US helps the butcher Karimov, again

Astro, I am becoming very fond of you.

You remind me of my childhood, of Saadi Shirazi and above all of his famous Hikayaat. Best of all you remind me of dukandaar (shopkeeper) in one hikayet. My favourite character.

I am missing his name right now. Age perhaps! But then we could call him Guloo just for our groups' sake.

One day, after a long session with his pupils, Saadi felt like a bowl of chick pea shorbeh (soup). He headed for Guloo's shop and and said;

"Hi Guloo, please,  pack me a measure of chick peas."

Guloo sat up on his mat. Gave Saadi a big smile and, started with this tale of how he had accidentally met with this merchant passing through the town and how he managed to obtain a pair of fine quality Isfahan Lamps.

Guloo stands up, lifts the pair from a corner shelf, buffs it with his shirt sleeves and puts it before our the Farsi poet, writer, thinker, whatever else he was.

Saadi smiles.

Bet he was some cute patient chap! He tells Guloo that he wasn�t at all interested in lamps or anything else for that matter on such an empty tummy. All he wanted was a bit of lentils if Guloo had run out of chick peas!

Guloo walks away to the other end of his shop and lifts a Bukhara teapot.

He brings it to Saadi and asks if it wasn't a sheer beauty?

The tale goes on and on and on. I don't have Saadi's pen or his words to tell it in any reasonable manner. Plus, I am stuck in a language, which is possibly the best language in the world legal drafts and business letters but it�s totally lost on tales, poetry, philosophy or other such art forms.

Astro reminds me of my childhood, of Saadi, of his Hikayaat and of course of Guloo. Each time I read one of his posts, I can't help smiling and just calling him Guloo instead.

Just for an instance, here we are talking about Karimov and his butchery.

His troops have killed thousands of villagers just last month. Those poor unarmed men, women and children were protesting for the �freedom� his regime enjoys in the art of torture and killing. It's a proven fact that he boils people alive in water if the right quantity of oil is not at hand. He impales opponents or their relatives when the dissident is not caught.

And all of that with explicit U S and UK support. Not just that but also they pay him something like $230 MILLION a year to keep practising his favourite hobby.

The point at hand is how the world community was trying to probe into the recent killings and how the great champions of �human rights� and �freedom� stepped in to kill this probe.

But our Guloo stands up chanting his own wares; of Isfahan lamps or some Bukhara teapots. I understand and feel for his trauma. We are all human and anyone of us can run into any form of such testing times. Could there ever be a more testing time than seeing what you had taken as more sacred than perhaps even your own mother just crash to the ground, lying all around you in a thousand shards?

I can understand his agony, his pain and also, at times, the venom he spits. Just think about it for a moment. How would I feel if all my tax dollars were spent on keeping the world's largest single army and that army kept fleeing from each Imperial venture, from every single front in my entire living memory?

Isn't it sad when myths shatter? or, just explode into our faces?

I can feel his agony. I can feel his pain. But there is nothing we can do about it. The sad fact is; khud karda ra ilaaj e neest (Farsi � there�;s no cure for the self inflicted wound) Sad, but it�s the law of life.

We can do nothing.

At this moment of time I can just attempt to relieve him of just some burden of painful misconceptions.

• The Arabs, the Turks and the French are not even remotely connected with this mess in Uzbekistan.
• They are not responsible for the mess in Iraq.
• They did NOT invade Iraq
• Bush, Blair and Burlesconi did
• or shall we say the �B Team� did it?

He keeps on mentioning history.

Does he really wish to discuss history? Shall we start with what I have seen with my own eyes? Should we start with 1953? When the American invaded Iran, on behest of the American Iranian Oil Co and binned an ELECTED peoples� government?

�      What great good have your Muslim countries given the world lately?

My friend all the oil you need for running your lives + economy

�      Seems to me all they export are poisonous oil fumes

I can swear upon my honour, we have not forced you to import oil for a single moment. You have your own oil why can�t you live with it? Why kill and maim our poor kids just for the sake of controlling our oil?

�      terrorist murderers and suicides, threats, and insults.

It�s a very sad fact of life my friend. When you invade a country that�s just what you get. We never promised you any Rose Garden. Your Vice President did.

Please ask him.

�      I guess I present facts in vain about U.S. weapons sales to Saddam. It makes me feel that trying to discuss these matters with you is pointless.

Yes. You are right about the pointlessness of your discussion.

Make it a bit realistic, cut the dreams and the fantasies out and see how all begin to take you for serious.

�      when in places like Iraq, where intervention was clearly required to bring an end to the sanctions

Really? You think anyone in the whole wide world would believe that the White House and his poodle could not end the sanctions � ESPECIALLY � when Saddam had offered to hold free elections and quit in two years.

(International News � Feb 2003 � SUPRESSED in a �Free� country by your media EXACTLY like the Downing Street Memo news was blacked out by your mainstream media)

�      helping prop up their failing socialist policies

Be honest what do you know about Socialism or even about Social charter that we follow here in Europe? Were you ever given or allowed a chance to know anything about socialism in your great "Free" country?

Did uncle Macarthy ever permit you any choice in this matter?

All economies have their ups and downs.

But thank goodness we are treated okay even at the worst of times. All our needs are met. Women don�t have to join the army or otherwise prostitute themselves just for going through the college. We would not opt for the dirty Capture It All ism ever in our wake. We are sane people. We are not just Americans.

Post a New Topic and we will talk about that.

Can you define your term of Islamo-Fascist?

Have the Muslims ever told you how to live your life? Have they ever prescribed how your women should dress or how they should undress?

Are they trying to steal your oil or the Grand Canyon?

Have they invaded your lands?

Can�t you understand that enough does become enough at some point and people do fight back. It�s not their fault that your army is just a useless white Elephant and misbehaving bunch at that.

I feel if the Americans took responsibility for their behaviour and that Capture It All urge the world would beging to see them in a different light.

I guess I should simply not try to read these posts.  They make me too .  As an American I do not believe in many of our government policies, ESPECIALLY the current international policies, nor do I feel good about our current policy makers.  However, I do think it's unfair to make it appear that all Americans are bad.  It seems to me that as long as we keep pointing the finger and trying to make everything someone's fault, we waste so much time and energy that could be better used elsewhere.  Governments are going to be governments with their own agendas (not that this is a good thing but it�s reality...check out history if you don't believe me), but as individual members of the human race, we are more than members of a certain nation or race or culture.  I guess growing up having to come to terms with being 1/2 Native American and 1/2 Anglo Saxon, has helped me learn that life is more complex than any one of us can comprehend and sometimes it's simply better if we chose to be a part of the cure and not a part of the problem.  When we point fingers and fight over things that are not within our control, we become a part of the problem and lose all sight of a possible solution.

PAZ (peace)

Akhi el aziz

Been looking for words all these days to thank you.

Astrophysicist wrote: We are not communicating. You do not hear or understand what I say.

And you are being obtuse. You are saying that America believes in justice and democracy, while I have presented confirmed evidence that America is helping a brutal dictator cover up the massacre of innocent civilians. Abtract theories fail when the data contradicts them.