Cindy Sheehan mentioned by Kurdish women's rights activist.

[shaniqua6392]

Great article on Karen Hughes and the Turkish response to the U.S. at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9521330/ Looks like Bush crony Hughes did not receive a warm welcome!!

[babylonsister]

1. I hope Hughes goes back to her boss with her devil

tail between her legs and tells him all about it. If nothing else, this session with the Kurdish women must have been eye-opening. I wonder if she expected peace petals to fly? Instead she got their scorn. Bravo, Kurds!

[Skidmore]

4. Perhaps she will honestly learn something if she takes the time

to shut her big mouth so she can hear. I lived in Iran for 10 years, six of them during the Iran-Iraq war. The people who make the choice to wage war are never the ones to suffer during it. War brings more than bombed buildings and death. It shatters lives. You live in constant fear and with a sense that you have no control over anything beyond the moment you live in. Sometimes that fear is numbing.

One night, I fell literally crashed from exhaustion. This was during the time that Iraq was lobbing missiles in to Tehran--sometimes several times a night. Everytime the air raid siren would go off it would mean bundling the children up to take them down to shelter in the basement away from the windows. Sometimes I wonder at the false sense of nervous security and control it gave to shelter that way. In the next neighborhood, a missile had gone through the second floor of one house and dropped to go through the basement of the house next door, killing all the people who had sheltered there. Well, I digress. We had made it through till 10 pm without a missile attack or an air raid, and we all went off to bed after checking my 3 yr old and 8 year old one more time. I was sleeping deeply--no dreams--the sleep of the sleep-deprived. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion nearby. I went from deep sleep to on my feet without fully waking. My legs collapsed under me and I hit the floor. All I could think of was I needed to get the kids to the basement but I couldn't get my legs to cooperate. My mind could not make the connection to my legs to tell them to move. I remember lifting my knees with my hands and willing myself to move.

After we returned to the US, we were overwhelmed by the choices in the stores here after experiencing many years in a society where everything was rationed due to embargos against Iran. I am American by birth and went to Iran as an adult. I still had culture shock. Things had changed so much and people here seemed to be so shallow and to engage in so much rushing about for things that were unimportant. We also came back with PTSD, and my little guy would scream in his sleep--he would panic everytime he saw someone in fatigues (and they were fashionable for teens to wear when we came back so fatigues were everywhere). I got a job and during my first week at work the city tested the civil defense siren. I was on my feet, at the window of my boss' office, searching the sky for planes, and panicking because my kids were across town and I couldn't get them to shelter. My boss, fortunately, realized what was going on with me and helped me to calm my fears.

This was a long time ago--in the 80s, but I still occasionally am visited at night by stress dreams. Yeah, I lived on the receiving end of my nation's foreign policy. I hope we can find viable alternatives to oil, and I pray that this nation learns that war is not the answer or the means by which it meets the nation's needs.

[babylonsister]

6. Thanks for your story, Skidmore; you help

amplify what's going on in Iraq, and how traumatized they must be by us. No wonder insurgents are being indoctrinated daily; when locals see what we've done to their people, I think they are justified in their anger. I always wonder, if the shoe was on the other foot and we were being bombed daily, how would Americans react?
We truly need to get the hell out of there and let them live in whatever semblance of peace they can! I venture to say, were we to exit, the level of bombing would plummet.
I'm sorry you and your young ones had to go through that experience; sounds like it was a real eye-opener. It does make our society look simplistic and materialistic. I think if Americans had to live that life, they might not be so eager to start wars.

[shaniqua6392]

7. Thank you for posting that.

I am sorry you had to go through that. I know there are so many others going through the same horrors as we speak. I wish we could do more to help them. I also hope they know that we are trying to help them. But, most of the time all we can do is pray and they need more than that. I am so ashamed of my country right now and I hate that feeling. Thank you again for your post. *tears* for you and all who are suffering because of our foreign policies.

[OnionPatch]

2. First it was the Saudi women

now this! Hmmm....seems Karen's having a great old time spreading the word of Bushtianity.

All I can say is HURRAH FOR THE KURDISH WOMEN! Hurrah for Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal!!! Hurrah for Feray Salman!!!

[speedoo]

3. kick!! read the piece linked by OP.

Hughes' mission is turning into a disaster.

Stupid stunt.

[buff2]

5. You want to know the most outrageous thing Karen did?

She pulled out a picture of BUSH and showed it to the little kiddies and told them "see,this is our president". I cracked up laughing when I saw that. Going over there trying to "better our image" by showing a pic of the most HATED man in the world is NOT the way to do it.I'll bet their mothers were cringing when she did that. :puke: