leaders in that war and yet he was a
Greek and that's why the Iliad is
anything but melodramatic because the
Greeks were not melodramatic great
literature and great poetry is never
melodramatic
it can't be or it wouldn't be great
literature or great poetry so when you
read poetry and and this is one of the
beauties for me of the tradition of
Islam is that it demands of you before
you can actually interpret the Quran you
have to master jaggedy poetry because
it's poetry that gives us the nuances of
life it's only through the poet's vision
of the world that we can actually get a
sense of the ambiguities of the world
and this is something that's often very
difficult for people to recognize that
the world is an ambiguous place it is
often very easy to miss read the world
it's very often easy to see ourselves as
we are not rather than as we are and
it's always easy to see ourselves in the
best light always that's the easiest way
to go down so in in reading history I
think the first and the first and most
important aspect is is obviously to get
the right books because often if it's
Mis written we fall into great error and
and these these lies and distortions of
history have been repeated so often that
they do become like truths for instance
that the Alexandrian library was burnt
by the Muslim
III even had a professor even though I
proved to him that it was not and this
was a professor of Religious Studies I
proved to him that it was not the case
he still told me well I like my version
better ok I mean quite literally and
this is like Galileo makes fun of a
group of church men where he shows them
that the this the central nervous system
was was located in the brain and not the
heart and he shows them and and he and
they remark that it's very interesting
what you've demonstrated and had not
Aristotle said that it was centered in
the heart we'd have to agree with you so
this is one of the tragedies that we
have authorities that become like Moses
bringing tablets in stone
if Bernard Lewis said it it must be true
because he is the doyen of Middle
Eastern Studies
nobody knows Middle Eastern Studies
better than he's fluent in Turkish and
Arabic and Persian and and and what do
you say oh great master o wise one grand
pooh-bah of all who know of the Middle
East tell us what you see with your vast
wisdom Islam something's gone wrong
we have to rectify it the question that
that I would have as an American living
in this country not even as a Muslim
American as an American is what went
wrong here what went wrong here because
when I grew up in this country I had to
get under a wooden desk out of fear of
being bombed by the Russians with
nuclear bombs if it long before Osama
Bin Ladin seriously and this was not an
axis of evil that was living in caves
that didn't even have email because
there there's there's no seriously
there's there's
oh you know Osama you've got mail you
know he's not he's not up there in that
cave you know this this was this was the
Russian war machine this was a real
threat and and we were told quick get
under your desks when I was in third
grade I didn't realize that the little
wooden desk would not protect me from a
nuclear explosion so why were they doing
that to us what was the purpose of that
exercise create fear I inherited from my
great grandmother
Lillian Cummings who studied rhetoric in
high school in Wichita Falls and in that
book which she studied in 1882 by
Alexander bein called rhetoric there's a
section called the emotions she was 16
years old when she studied this section
and in that section it had a couple
paragraphs on fear and it said
politicians will often use fear to
deprive citizens of their civil
liberties this is why in a democracy
citizens must be vigilant and always be
on guard against the use of fear because
once a person enters into a state of
fear he's willing to surrender his
common sense now why aren't those books
taught in our schools anymore really why
aren't they taught instead you know
Roosevelt said all we have to fear is
fear itself and and we had a president
that started orange alerts and red
alerts and are you afraid yet that was
actually a cover of Time magazine it had
the question are you afraid yet question
mark but when I was growing up we had
the Russian threat and yet I never heard
anybody talking about should we torture
Russian spies if we capture them to find
out what they were doing
should we have a Guantanamo
Bay for Russian spies I never heard that
it just wasn't part of America at that
time and that's why for me to be in this
country and hear people talking about
the torture question when did it become
a question because I thought that was a
medieval concept that that we we've
thrown off
I thought we transcended that I thought
human dignity no matter what a person
did they were entitled to be protected
in their body that's what I thought this
country was about so what went wrong
here that's that's a that's a question
that I think Bernard Lou's needs to ask
also if he's going to ask what went
wrong over there which is a valid
question because things aren't so good
over there but are things really that
good over here
because we've got we're rebuilding
apparently Iraq and Afghanistan and and
we haven't rebuilt New Orleans yet we
haven't rebuilt New Orleans yet really
so we have to be able to perceive the
world through the lens of nuance we have
to recognize that we're not living in a
black-and-white world there's not pure
evil in this world and pure good human
beings are an admixture of good and evil
it's our nature all of us whether you're
Muslim this is one of the extraordinary
things about the world is it's so evenly
distributed good and evil really it's
it's quite extraordinary and
intelligence as well the idea of
superiority of races intelligence is
very evenly distributed across the the
world you can take people from the
poorest countries in the world and take
them as little children and put them in
the most developed countries in the
world they learn very quick they adapt
they learn all the same sciences
everything that people here are learning
they can do it in fact you can take a
Bedouin where I lived in Mauritania you
can take a Bedouin and bring him here
and within two weeks he'll know how to
turn the switches on flush the toilet
put the toast into the toaster pop it
out you open the refrigerator pour the
milk out do the whole thing that all we
do but if you go over to where he lives
you'll die in two weeks seriously you'll
die in two weeks
you'll be dead so they can survive here
but we can't survive over there we've
got a lot to learn from the Aboriginal
peoples because we might end up going
back to no electricity and it you know
it looks like it's all headed that
eventually right the polar ice caps are
melting it's gonna all the water levels
will go up and all this electricity that
you'll have water in the house get up to
the level of the sockets and that's it
right Florida they won't have
electricity there I'll be on those
stilted houses like they have in some of
the South Asian countries so we have to
learn to look in a more nuanced way now
that I there's one issue that I want to
talk about our clothes on this is that
we're in a crises and I think
everybody's aware of that and the crises
are very deep and there are no simple
answers to this crises but we need to go
deeper and and I want to use one example
we had a police acquittal I think was an
acquittal did they it was acquittal
three police officers shot somebody
quite horribly 50 times I mean I Madiha
know it was similar situation but we
also have to recognize and this is
something that the Buddhists are
probably more adept at doing the most
other traditions we have to be able to
get in to the skin of the other and
until we can really do that in some real
deep way we'll never get to any serious
solutions we're going to remain in that
black and white us versus them police
versus civilians this type of attitude
we're living in a very violent kind
we have police officers that are
incredibly stressed out they they
graduate from these police academies
probably with a lot of ideas about what
it is to become a policeman and become
very jaded especially those that are
working in these inner cities and things
like this and until we start realizing
that we've got people out there with
post-traumatic stress syndrome we have
people out there with high levels of
depression in my state one of the
highest rates of suicide is in the
Highway Patrol this is this is our
Social Sciences you know people are
having a hard time out there and until
we start seeing that collectively we
need to work together and to really
start looking at these things at a much
deeper level we're not going anywhere in
the Muslim world we have serious
problems we have failed States we have
people that do not have basic rights we
have countries that basically there are
no legal systems they're simply not
working you cannot go to a judge and get
recourse to justice in many many
countries in the world today
it creates an immense amount of
resentment an immense amount of
instability but these are the realities
of our time and then we have a system
that rewards greed and venality we have
a system of economic injustice that is
extraordinarily harmful to the human
condition it not only harms the people
at the very bottom of the pyramid it
also harms the Pharaoh and the Quran
calls the Pharaoh as well as the slave
the Quran commands Moses to go to
Pharaoh and speak to him gently that
perhaps he might wake up and we tend to
forget that the oppressor needs help as
much as the oppressed does Socrates said
I would much rather be the one being
oppressed than the one oppressing
because the oppressed his body is being
harmed but the oppressor is destroying
his soul
in terms of the Islamic Christian
civilization I think it's a possibility
and it's going to either be the ballot
or the bullet and I'm counting on the
ball
I wanted to make note as we're talking
of change at what's possible and the
Islamic Christian civilization that we
have sitting at this stage on this stage
we have a Methodist we find out we have
all three American born here American
born son of two different Christian
traditions Catholic and Orthodox okay
so I ended up you know they call that
the Great Schism so they did divorce and
they produced one of America's great
Islamic and I and I you know I realized
the only way I could really get out of
the madness of the Catholic Orthodox
schism was to become Muslim I told an
Orthodox priest that you know he he was
actually a bishop from Albania and he
was so troubled that I apostate it and I
told him well you do know that we've got
that little clause there in the Orthodox
tradition that as long as you've been
baptized you'll eventually be okay
unlike the Catholics where it's just
well I wanted to mention that my mom is
Christian the daughter of a minister
from Scotland and my father is Muslim
Mustafa hiding from karbala and I think
that the with the three of us up here in
the mission that you set yourself out on
Richard bulletins what you're doing
Hamza in my small way perhaps myself we
are representing possibilities for this
nation and possibilities for the future
as are you out there in the room and
we're not so unusual I really wanted to
say that before we go into a greater
depth on
in this discussion because it's
important to note that there's a people
like us out there people like us out
there and and that's what we're going to
see our hope and our future so I did
notice in this talk of speaking
you stayed often enough and it's the
truth there is an American philosopher
named Tommy smothers who said that as
well he say it often enough it becomes a
truth so it's not just Bernard Lewis
he's in good company I wanted to but I
wanted to take a look just for starters
at the subtitle for this discussion miss
reading history what Islam and the West
can learn from each other so I want to
go there but I also want to thank my
disapproval of the terminologies Islam
in the West apples and videotapes you
know they're not parallel constructs so
as we try to get Islamic Christian in
our vocabulary I'd like to see if we can
find a different constructs first I was
it's a problem and it's used
so what would you say I'm going to do
use their journalist crusher what is the
most important the one thing that
America that go West should learn from
Islam and that as long should learn from
the West just for starters and I hate
that question but it's a journalist
crutch I'm going to use it right now
well the I mean I don't like the terms
either and I I think that no one except
people in the West really do like the
terms what they like about the West is
that they feel that that now is going to
ignore the fact that they have faith
tradition so they come out of and they
can say oh we're we're post Christian
were post on Judaic we're the secular
West without the without the slightest
self-awareness of where they came from
and the way in which where they came
from influence things so the the
question of what you learn to me you
know it seems to mean that you study the
history of the West through Western eyes
and you study the history of Islam it's
your westernized because we do not have
a well-articulated widely distributed
generally agreed upon history of Islam
that has not been generated in response
to and in conversation with and often in
kind of abject acquiescence in the views
of of Western scholars and I think that
one of the
one of the things that Islam can learn
from the West is the necessity of taking
control of the other dis cars so telling
the master narrative from that from
their own point of view the problem is
that the point of view shouldn't be you
know the West says it's always us
against them and we're good and they're
bad the alternative is not to say though
from a Muslim point of view it's us
against them and we're good in the West
is bad meaning you because of the you
can't mirror that dialogue instead you
have to transcend it and say no there is
a different view in which the issue of
some sort of eternal conflict is not
central that's a political changing
environment and the fact the matter is
that for hundreds of years the
Christians in the West did not consider
Islam a separate religion they thought
Judaism the separate us if it was a
heretical form of Christianity
people miss that nuance of the Divine
Comedy in that he places his fictional
character of the Prophet in the circle
schismatic no he not with the false
prophets but with the schismatic s-- and
and and i he is there because he split
Islam according to that Shia Sunni split
narrative so it was seen as a schism
it's it's it's it's very interesting so
for an author like the one that I was
talking about Anthony pactum he says don
t got it wrong inexplicably don t
doesn't understand that it's it's the
West against Islam but the Western songs
are actually very recent yeah and then
the the Eastern Orthodox Christians have
always been disenfranchised from even
Western Christianity and very much I
think that the letter of the arch Bishop
of Antioch to the Pope about his the the
comments he made about Islam he said
look you know we've been living here
with Muslims for centuries and it's very
different from from your perspective and
he was just asking that he understood
the situation a little deeper than he
was presenting it what one one I just I
would say that you know the the prices
and you point this out in your book
about legitimization and the crises of
legitimization legitimacy is a crises
that I don't think is just in the Muslim
world that's happening here as well it's
happening the whole nation state the
concept of the nation-state is becoming
harder and harder to justify in in in
the type of worldwide
world that we're living in the the
corporate hegemonies that are taking
place now and financing and its central
wall which is actually superseding
politics really in determining what's
going on but the there is a crises of
religious authority and the way the
Catholics dealt with that always was
with the Magisterium Jewish and Islamic
tradition had a very nuanced way of
dealing with that through a type of
process of you know the rabbi is in the
odama would would have these long
discussions about things and kind of
finally come to some either a consensus
or an acceptable disagreement like your
opinions valid my opinions valid God
knows best who's right and heretical
views or views that were to deviant to
be accepted within that were identified
and people were told to stay away and
that that's how orthodoxy was identified
that's no longer the case we have google
Islam today we have mass numbers of
Muslims reading primary text which was
never the case you before you could read
a primary text you had to go through a
training that enables you to access
those texts within the hermeneutic
framework of that tradition now we have
sex emerging in the Muslim world that
are really new and one of them is the
political Islamic sect that's a very new
narrative this idea of the Islamic state
that is a completely Western idea that
Muslims have internalized and not even
realized where it came from they don't
see that it actually is a Western idea
yeah and it's far closer to Zionism than
it is to Islam the idea of creating an
ideological state in which the the
believers can live a free of the
impurity in purities of the disbelievers
so I think the what the West has you
know America to a certain degree in
certainly Europe has has been grappling
with in dealing with is how we create a
pluralistic society where religious
space is protected and is not a threat
to the the civil society itself so
religious violence is is it was a crises
that emerged largely in the 17th century
in Europe which led to these solutions
of how we deal with religion because
people are religious by nature but how
do we deal with that so that religion is
protected in spaces protected and yet
it's no longer a violent threat to the
well-being of society well
the Muslim world is grappling with that
now because religious violence is is
something that's very real now in the
Muslim world and it's it's been alien
really in in the history of something
you said it's far less prevalent in the
Muslim world but I think there we have
to learn how we can live with a
religious space in which people are free
to practice their religion as they
understand it well certainly our
Constitution guarantees that freedom of
practice it doesn't say be that
separating church and state at all the
First Amendment it actually says
Congress shall not you know interfere
with and I'm not quoting it exactly
the free exercise of religion when did
this this split start you had mentioned
that a moment ago because I think it
maybe have a time parallel with this
phenomenon it that dimension I think
this is where Edward say he was was
right in associating imperialism I mean
there's always been an anti-muslim
discourse and also parallel to what in
American academia no I mean in Western
thought from the time of the beginning
of the sloth onward there has been an
anti-muslim discourse and they've also
been individuals sometimes influential
ones who have been much more
understanding but when the discourse
because it was a different religion
because it was a power comedy there was
a power computation
it was both but in this sense more
because apart for example Charlemagne
had relations diplomatic contact with
lead with the Calif and then his his
great-great-granddaughter actually sent
an embassy to the Calif and said look
you rural in the east I'm the ruler of
Rome she was the queen of law Ferengi at
that point said why don't we just have a
permanent peace as long as you want and
you know the idea of there being
[Music]
peaceful relations was not a mathema it
was a matter of whatever the power
consolation was the time but once you
get to the second half of the 18th
century and you get imperialism shifting
into high gear with the idea of kind of
having state imperialism establishing
colonies in areas with large mussel
populations then you begin to get more
of the systematic demeaning of the
Muslim tradition but but actually what
happens was saying I was in Malaysia a
couple of years ago and the sisters in
Islam which is a feminist group there
are they had a meeting with a couple of
visitors the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and
an amount here from New York City and
they gave wonderful talks and the women
were really appreciated it and so forth
and then after saying how much they
enjoyed their discourse they started
asking the tough questions you know what
can you tell us about child custody what
can you tell us about this how can you
be somewhere problems and then these
guys didn't really say anything and it
became clear in conversation and
thinking about afterwards that the
problem was and the Grand Mufti a
bosnian said you know we have a labor
problem in Bosnia and Sheikh Qaradawi
delivered a fewa and I wrote him a
letter saying in Bosnia
I'm the mufti and you don't write a
letter about Bosnia and here they were
two commands of great of great
reputation but from other places were
they going to say something - - to women
in Malaysia and undercut the local maps
in Malaysia well now this is the problem
is this the nation-state beginning the
system that originated at the end of the
Wars of Religion in Europe is this the
nation-state beginning to impose itself
as a model on Islam will you have an
Islam that differs from place to place
or not
as long tradition one of the obligations
it's a condition for the mufti to be a
resident of the place he gives fatwa
moved he's not actually supposed to give
a fatwa to a place he doesn't live in
because he doesn't know the
circumstances take your first magazine
multi he delivered dealing with but this
is opposed to you know people don't know
what the supposed to Tsar we there's a
beginning of learning and internet is
health and there are a lot of people
studying now there are even Muslims who
are teaching Islamic studies and well
we're like it's the thing is fragmenting
and it's it's a real crises and I don't
think people realize the severity of it
it's fragmenting I mean III was just in
the Middle East and you know people
they're having rave parties in in in
Saudi Arabia you know this is this is
globalization you know I mean it's it's
it's a very different world and and the
older people just they don't know what
to do they they're just you know there's
not even a word in Arabic for rave
parties yeah so but one of the appalling
possibilities there are people now who
work in development and divide and other
place in the Gulf who say that over the
next 15 years they expect a transfer of
capital two trillion dollars into the
Gulf Cooperation Council countries that
is to say the Gulf countries excluding
Iran and Iraq practically speaking two
trillion dollars you know at a certain
point does the Gulf become a center of
gravity around which the Muslim world
begins to rotate and if so what kind of
a society is being created there
it's a good point and it is happening
it's becoming a hub there's an
incredible amount of activity there this
that's and it's very exciting people on
every year there and people things are
happening and an incredibly fast pace
but the disruptions to the society
itself are immense and they damn yet
dealt with that and that's something
Suzanne George talks a lot about how you
no fool in his culture are soon parted
that it's it's very it's very difficult
for people outside of Western society to
realize how much of Western
dysfunctionality is embedded in Western
technology in Western ways of doing
things that it's a complete package
there's there's an idea in the West and
I think the Iranians really were were at
the vanguard of this idea that somehow
we could modernize without westernizing
that was that was a very common motif
and a lot of the writings of the 60s and
70s not being aware at how much of
what's going on here is actually part
and parcel of the you know the breakdown
of the family the the dysfunctionality
with drug use all of these things
because as life gets faster and faster
people get more and more disoriented and
and start having a lot of real problems
and that's already and it's happening
there and and they don't have the social
sciences that we have that wasn't things
I was trying to convince the ministries
start reducing social sciences because
you have to understand your your society
like what's happening interview these
young people find out what's going on
their minds the only people that are
doing that are the marketing companies
and Procter & Gamble did Procter &
Gamble did a study called the emerging
air of the consumer and identified four
types of Arabs in the Gulf region the
wee-wees the wheedies the me wheeze and
knees and they said that actually I
think the guy was from California but
they said you know the wee-wees were the
older ones who were more communitarian
the family and the culture were more
important than the individual and then
the the we Me's were the the culture was
still important the family but the
individual was starting to emerge the
the me wheeze the the individuality was
more important than the culture but the
culture was so important but the the
dominant group that they said that was
emerging was the meanies and they could
they could care less about the culture
they just wanted Prada and Gucci and you
know man on TV this is the area that now
have something like 15 American
universities who have decided is that
like school for satellite schools of one
sort or another and they're being bribed
into doing it and why do I think was
offerin dollars simply to to enter the
conversation
so you you set up a branch or university
so do you address the the Mimi problem
by talking about your culture or by
bringing in Western educational
institutions to bring in a Western
culture what really is I most maps the
Persian Gulf but if you're in one of the
Arab countries the Persian part is left
off of the geography have you noticed
that sometimes a coffee Arabian golden
oh yes so can we predict today what and
all the Arabs call it the Persian Gulf
long before it was the Arabian Gulf well
you know the National Geographic put put
out one map it said Arabian Gulf and
version Dolf both and the country of
Iran boycotted it and collected
petitions with tens of thousands of
signatures protesting National
Geographic that canceled all National
Geographic
mailings to Iran and I was the
intermediary I'm trying to solve this
but the way you solve it is that you
call it Persian Gulf and then you have a
footnote and then a tiny tiny script
elsewhere the map to say also some Arab
countries call it the Arabian I remember
the Iranian bathroom that typeset could
be put the foot over to different page
and it's funny how maps become reality
because if I in the 1911 encyclopædia
Britannica all the maps that have
Palestine as the name and you know you
go before Israel in 47 all the maps have
Palestine but now Americans don't ever
know that there was a country called
Palestine that that was actually a place
people here don't know that that most
Americans actually think Israel was
always Israel I have a friend who said
you know I was born in Israel in 1936
and I said you need to take that off
your resume
but I have a a coin from Palestine and
it says Palestine is expect commercial
but in English very beautiful
there've didn't call it Palestine they
call it Shem was never called titles
thing
the Arabs didn't call Philistines so
even Palestine is is a colonial name it
was given by a fine British that had
they actually wanted the biblical name
that's what it was called in biblical
times and the Philistines are actually
almost called enrollment imperialist and
the Philistines are the bad guys in in
the Bible these are dangerous books the
new Old Testament New Testament the
gospel there and end the farm
they're dangerous books they really are
I don't think people realize how
dangerous they are but I think it made a
very good point when you said that now
people are reading the primary text
without any any introduction you said
Muslims are reading it but non Muslims
are reading it too and raining absurd
commentaries in which they say well I
read it in the Quran and my
interpretation of what it means in
governs which is absurd you say well are
you familiar with the fourteen
succeeding centuries of commentary no I
read the Quran it's as if we've really
made sort of a time warp into the
earliest elements of Protestantism where
you try and erase the entire history of
the Catholic thinking about about Jesus
and Christianity and go back to some
kind of primitive intuitive reading of
lead of the gospel except that at least
the early Protestants usually
well that I'm not the you articulated
perfectly that it to me that is the
crises that without a hermeneutic to
understand these books that's rooted in
compassion and in respect for the other
they become manichaean documents that
can really set people apart and I think
Muslims are susceptible to Manichean
readings of the Quran if they're not
careful just as the Christians and the
Jews are very susceptible to Manichean
readings of their book and that's why
the Manichean heresy is a heresy and
it's a heresy in the Islamic tradition
as well khadiyah
is it's the same idea we have we have
the same heresy so all three religions
share that view that it is a very
dangerous way to read these books but
they can be easily read like that and I
would argue that it's easier to read the
Quran like that than it is for a quick
definition for audience because
certainly I know manikyam manikyam is
there was a prophet named mani who
preached that there was a single source
of good and parallel to it a single
source of evil and they would be
eternally at war with one another and
that you should strive in your personal
life to perfect your your life so you
would become pure good and then you
recognize that there is also pure evil
and then it becomes you as
metaphorically for anything that pits
lighten dark good and bad good you evil
cannot be erased it can be fought but it
cannot be erased I mean just that the
Zoroastrian tradition the Maji and
tradition
is it's pretty much the same idea that
you know offering - is you know you have
the Mazda hora Mazda and I'll remind the
God and the God of evil and you know
they're if they're locking heads worse
in the in the in in the piranha canned
the the Abrahamic narrative is that God
created evil with the good so it's it's
seen as be coming from the same source
which gives you a metaphysical framework
to understand evil that it has a purpose
that it's it's uh it's it's something
that's inside everyone it's not
something that is outside of yourself
and and therefore it becomes if you
understand that in any true sense of
that word it becomes very difficult to
objectify evil in the world unless you
take that manikyam approach to religion
which religions are very susceptible to
that at a simplistic reading of religion
though the Quran divides the world if
you read it in that gross literal
reading in the demote me known and the
kaffir own but the deeper you go into
the Quran the Quran saying you'll
Tunisian Haman and mate you know he
takes the living out of the Dead and the
dead out of the living that night is
turning into day and day is turning in
tonight and be careful these things
aren't as fixed as they appear there but
you take you take the simple-minded
reading and you get these distortions
that are very violent in some cases but
then you can do that exactly the same
thing of the Bible so that you can say
well nobody would take seriously a verse
of the Bible that says thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live and yet you had
tens of thousands of women burned at the
stake by Christians are drowned because
they weren't because lepers because
there is a belief that witches were
irredeemably evil they were the agents
of Satan and saw so you know you you
always have to to stand up against the
simple-minded black and white
interpretation of things that are
properly in
preface tradition more subtly though
it's increasingly hard to do in our
society where there's more in black and
white available to us both on in
newspapers on the internet and in a sort
of intellectual black-and-white on in
the television news
how do what do we do you know when
you're demonizing the other and dr.
Bhatt was talking earlier about the slew
of zombie films that emerged after 9/11
and you know the the the in those films
invariably the zombies are slaughtered
with impunity by the good guys and that
you know that he was suggesting that
that unfortunately there are people in
this country that look at Muslims as
zombies mindless and malevolent and so
it becomes very easy to I mean I'm
always amazed that they talk about 4,000
American soldiers have died in Iraq and
never when that is mentioned is the the
I mean let's just have the Lancet report
which is a pretty reputable I'm not
pretty it is a reputed reputable journal
in England using the same criteria that
they use for Rwanda and they came up
with almost a million civilians have
been killed in Iraq but let's just have
that you know to be on the conservative
side and say it was 500,000 that's a lot
of human beings that are just gone from
the earth because of a misadventure that
was entirely predicated on lies and
deception and and people suffer from it
but when you demonize people it becomes
easy for people to read the newspaper
about that and eat their breakfast well
one of the things that that we often
talk about in the war on terror and so
it's called asymmetrical warfare in
which we have a lot of weapons and they
don't but they're winning the waves
constructors but the fact the matter is
that asymmetrical warfare would also
apply to something like the Iraq war
where Americans were never threatened by
Iraq still to this day Iraq has never
heard anybody who was not in the
American armed services or working for
an employer employed by the US
government
whereas bombings and attacks of all
sorts of affected the Iraqi civilians we
are carrying out what labeled a poem
called total war against Iraq but we're
not having total war as something that
we are suffering on our side that that
disequilibrium and this is the reason we
don't have an anti-war movement in this
country is that we don't sense that
we're at war but the Iraqis know damn
well we're a part and that that
asymmetry is is very disturbing to the
soul of the country I think but there
was that thing asymmetry with regard to
Vietnam we were not under attack her
when we threatened by Vietnam we heard
we've heard a lot about the 50,000
Americans who died and not about the
millions of Vietnamese there with the
content you have a country Walter
Cronkite you know nightly news showing
some pretty horrific images coming in -
that was the first time people had more
images you can see stuff on YouTube but
there's been almost total I mean wearing
almost like a Pravda type of situation
here I think in some ways our news is
becoming more and more like Russian news
and we're even seeing that the
scientists have been censored about
global warming nasa scientists and other
scientists were actually censored and
told what they could you couldn't say I
mean thank God some of that stuff is
coming out but there has been a lot of
censorship there have been no pictures
and I'll allow take those pictures of
the funeral the people come
Oh in in the in the body bags and things
like that
so that that's part of problem and then
another aspect of it is and let's face
it it's it's it's it's the it's the the
poor people that are dying over there
are large then if you look at even a lot
of the names it's Sanchez and it's you
know it's you know African American
Mexican American and then for white
communities that are suffering if you go
into the heartland of America in these
small towns those are the people that
are losing the people and and they don't
have that the type of cloud that you
know but there's an irony is that the
American soldier is recently well paid
now he comes from a or she comes from a
lower social stratum usually but it's a
good job until your killer but but one
of the things that we don't seem to
realize is that you know if we ever got
into a big war and we had a draft
together we can't afford to pay a good
salary because well let me say on behalf
of the sons and daughters of Adam here
today thank you dr. bullet anything come
to you so
you
you