Presque Isle, Maine
Peace Rally Speech
Before 150 Aroostook
county residents from around the County
February 15, 2003 -
St. Maryfs Church
by Charlotte
Aldebron
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When people think about
bombing Iraq, they see a picture in their heads of Saddam Hussein in a military
uniform, or maybe soldiers with big black mustaches carrying guns, or the
mosaic of George Bush Sr. on the lobby floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel with the word
gcriminalh. But guess what? More than half of Iraqfs 24 million people are children under the age of 15. Thatfs 12 million kids. Kids like me. Well, Ifm almost 13, so some are a little older, and some a lot
younger, some boys instead of girls, some with brown hair, not red. But kids
who are pretty much like me just the same. So take a look at me?a good long
look. Because I am what you should see in your head when you think about
bombing Iraq. I am what you are going to destroy.
If I am lucky, I will be
killed instantly, like the three hundred children murdered by your gsmarth bombs in a Baghdad bomb shelter on February 16,
1991. The blast caused a fire so intense that it flash-burned outlines of those
children and their mothers on the walls; you can still peel strips of blackened
skin?souvenirs of your victory?from the stones.
But maybe I wonft be lucky and Ifll die slowly, like
14-year-old Ali Faisal, who right now is on the gdeath wardh of the Baghdad childrenfs hospital. He
has malignant lymphoma?cancer?caused by the depleted uranium in your Gulf War
missiles. Or maybe I will die painfully and needlessly like18-month-old
Mustafa, whose vital organs are being devoured by sand fly parasites. I know itfs hard to believe, but Mustafa could be totally cured with
just $25 worth of medicine, but there is none of this medicine because of your
sanctions.
Or maybe I wonft die at all but will live for years with the psychological
damage that you canft see from the outside, like Salman Mohammed,
who even now canft forget the terror he lived through with his
little sisters when you bombed Iraq in 1991. Salmanfs father made the whole family sleep in the same room so
that they would all survive together, or die together. He still has nightmares
about the air raid sirens.
Or maybe I will be
orphaned like Ali, who was three when you killed his father in the Gulf War.
Ali scraped at the dirt covering his fatherfs grave every
day for three years calling out to him, gItfs all right Daddy, you can come out now, the men who put
you here have gone away.h Well, Ali, youfre wrong. It
looks like those men are coming back.
Or I maybe I will make
it in one piece, like Luay Majed, who remembers that the Gulf War meant he didnft have to go to school and could stay up as late as he
wanted. But today, with no education, he tries to live by selling newspapers on
the street.
Imagine that these are
your children?or nieces or nephews or neighbors. Imagine your son screaming
from the agony of a severed limb, but you canft do anything
to ease the pain or comfort him. Imagine your daughter crying out from under
the rubble of a collapsed building, but you canft get to her.
Imagine your children wandering the streets, hungry and alone, after having
watched you die before their eyes.
This is not an
adventure movie or a fantasy or a video game. This is reality for children in
Iraq. Recently, an international group of researchers went to Iraq to find out
how children there are being affected by the possibility of war. Half the
children they talked to said they saw no point in living any more. Even really
young kids knew about war and worried about it. One 5-year-old, Assem,
described it as gguns and bombs and the air will be cold and hot
and we will burn very much.h Ten-year-old Aesar had a message for President
Bush: he wanted him to know that gA lot of Iraqi
children will die. You will see it on TV and then you will regret.h
Back in elementary
school I was taught to solve problems with other kids not by hitting or
name-calling, but by talking and using gIh messages. The idea of an gIh message was to make the other person understand how bad
his or her actions made you feel, so that the person would sympathize with you
and stop it. Now I am going to give you an gIh message. Only itfs going to be a gWeh message. gWeh as in all the children in Iraq who are waiting helplessly
for something bad to happen. gWeh as in the children
of the world who donft make any of the decisions but have to suffer
all the consequences. gWeh as in those whose
voices are too small and too far away to be heard.
We feel scared when we
donft know if wefll live another day.
We feel angry when
people want to kill us or injure us or steal our future.
We feel sad because all
we want is a mom and a dad who we know will be there the next day. And,
finally, we feel confused c because we donft even know
what we did wrong.