Posted on 04/07/2003 5:54:36 PM PDT by Melinator
Iraqi-Canadians dismiss calls for holy war by Ottawa imam
MONTREAL (CP) - Some Iraqi-Canadians dismissed on Monday a call by a prominent Muslim cleric urging a holy war against the United States.
Gamal Solaiman, imam of an Ottawa mosque, said Sunday that Muslims across the Middle East should arm themselves and throw U.S. troops out of Iraq. But the cleric also said he opposed terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Some Iraqis contacted Monday didn't think the Americans were the problem. "I would blame Saddam Hussein as the source of our miseries," said Haithem Al- Hassani, a member of the Canadian-Iraqi Co-ordination Committee in Toronto.
"He is the one who brought wars, he is the one who started his rule with a bloodbath," Al-Hassani said in an interview.
"He took us for a journey of bloodbaths all through his rule and now we are being faced with a major war that is destroying our country in the process."
"He terrorized the society in Iraq for 34 years. I am hoping in the end that the Iraqi people will be empowered to formulate their government out of their free will."
Al-Hassani said he didn't know if anyone would heed Solaiman's call.
"These days no one can predict what a brainwashed people can do."
In Montreal, Iraqi-born Sammy Shaker agreed.
"I think he targeted the wrong side," said Shaker, a 50-year-old importer who served in the 1991 Gulf War. "We should hold arms against Saddam, not the Americans."
But he wasn't surprised by the imam's call. Click Here for Details!
"We have been hearing this nonsense for the last three or four months.
"These people were silent for 35 years when Saddam used to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis so now we are hearing these statements for jihad because they are like retarded people living in the medieval times."
"They don't see the Western people as human beings. They think these people are just criminals coming for the oil."
Shaker said the U.S.-led invasion was the "only option."
"You can't have a peaceful solution with this regime."
Some people were calling for the deportation of Solaiman after he said Iraqis must not sit idle as the U.S. continues its "unjust" war.
In Ottawa, Immigration Minister Denis Coderre said he will check the imam's citizenship status and what he meant by jihad before deciding what to do.
Nowfel Yassiri, 31, who was born in Basra in southern Iraq and still has family there, said he believes the war in Iraq is illegal because it does not have the support of the international community.
But he also doesn't think a call for a holy war is justified.
"A holy war in Islam is usually a war against evil and oppression, especially in a religious sense," he explained as he sat in a downtown cafe popular with Montreal's Arab community.
"What's happening now in Iraq is really a problem between two governments."
He said people have routinely misused the concept of holy war.
"All throughout Islamic history people have misused their religion, have often used something that is preserved for very special occasions to suit their own interests," he said. "That's commonplace in the Middle East for people to call for holy jihad against what they think is evil."
But Shahina Siddiqui, a Winnipeg-based member of the Council on American- Islamic Relations, said the Ottawa cleric is "entitled to his opinion."
Siddiqui noted Solaiman also called on Canadian Muslims to provide humanitarian aid to the Iraqis and to support the peace movement.
"We agree with that."
Siddiqui, whose organization opposes the war, noted that Solaiman said that people had a right to defend themselves but was not calling for terrorism.
"We are against war as a resolution to any problem," she said.
© The Canadian Press, 2003
As is the muslim way.
As soon as anyone starts asking the people who "don't matter" (ie. the ones who actually have to live the nightmare), the truth starts to leak out.
Cretin and his Liberals are unfit to hold public office for so many reasons it would take thousands of pages just to list them.
Regime change in Canada! Come on President Bush, we need your help.
Thank you America for having the strength of purpose and the moral fortitude to do the right thing. Real Canadians are with you. Cretin and his "French-Canadian" cronies are a disaster and a disgrace. They are not as bad as the Clinton admin, but only because they are powerless fools
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