Terrorism in Babel the American Movie

Hi All,

Just watched Babel the American movie for the second time, and a lot of thoughts and comments aroused in my head.

How simple things could had been and how huge could others perceived it, from a teenage randomly shooting to a terrorist organization and may be a terrorist country and a terrorist religion.

Wars are being waged because of lack on understanding. People with agendas and powerful PR tools, could wage a war for absolutely no reason and deceive their own people, betray their own country by exaggerating an event like random shooting from a teenage.

There is a lot of meanings in the film, that makes you just want to say. Huh! that’s life.

Regards,
Abdo

Why do you kill, Zaid?

Hi,

This is a comment I posted on a blog on Ecademy and thought to share it on my blog too, the comment is a reply to a topic about torture

Check it out here: http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=132933#c645421

Hi John, Yes, I understanding what you mean and I’m not personally offended or anything, the point is just, when referring to torture and wrong doing in warfare in the last 100 years, how much of that wrong was coming from those you’re referring to as your people. Taking war on Iraq as an example?

In the video from 6:00 to 8:00 :

“We created a great lie to live with, the lie was, we’re the good ones, we’re the idol, we’re the ones who help others, But that’s not the case. I think we in the west didn’t control the world because of our great way of thinking, or for our great values, or for our great religion. But, because we used merciless violence more than others.

If I can be more serious. Muslims weren’t who slaughtered 4 million people during the crusade. Muslims weren’t the people who slaughtered 50 million people during imperialism. Also, Muslims weren’t the people who killed 70 million people during WWI & WWII. Muslims weren’t the people who killed 6 million Jews either.

But, that had been the result of western invasion, and when we talk about the victims of Al-Qaeda, and here I repeat that Al-Qaeda to me are murderers, then we need to talk about the victims of the western policies in Iraq & Afghanistan”

By the way, I’m pretty open minded and while I proudly belong to Egyptian, Arabs and Muslims. I had been in close personal relationships with westerners, including a Jew, and quite sense that they’re my people too, as long as they don’t do or wish any harm to anyone.

And I’m being religious and following my religious teachings while doing that:

8 Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of justice

9 Allah only forbids you respecting those who made war upon you on account of (your) religion, and drove you forth from your homes and backed up (others) in your expulsion, that you make friends with them, and whoever makes friends with them, these are the unjust.

English Translation of the Holy Qur’an [60:8 ~ 9]

– Abdo

Hollywood seeking Muslims and Arabs

Hi All,

That guy keep bringing me incredible laughs!

Just to clarify something, Muslims does come from every ethnicity and background so you can’t define someone as Muslim by look, and Arabs make 18% only of the total population of Muslims.

– Abdo

Sharing Link: https://www.abdomagdy.com/g78hzb

Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land

As a part of my blog yesterday War On Gaza, Background for Truth Seekers! I meant to provide some documentaries as a reference for whom might be feeling that something isn’t right in his perception of the conflict, or what the western media is presenting to him/her.

For someone who’s watching Aljazeera!, then reading western media articles online, it’s sometimes hard to tell that it’s the same incidents being covered, or the weight given to each incident is somehow close to fair or normal, a certain techniques, including making use of people’s perception to the conflict (which is one-sided and formed by the previous propaganda from the beginning of the conflict) to get the new incident as an evidence to that perception maybe, but when it gets up to 1000 kills, most of which are purely civilians, shooting ambulances, aid workers, and killing journalists. Isn’t it the right time to double check your information? or question your perception?

Of course that’s in case you’re searching for the truth, not someone blindly supporting a certain project and somehow involved in promoting the massacres, and spreading false information to intentionally cover what he/she know is the truth.

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land is a 2004 documentary by Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff which—according to the film’s official website—”provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and which “analyzes and explains how–through the use of language, framing and context–the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media” – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace,_Propaganda_&_the_Promised_Land

The official page from Media Education Foundation, the producer of the video is here: http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=117

Here is a clip as an introduction to the video: [8:33 Min]

As the video is protected by Fair Use Clause, which allows the broadcast of the video for the purposes of commentary, criticism and education. here is the full video [80 Min]

Finally, truth and facts isn’t things that someone – including myself – say it’s the truth and the facts, everybody should form his own opinion after listening to both sides and understanding what they’re trying to communicate, and bypassing the propaganda from both sides.

Regards,
Abdo

Had you been to Gaza? Founder of IsAmericansKnew did ..

Hi All,

We won’t get the truth, until we demand it — Founder of If Americans Knew

While clouds of incomplete information, and propagandized reports and news coverage flooding to the western media, which not only hindering western’s ability to understand the root causes of the conflict in the middle east, but most times find sick reasons behind killing children, destroying homes, and the use of prohibited chemical weapons against civilians.

Back to 2001, a journalist in a small town in the US, thought something is wrong about the coverage she gets about that conflict, and decided to go to Gaza herself to have a first hand experience on what’s going on. When she came back and read the articles and news coverage in the American media, she didn’t find anything from what she has seen. And realized that she and all of her follow Americans is getting a very one-sided view of the conflict.

Decided to found If Americans Knew, and conduct research and get statistics about the conflict, and started getting her voice to public.

Here is she, telling her story herself, and showing some of the statistics she got from an Israeli organization. In the documentary by Alternate Focus http://www.alternatefocus.org/

Part I, [9:29 Min]
Part II, [9:30 Min]
Part III, [1:02]

That’s their website http://ifamericansknew.com/, Just imagine how the statistics will be after the recent terrorist attacks on Gaza?!

Not sure about your media sources, and how you’re being misinformed. Check; Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land movie posted earlier: http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=120619

We won’t get the truth, until we demand it — Founder of If Americans Knew

Abdo

Had you been to Gaza? Rachel Corrie did ..

Hi All,

That blog had been originally published by myself on Ecademy.

Away from the current situation in Gaza, I’ve tried to give an introduction to the root causes of the conflict, and the distortion in most western media, and as a result in westerner’s views about the conflict.

I’ve posted couple of blogs, and was intentionally presenting westerner’s views who visited the occupied Palestine, conducted research or collected statistics. because as we say here a blue eyed can only believe a blue eyed – that was obvious lately having no formal western media in Gaza during this massacres. It was justified to say we don’t hear, don’t see and don’t believe -.

Today, here is an Interview conducted by Middle East Broadcasting Company on March 14th, 2003, two days before Rachel Corrie was murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces, she talk about water well being destructed – water that people drink -, houses people live in being flattened with the ground .etc May be someone will come-up with the idea that some terrorists was drinking from the water wells, or may be hiding inside, and the house of a physician was, hmmmm , was whatever a sick, silly imagination can bring!

Duration [4:00 Min]
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Content and photos from: MIFTAH “The Palestinian initiative for the promotion of global dialogue and democracy”:
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=1866&CategoryId=23

Peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, is a student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She died Sunday, March 16, 2003, in the southern Gaza city of Rafah while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician’s home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said. Israeli military spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal called her death an accident. State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said the U.S. government had asked Israeli officials for a full investigation.
1. Protecting a water well in Rafah, Gaza, Rachel Corrie is on the far right.
2. Rachel Corrie, right, and other members of the ‘International Solidarity Movement’ hold up a banner reading ‘Israeli army stop shooting children’ in protest of Israeli military actions at the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza in this photo taken Friday March 14, 2003.
3. Rachel Corrie chats with a Palestinian friend, living in a dire situation in Rafah, Gaza.
4. Rachel Corrie stands in front of an Israeli army bulldozer wearing an orange jacket so that she can be easily identified and seen.
5. Rachel Corrie uses a loudspeaker as she stands between an Israeli bulldozer and a Palestinian physician’s house in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
6. The Israeli bulldozer ran over her and then backed up, crushing her chest and skull.
7. Friends try to aid Rachel Corrie after she was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer.
8. Palestinian doctors try to save the life of Rachel Corrie at the Najar hospital in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
9. Alice, a friend of Rachel Corrie, holds her friend’s passport as she break down upon hearing the news of Rachel’s death at Najar hospital.
10. Two volunteers of the International Solidarity Campaign to Protect the Palestinian People comfort each other after the killing of U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie.
11. A Palestinian medical worker carries a mock coffin covered by a Palestinian flag for Rachel Corrie, during a memorial service in Gaza city.
12. Palestinian children carry a mock coffin covered by an American Flag commemorating Rachel Corrie.
13. Palestinians put flowers at a mock coffin of Rachel Corrie, a member of the ‘International Solidarity Movement’ during a memorial service at the Unknown Soldier square in Gaza city.
14. Palestinian children light candles for Rachel Corrie.
15. Olympia, Washington, residents stand in silent vigil around a mock casket at a candlelight vigil Sunday evening, March 16, 2003, for Rachel Corrie.
16. Students at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, gather around a shrine for Rachel Corrie. Friends and college faculty are mourning what they are calling the senseless murder of Corrie.
17. An unidentified man cries next to a shrine in honor of peace activist Rachel Corrie during a protest outside the Israeli consulate in downtown San Francisco on Monday, March 17, 2003.

Content and photos from: MIFTAH “The Palestinian initiative for the promotion of global dialogue and democracy”:
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=1866&CategoryId=23

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We’re very acquaint with Palestinian burning the US flag, as a natural result of being killed by a US weapons and the US supporting whatever might happen to them under whatever silly reason. But we see here the Palestinians themselves carrying the American flag. So, in case of Palestine, it’s not the evilness of some people who want to hate others, it’s people’s actions and situations that make them loved or hated by others.

Rachel’s family started Rachel Corrie Foundation For Peace & Justice http://www.rachelcorriefoundation.org/. More resources on http://www.rachelcorrie.org/, International Solidarity Movement: http://palsolidarity.org/.

For me as an Arab when I engage with someone in a discussion who’s taking a tough view against the US people, I tell him that they don’t know the reality on the ground and don’t understand what their country is doing on their names and usually find Rachel Corrie a brilliant example of people still alive! far away from others who suffer and can feel their pain. Unfortunately, In today’s world those are few.

Regards,
Abdo

Muslim While Flying

Hi There,

Today, sharing an interesting video from UmmahFilms, about how Muslims or middle-eastern looking is being treated while flying!

Do you think that it’s really random??

– Abdo

Sharing Link: https://www.abdomagdy.com/t6syys