Letter to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika

August 21, 2005

Abdelaziz Bouteflika
President of the Republic
El-Mouradia, Alger, Algeria

Re: Congratulations



Dear Mr. President:
I am a Canadian freelance writer, who is very passionate about politics and international relations. My grandfather was a Communist (Austrian) and so was my father (Canadian) so I learned at a very early age about the struggles for equality, observed my grandfather and father fight for decent working conditions, good wages, and of course felt and witnessed the “upheavals and brutality” of the many strikes and attempts to unionize. I also fought for worker’s rights in the largest strip mine of Western Canada. It was through these experiences that I became a writer. My interest is in developing a utopian society. I believe that if people are given a chance to work, good working conditions, food and housing that a utopian society could prevail and I really believe it now. Please let me explain.

I have spent the last eight months of my life soaking up Algerian politics starting with the Algerian Revolution. I must tell you that it has been one of the most difficult and challenging experiences in my life. In the process, I learned about Islam and became a Muslim.

My heart goes out to the Algerian people who have lost so much, but they have gained in you, President Bouteflika, a very wise, compassionate man and a human being who is not afraid, or does not show it, even though you have your hands full cleaning up the corruption that president Boudiaf attempted to do before he was assassinated. I worry, because I know that the pot always simmers, and sometimes it boils over. Trying to keep up good relations with France, the United States and the Army is a full time job and requires excellent negotiation skills as well you know.
I endorse your unconditional support of the civil reconciliation policy and the pardoning of all militants. I think that this proposal is a brilliant one. There is a time for mourning and a time for healing.
It was a hot summer day and people waited in long lines to buy food, and there was very little, and what was available was extremely expensive. Groups of young men hung around the street corner frustrated that they could not get work. It was a daily ritual looking for food in garbage cans in a land rich in oil. Why was it that Algerians were starving? The reason was that oil prices hit rock bottom and a civil war was in the making. To make matters worse, Algeria almost declared bankruptcy and the only way out was through the IMF. By the early 1990’s Algeria was forced to expend most of its oil and gas income - roughly eight billion dollars to nine billion dollars just to finance her mushrooming twenty six billion dollar external debt. Algeria could not afford to feed her people.

I read in the July 11th edition of the Al-Hayat newspaper about the Algerian Marshall Plan that is designed to direct fifty five billion dollars over five years for the purpose of reviving Algeria’s economy. I salute you, President Bouteflika for your visionary thinking, but be careful. We had a moment when coal was king, then the plug got pulled and coal was king no more. Your endeavors have given my utopian dream new life. I congratulate you and the Algerians on this venture.

I am impressed with the quality of your health care system. Good work! Now you can shine with Cuba and Canada.

My dream of a utopia reality is much brighter for now I see a solution to the scarcity of water in Algeria. Potable water is a vital commodity in Algeria. G.E. announces plans for the largest desalination plant in North Africa. Fifty three million U.S. gallons of potable water a day is a lot of water. Canadians are so casual about water and wasteful too. With global warming on the increase we must make water conservation a priority.

Regarding “terrorism”, I quote…” that you would hit them hard”, but instead of following G.W. Bush in his rush to Americanize the world, continue with what you are doing now. Canada built her reputation upon Socialism and Peacekeeping; allow Algeria to be a utopian gateway, an example to Africa and Europe. I know that you have to keep the lid on, but promote conferences in “social justice”, show the world what Algerians are capable of. Use the blackness of the civil war to highlight the possibilities of faith and social democratization. Dr. Omar Chaalal, Algerian citizen, and world renowned scientist and inventor said, “Use dialogue, not guns or bombs.”

I would like to extend a word of caution over the Byrd Amendment of the United States. This is a warning from Trade Minister Shoichi Nagagwa of Japan. Japan has decided to impose its first-ever retaliatory sanctions against the United States on 15 goods, including steel, in response to a controversial US anti-dumping law. Japan will slap 15% retaliatory levies on US Steel. Trade Ministry official Sato said, “the tariffs will amount to 5.7 billion yen ($51 million US). The percentage is in lines with moves by Canada and the European Union. *

I will watch the progress of Algeria, under your great leadership, President Bouteflika, and have great faith that you will be remembered as the founding father of Algeria, the Utopian Gateway of Africa and Europe.
VIVE L'ALGERIE  ¶ 6/13/2006 01:58:00 a.m. 0 Comments

  Freedom of speech can go to far Dear Editor:

Freedom of speech is a right, but what is not a right is to defame one’s God, beliefs and a nation’s choices of how they govern.
Words and cartoons are powerful and must be used with respect, knowledge, and a thorough understanding of the culture to whom they speak.
Under the leadership of President Bush, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Islamaphobia has reached a boiling point. Nationalism is the right to protect one’s country and one’s people from harm.
Every nation will attest to that. Kurtis Cooper, spokesperson for the State Department states that religious and ethnic hatred is not acceptable. However, out of the mouths of the US Administration come words like, “the enemy”, “fight them in their land”, “it’s us against them”, “bring in the Kurds, then the Shiites and then the Sunnis will fall in”.
And one wonders why there is such political unrest and unease in the world.
It is the right of every human according to God/Allah to have shelter, food, a nation and security. What is deplorable is for a superpower dictating to the world that it is all right for the USA and Israel to bear arms, to maintain paramilitary units, to design and build nuclear warheads, sell armaments, and at the same time deny other nations the same rights. What hypocrisy and blatant misuse of foreign policy.
Why does President Bush dress his democracy in the skirts of right wing theology and then say if you differ in your ideology such as being an Islamist or a Communist, we will bomb the hell out of you?
What gives you the right to use “carrots and sticks” such as bribery, torture, and the Press in the name of the Stars and Stripes and Jesus?
Now that I have your full attention, why do you infer that Muslims do not know how to govern, look after their children, understand the judicial system, or banking? I must tell you that Muslims are very well educated, have strong work ethics, excellent health standards, strong family ties and discipline that the Western world would do well to emulate.
My wish is that we would all realize that we are brothers and sisters under God and as such live in Peace!  ¶ 6/13/2006 12:46:00 a.m. 0 Comments

  Stop the Killing Stop the Killing!

It is said that good governance is God’s work. Peace is defined as harmonious relations free from disputes. If this is so, why are millions of Muslims being killed and injured across the world? The perpetrator of this terrorist related activity is Strauss philosophy followed by the neocons of the Bush Administration. The cold war is over, and the next victims chosen by the Straussians were the Muslims. What you have to understand is that Straussians are far more subversive than any KGB. Leo Strauss stated, “no bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the evil in man, as long as there will be men, there will be malice, envy, and hatred, and so society must employ coercive restraint.” The hope for permanent progress in human affairs believed by Woodrow Wilson is a delusion, Strauss wrote, “the idea of a universal state is a delusion. Each nation should conduct its own foreign policy and should not turn its foreign policy over to international organizations.” Strauss is a unilateralist, not a multilateralist. According to Strauss, the purpose of foreign policy is survival and independence or self-preservation. Nothing else. Strauss states that according to Socrates, foreign policy of a nation is never devoted to the good of other nations except in the case of self-interest. Socrates endorses imperialism, seizure of property and killing all men who oppose this expansion. He advocates lying to the citizens telling them a noble lie, such as telling Iraqis that destroying their homeland, killing citizens by the thousands and raping their resources is the way of winning hearts and minds. Hiding Iraqi government behind concrete walls is also rumored to be “democracy”.

Aristotle says that it is not lawful for one city to rule and exercise mastery over other cities. His belief is that “common sense” like there is justice or injustice among nations. Leo Strauss takes Plato’s point of view.

Thucydides argued that the question of survival, conquest and war overwhelm the concerns of domestic politics. As for "the good order within the city," Thucydides states “leave it to the moderate citizens."

In 2006, the Strauss model portrays ruthless subordination, of the good of other nations to one's own good. Take for example Israel over the Palestinian people. Hamas, Palestine’s democratically elected government is thwarted in its attempt to govern because it will not buckle under to Israel and the USA. In retaliation, Israel sent 6000 shells in the last two months into the Gaza strip and in the latest incident killing seven people including three children. What do you say to the child who is swimming and is the lone survivor? What price do you put on lost innocence? What do you say to an Algerian citizen who has flashbacks of French bombs falling in Algeria, brought on by witnessing this incident on television? What do you say to him when he says…”how can one dream when one can not sleep?” Since 1954 over one and a half million Algerian Muslims have lost their lives due to French colonialism.
What do you say to Iraqis, who are victims of an illegal war and have lost family, jobs, homes, their way of life and their country? Their country is polluted, filled with depleted uranium shells and ordinance.



If victory in Iraq is defined as democracy in Iraq, American forces will have to remain there for a long time. During their prime, Rome and Britain were pretty good at governing other nations. With few exceptions, Americans have never had the heart for it.

According to America's Declaration of Independence, every nation is entitled to a "separate and equal station" among "the powers of the earth." That is because of "the laws of nature and of nature's God," which tell us that "all men are created equal" and that we are obliged to respect men's equal rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." One way that the right to liberty is exercised is through each nation's collective right to consent to its own government, in a "separate and equal station" independent of the government of other nations. There is therefore no right of one nation to conquer or interfere in the affairs of any other nation, except to the extent required for self-preservation. Locke's strictures against conquest in the Second Treatise are based on exactly this understanding of the law of nature.



I dream of a day when Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Kristol, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, et al, are paraded before TV cameras in orange jumpsuits, shackled and humiliated, and soon to suffer the fate Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Rudolf Hess at the Nuremberg Trials.  ¶ 6/13/2006 12:11:00 a.m. 0 Comments