Saturday, July 18, 2009

Zaineb Alani

Last Friday night, I heard Zaineb Alani give this speech at the National Assembly conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Amazing!

Highlights:

"When the late Robert McNamara paid a visit to the Independent country of Vietnam that he had previously 'sought to conquer' and failed, he said to their foreign minister, "We wanted to give you Democracy." The reply was, "We wanted our Independence first." Why do American policy-makers never learn from history?"

"...In fact, the common sentiment in Baghdad today is that we went from living under the rule of a tyrannical Ali Baba to that of 40 hundred ruling thieves."

"The Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani people cannot win against the American war machine. On their own, they are helpless. They have only one hope, you. We need to build a movement so strong that our voices are heard as one, so loud that we force the occupiers to leave the Middle East and elsewhere where they impose their colonial occupations and plunder the natural resources and wealth of weaker nations. American, Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian peoples are paying a dear price in blood and treasure for the continuation of these wars and occupations."

1 comments:

Daisy Deadhead said...

"We wanted our Independence first." Why do American policy-makers never learn from history?"

I've often wondered the same thing...