Jefferson Corner

Few minutes ago, our neighbor, Michael, a successful engineering manager with a top Fortune 5, walked over to his house after dropping some very tasty “Italian” Christmas cookies that his wife, also an Italian-American made. Michael’s family emigrated from Italy some hundred and fifty years ago. There are hundreds of millions like Michael whose families immigrated to this country and who individually and collectively makes this country the great country it is.
My mother in-law who is over 70 and has both a bachelor and a master degree from the American University in Cairo made a statement that promoted me to write this post about America. She said “ I feel so privilege, I grew up in Cairo and now I am enjoying the rest of my life in this great country” and yes, this country is great because new immigrants like my mother in law, love this country as much as those whose family came here some centuries ago.
I too feel very privileged to be in this country and call this country “home” without ever losing the feeling and attachment I have for Palestine. I feel honored and privileged to join the many millions of immigrants who made this country the great country it is and will always be, not withstanding what some bigoted congressman from Virginia think.
This country is great because it has great and giant “founding fathers” that argued so hard and debated for endless days, months and even years. Who disagreed with each other in public and in private and who in the end came up with perhaps the most powerful written instrument ever written by man, the US Constitution. In my view, after the Torah, the Bible and the Quran the US Constitution ranks holy. No one would imagine that some centuries ago, these men could come up with governing instruments that defines us as a nation of values, of freedoms, liberty and institutions. It defines a system of government incorporating checks and balance, with separate but equal branches of government. Sad to say that the legislative branch did not live up to the letter and spirit of the US Constitution, with its corruption, professional and life long politicians driven by greed and bought and sold and traded on K Street
Yes, this country is great because the great grand sons of immigrants the like of Bill Gates, George Marshal, Jonas Salk, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Wilbur and Orville Wrights, Gus Grissom, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther Kings and Rosa Park, Farouk El-Baz, Edward R. Murrow and the many Nobel laureates in the arts and science and the many institutions of higher learning and the many research institutions the likes of N.I.H and CDC make up this country. It is also a country where citizens took on some very powerful senators and made them look the fools they were and contributed to the great freedoms we enjoy now. It is a great country because of some great presidents the likes of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and of course Bill Clinton. It is also a country of very generous populations that gives hundreds of billions to charity. It is a country where immigrants can graduate at the top of their class at the US Air Force Academy. Where else but in American where Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Hindu neighbors can share the holidays and visit each other in celebration of the different religious holidays. Where else but in American where millions of immigrants (documented and un-documents) work so hard for this nation and for their families and survive the daily abuses by those who claims they are “patriots”. This country is great because it has hundreds of millions of honest, decent and hardworking parents, and who are also good and active citizens in neighborhood associations. It is great countries because aggrieved mothers can get together and raise a powerful voice and win against the liquor industry that took away their loved ones. It is a great country because student activists got together and pushed for the establishment of the EPA. It is a great country not withstanding some minor errors in its history with the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Alan Dershowitz, Elie Weisel, Bill O’Reilly, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and the KKK among others. It is a great country, because someone like me, an immigrant, the son of an immigrant can write and post these comments. I had the honor and privilege to be not only a citizen of this great country of ours, but also, with my four other brothers’ veterans of its armed services. Yes, Congressman Goode, we love and honor this country as much as you do and we honor this country for its diversity and its encompassing and embracing system, not for its exclusivity and xenophobia based on ignorance and fear. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy Eid to one and to all. This is the great land from California to New York, the land for you and me.

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Senator Kerry. I read with much interest and amazement your article in today’s “Outlook” section of the Washington Post. Yes, I do agree there is nothing wrong with changing one’s mind if one discovers that assumptions made in support of the war, in the first place where wrong. However you and your Democratic colleagues who voted and supported the war, knew the assumptions were not only wrong, but also an absolute lies. You and your colleagues in the Senate were in the best position to seek the truth and have an independent source of finding out the lies of the Chaney-Bush team. We the citizens in the US do not have access to classified information and intelligence reports and we as citizens are not in a position to second-guess the administration, but you and your Democratic colleagues were in such a position. Yet you voted for and supported the war, knowing it was not only wrong but also was based again in lies.
Though I voted for your ticket, you were not my favorite candidate. You simply were too arrogant and too condescending to be the Democratic leader on the presidential ticket. Your arrogance and your flip-fop did lose the Democratic the presidency and with that you are to share with Chaney-Bush the responsibility for the War on Iraq. Not only that but I never imagined that someone who served in combat will allow someone who hid in Texas to claim valor and patriotism and win the election on national security issues. Yes, Mr. Kerry, I believe the Democratic Party did not do us, Democrats and did not do America a favor with it nominated you as the candidate to stand against the Chaney-Bush ticket. There is nothing wrong with changing one’s mind, but there is something wrong when someone does not stand up to what they believe in and go along with the wind.
As an Arab-American I was never convinced that Saddam Hussein when he started his war on Iran was defending the “Arab” nation. Saddam was a coward in the face of the late Shah and did engage in his war on Iran in support of US policy in isolating the new Khomeni regime in Iran. Saddam did engage in his long and bloody and costly war consistent with his part as “stooge” for the Republican administration. He killed millions of people and destroyed his country and its wealth as a “favor” to this country and its long time support for his “Ba’athist” criminal regime. No one wanted to see Saddam go more than I. I spoken out against Saddam when the “Arab streets” where cheering for him in his war on Iran and was against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, and sad to say again, to the cheers of millions of people on the “Arab streets”. However the Arab street forgot that Saddam was America’s boy carrying out it wrong policies in the Middle East.
The US should have gone to Baghdad at the end of routing Saddam’s Republican Guard, yanking him out of his palace and hanging him from the nearest tree for his crimes against the Iraqis, the Iranians and the Kuwaitis. I am afraid the Democratic Party will lose the next presidential election if it continues to be on the fence, not standing up to issues of great concerns to our people such as the War on Iraq. The Democrats need to make sure that our national security issues are not decided by the Republican chicken hawks and their “Think Tanks”. We in the Democratic Party must shape the debate on national security issues and not allow the alliance between weapon makers and evangelical Christians to succeed in forming the nature of the debate. There are many within the Democratic Party with military service and who are well qualified to speak and lead the discussions. The Democratic Party need a major surgery on its spinal cord and needs a ‘titanium” rod in its place. It is too bad that you failed us all and failed the nation as well. At least you are now on the right track.

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