a global Civil War, to determine
whether freedom or tyranny will dominate the
future of humanity.
I see today an evil, terrorism, that like the
evil of slavery, reflects the power of vast,
entrenched interests.
I see today a commodity, oil, that like cotton
then, is treated as a value above all others,
determining the fates of whole nations.
I see today a captive people, the Muslims of the
world, who like the African Americans of a
century and a half ago, labor under the tyranny
of terror and the terror of tyranny.
I see today a Europe that, like Europe in the
1860s, disrespects the moral values that inspire
the leaders of our cause.
At the time of our Civil War, the European
statesmen declared they would support the Union
if it truly sought freedom for the slaves, but
they scoffed and argued that our intentions were
low and mercenary, and that we were fighting
merely to maintain our colossal presence in the
world, and not for any higher principle. They
called our Civil War a war over cotton,
impossible to win against the hardy and
committed southern forces. So today they scoff
and argue that our intentions are imperialistic,
and that this is a war over oil, impossible to
win against millions of Arabs.
At the time of our Civil War, the European
statesmen revealed that although they hated
slavery they feared American power more, just as
today they show that while they fear terrorism
they fear our power more.
At the time of our Civil War, many among those
in Britain who supported the cause of our Union,
nonetheless believed peace and order were
superior to liberty, and shrank from the
recognition that blood might have to be spilled
to pay the cost of freedom, just as today many
who support our struggle to rid the world of
terrorism draw back when they see the sacrifices
that will be demanded by it.
At the time of our Civil War, the European press
portrayed our secretary of state, William Henry
Seward, as a fanatic willing to turn the Civil
War into a world war should the European powers
obstruct our path, just as the neoconservatives
within the present administration have been
painted as ideological extremists. And the
European press described secretary Seward’s
defiance of European meddling as a gambit to
divert attention from the failures of the
Lincoln administration by starting a foreign
war, just as the European media, and a section
of our American media, describe the liberation
of Iraq as an attempt to distract our people
from the alleged domestic failures of the Bush
administration.
At the time of our Civil War, the rotten powers
of Europe proposed to halt the conflict between
north and south and to impose peace upon us,
without removing the cancer of slavery and
liberating the oppressed millions in our
southern states, just as the United Nations has
sought peace in Iraq without removing the
terrorist dictatorship of Saddam.
At the time of our Civil War, our president was
slow to embrace direct action to free the
slaves, as the present administration was slow
to commit itself to the strategy of liberation
in the Arab and Muslim lands, but, once having
taken the decision, followed through with it.
And the European powers, which had demanded that
the war be fought over slavery, then described
the Emancipation Proclamation, the 140th
anniversary of which we mark this year, as a
dangerous act that might provoke a slave
uprising and a race war, just as today they
predict that the liberation of the Iraqi people
will produce a wholesale war of all against all
in that martyred land.
Secretary of state Seward commented then, "at
first, the [Union] government was considered
unfaithful to humanity in not proclaiming
emancipation, and when it appeared that slavery,
by being thus forced into this contest, must
suffer, and perhaps perish in the conflict, then
the war had become an tolerable propagandism of
emancipation by the sword."
So are we told today that our president has
committed our nation to an intolerable program
of democratization by the sword.
But our cause is that of all humanity, as it was
140 years ago. Our cause, as it was then, is
that of Moses, for when God commanded him to
free the House of Israel from bondage, God did
not tell him to inform Pharaoh that inspectors
would be sent into Egypt and the United Nations
entrusted with the work of liberation. And I
will tell you that traditional Muslims love the
Prophet Moses, and will not oppose our cause if
we act in loyalty to the great inspiration of
freedom that moved him.
But today the United Nations has come to
resemble our congress as it existed in the
decades before the Civil War: a place wherein
the evil influence of tyranny and terror hold
sway, serving only to prevent the actions of
brave and moral leaders from carrying out the
worthy mission of defeating the oppressors.
And I recall to you, in reflecting upon the
degeneracy of the United Nations, the great
words of secretary of state Seward, who declared
that such deliberative bodies have "no power to
inhibit any duty commanded by God on Mount
Sinai," or by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount
of Olives.
Seward also spoke with clarity in 1858, as the
Civil War drew near, of the Democratic party of
that time, a party that had made itself the
protector of the slave power. He said, in words
I believe apply fully to the Muslim and Arab
peoples, "I know, and you know, that a
revolution has begun. I know, and all the world
knows, that revolutions never go backward.
[S]enators and… representatives proclaim boldly
in Congress today sentiments and opinions and
principles of freedom which hardly so many men,
even in this free State [of New York], dared to
utter in their own homes twenty years ago. While
the government of the United States, under the
conduct of the Democratic party, [have]
surrender[ed] one plain and castle after another
to slavery" – and if we substitute the word
"terrorism" for that of "slavery" his words
become truly exact in their parallel – "the
people of the United States have been no less
steadily and perseveringly gathering together
the forces with which to recover back again all
the fields and all the castles which have been
lost, and to confound and overthrow, by one
decisive blow, the betrayers of the constitution
and freedom forever."
Today I see the Republican party reborn in its
original, magnificent incarnation, as the party
of liberation, the party of American power in
the service of freedom, the party of Lincoln.
And I will say that I am grateful to God for
having allowed me to live to see this mighty
outcome.
We have turned a page in our history. As our
president has said, our cause is just. Freedom
has come for the Iraqi people. Liberation will
come to the Muslim and Arab peoples. Let America
be America the liberator again!
Stephen Schwartz, an author and journalist, is
author of The Two Faces of Islam: The House of
Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. A vociferous
critic of Wahhabism, Schwartz is a frequent
contributor to National Review, The Weekly
Standard, and other publications.
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