10 April 2003 –
For Immediate Release

CONGRATULATIONS BAGHDAD !!!!!!

“We don’t want your food, we don’t want your water, we don’t want your pity…All we want is our freedom. Please give us our freedom” (Iraqi man to a Western reporter)

As the people of Baghdad celebrated today the fall of their dictator and the end of a 35-year-old nightmare, NEAL extends its congratulations to the men, women, and children of Iraq who put up for so long with tyranny, fear, oppression, silence, torture, kidnapping, disappearances, prisons, and death. On this day, they have found life, freedom, peace, dignity, and honor. They have reconnected with their long history of contributing to human civilization and have reintegrated the family of nations committed to civility, mutual respect, and dignity in relationships between human beings and nations. The people of Iraq now bear special responsibility to ensure the success of their newly recovered freedom, for their success or failure will determine the success or failure of democracy elsewhere in the region.

NEAL also congratulates the soldiers and leaders of the US, British, and Australian Coalition for showing a reluctant world that war can, and must, be used for good causes. We will never forget our dead soldiers, our missing in action, and our injured, for they freely gave their lives, liberty, and health so that others in a far land may have a better life.

NEAL reminds the people of other Arab countries living under tyranny that they too can rid themselves of their dictators, and tear down the walls of hatred and the dungeons of fear. Today the message from the Iraqi people was clear: Your lives could become much better, your children’s future could be beautiful in their own land. You don’t have to go begging for humiliating visas at Western embassies. You can have a decent life right here in your own country. On a day like today, America has proven again that, as it did in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, it will make sacrifices for freedom everywhere, including in Arab and Moslem lands. As President Bush repeatedly said, America is not at war with Islam or with the Arab world.

Other Arab dictators now stand on notice. They have seen what their fate might be. Let Bashar Assad of Syria, his vitriolic advisor Buthaina Shaaban, and his Lebanese puppet Emile Lahood come to terms with the fact that their peoples deserve better. The American age has dawned on the Middle East, the fascist Baathist ideology is dead, and the Lebanese and Syrian peoples will one day, soon, be free. All the prognostications and the mindless rabble about the wrath of the “Arab masses” have been proven, yet again, one big lie by the scenes of jubilation of the people of Iraq.

Finally, to the Western protesters against the war, watch the Iraqi people and listen to them. Understand that the freedom of every Iraqi individual has much more value than your own self-centered, egotistic, and self-serving moral arguments.

Long Live Free Lebanon
New England Americans for Lebanon