Tuesday, December 27, 2005

A Quiz for the Aware Muslim/Internationalist

Let's see how much of an internationalist you really are. Please honestly attempt to answer the question before scrolling down for the answer. No cheating!

Q: Which country fits this description?

In the past two years, the President of the country, and his entire cabinet was removed by force by outsiders. Many of the cabinet members were imprisoned. A puppet government was installed in the country, and remains in place with U.S. backing. House-to-house searches are carried out, to uproot "militants." Particular cities and towns are identified as resistance strongholds, and subjected to massive assault by the occupying force, resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties. The reporting of such massive assaults and the concomitant suffering of civilians was almost completely censored by corporate media. Prior to these events, the country refused to succumb to the designs of the imperialists and their allies, and was placed under embargo, aimed at starving the country into submission.

Um....

Ah....

Let's see....

Er....

Could it be....

Perhaps....

Hmmm....

Heck if I know...

Why does she ask such annoying questions anyway...

A: Iraq? No, the description is that of Haiti. The similarities to Iraq are astounding:

Forced removal of the President of an Independent, Sovereign Nation
• Iraqi President Saddam Hussain was removed by force after he refused to succumb to U.S. and Israeli designs.
• Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide was effectively kidnapped by the U.S. military, and taken from Haiti to the Central African Republic on a U.S. military plane accompanied by U.S. soldiers, after he refused to comply with U.S. demands.

Initial Imposition of Puppet Government
• In Iraq, Iyad Allawi—who’d lived for decades in the U.K, and was a British citizen--was named interim Prime Minister by the U.S. after the invasion.
• In Haiti, Gerard Latortue was appointed interim head of the new puppet government, while still living in the U.S.

House-to-House Searches by the Military
• In Iraq, U.S. troops search homes and terrorize inhabitants on a daily basis.
• In Haiti, Haitian puppet government, their death squads, and U.N. troops carry out house-to-house searches primarily in the slums, where the resistance is based.

Destruction of Major Centers of Resistance
• In Iraq, Fallujah and other cities, labeled as resistance strongholds, were brutally assaulted and destroyed.
• In Haiti, Cite Soleil and other impoverished townships, known for resistance to the imposed regime, were targeted for ferocious military assault. Cite Soleil is Haiti’s Fallujah.

Criminal Censorship by the Corporate Media
• In Iraq, the destruction of Fallujah was censored for days by corporate media.
• In Haiti, the assault on Cite Soleil went almost completely unreported. In fact, the media blackout of the Cite Soleil assault may be seen as more complete than that of Fallujah, because Haiti has no Al-Jazeera.

Embargo: the Policy of Starve, then Kill
• After President Saddam Hussain refused to bow to U.S./Israeli pressure, Iraq was placed under U.N./U.S. sanctions resulting in the deaths of millions of Iraqis.
• After the Haitians threw off the chains of slavery around 1804--in the first successful slave uprising in the Americas--the U.S. launched an embargo against Haiti, to starve the Haitians into submission and to punish them for daring to resist.

And countless other similarities.

Muslims must wake up and see that the modus operandi of the Oppressor is the same whether against Black people in Haiti, or against Arab people in Iraq. Qur’an kareem commands us to resist oppression, in all its forms. Just as Muslims must support the struggle of the Iraqi people to eject the occupying force, we must support the Haitian resistance, carried out by Fanmi Lavalas (party of President Jean Bertrand Aristide)!

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