'No US, no Saddam...Yes to Freedom and Iraqis': Iraqis

[sassa]

‘No U.S., No Saddam… Yes To Freedom & Islam’: Iraqis

BAGHDAD, April 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Anti-American protests intensified in the Iraqi capital and in southern Iraq Tuesday, April 15, as U.S. occupation forces struggled secure the country after toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Exasperated U.S. military officials tried to hamper the media from covering new demonstrations in Baghdad while some 20,000 people in the Shiite Muslim bastion of Nasiriyah railed against a U.S.-staged meeting on Iraq's future, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The protests came as the Americans delivered a first progress report in their effort to restore Iraq to normalcy and head off a chorus of criticism over continued lawlessness and a lack of basic services.

Some 200-300 Iraqis gathered Tuesday outside the Palestine Hotel, where the U.S. marines have set up an operations base, for a third straight day of protests against the U.S. occupation.

For the first time, visibly angered U.S. military officials sought to distance the media from the protest, moving reporters and cameras about 30 meters (yards) from the barbed-wired entrance to the hotel.

"We want you to pull back to the back of the hotel because they (the Iraqis) are only performing because the media are here," said a marine colonel who wore the name Zarcone but would not give his first name or title.

The crowd later moved to the nearby square where the statue of Saddam was toppled Wednesday to signal the end of the regime. As three of the marines' armored amphibious vehicles passed by, they chanted: "No, no, USA."

Meanwhile, demonstrators marched to the center of the predominantly Shiite southern city of Nasiriyah, chanting "Yes to freedom ... Yes to Islam ... No to America, No to Saddam."

They were protesting a meeting of Iraqi opposition groups convened at a nearby military base in an initial attempt by the United States to plot out a political future for the post-Saddam Iraq.

"We want the American and British forces to go. They have freed us from Saddam and their job is finished," said Ihsan Mohammad, an official with the regional federation of engineers.

U.S. forces now face what invaders suffer

"If they intend to occupy us, we will oppose that. We ask them to leave us free to decide our future and not to impose people on us."

Although U.S. officials have all but declared their military campaign over, tensions with the civilian population persist over a lack of police protection, water, electricity and other basic services.

Hundreds of international reporters here have also become increasingly frustrated with the lack of information on the reconstruction effort and the U.S. failure to provide other than haphazard access to public affairs officers.

As the Iraqi protest grew more vocal outside the hotel, a marine corporal was holding an impromptu briefing for a few reporters on the progress made.

Corporal John Hoellwarth said the U.S. forces planned to boost joint police patrols, bring more hospitals back into service and have power restored to parts of Baghdad within 72 hours.

Hoellwarth said the Americans were in Iraq to support the Iraqis, not rule over them. "We are only going to stay here long enough to help the Iraqi people restore critical infrastructure and help them restore a government," he said.

He said 50 electrical engineers were brought in to assess the damage to the power system of the capital which went down April 4 amid massive U.S. bombings and repairs began Monday.

"We expect power to be restored to parts of Baghdad in the next 48 to 72 hours," he said.

With Baghdad's hospital system in a virtual state of collapse after widespread pillage, Hoellwarth said 14 of the city's 33 facilities were secure and operational. He could not say when the others would reopen.

Hoellworth said that joint Iraqi-U.S. police patrols began Monday with five Iraqi cars going out accompanied by marines in all-terrain Humvees, and "today many more patrols are running."

He said that U.S. forces put out a call for 150 Iraqi policemen on Monday and had between 700 and 1,000 reporting for duty.

"They are progressing steadily and we are also working to work out neighborhood watch programs," Hoellwarth said.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2003-04/15/article05.shtml

[siceone]

people who rely on religions tenants to run thier lives scare me...

[sassa]

Originally posted by siceone

people who rely on religions tenants to run thier lives scare me...

isn't our "dear" president one of these people? supposedly, he is a born-again christian who allows daily bible sessions to be held in the white house...

[siceone]

Originally posted by sassa

isn't our "dear" president one of these people? supposedly, he is a born-again christian who allows daily bible sessions to be held in the white house...

Actually being religious and letting religious tenants rule your life are two different things... for example living your life according the the basic principles of a holy book doesn't scare me..... saying people shoudl die because they don't follow a religion or saying certain people are better than one another does scare me.

[sassa]

Originally posted by siceone

Actually being religious and letting religious tenants rule your life are two different things... for example living your life according the the basic principles of a holy book doesn't scare me..... saying people shoudl die because they don't follow a religion or saying certain people are better than one another does scare me.

which is why it's worrying...he might use his new found religious zeal to motivate him and his cronies to push for change elsewhere...

because it seems like, according to the american gov't, no other gov't in the world is better than ours....

[siceone]

Originally posted by sassa

which is why it's worrying...he might use his new found religious zeal to motivate him and his cronies to push for change elsewhere...

because it seems like, according to the american gov't, no other gov't in the world is better than ours....

New found Zeal you act like our entire Gov't is one big born again cult.. and what kind of change are you afraid for them to push for just out of curiosity..

I think that basic religious/spiritual principles have a firm place in gov't, I don't belive that a religion should be a gov't. and gov't has not place in religion.

oh and you know of a better gov't than democracy?

[sassa]

Originally posted by siceone

New found Zeal you act like our entire Gov't is one big born again cult.. and what kind of change are you afraid for them to push for just out of curiosity..

I think that basic religious/spiritual principles have a firm place in gov't, I don't belive that a religion should be a gov't. and gov't has not place in religion.

oh and you know of a better gov't than democracy?

even the so-called democracy in this country doesn't work, and you are trying to convince me that this system is better than anything else? please!

[siceone]

Originally posted by sassa

even the so-called democracy in this country doesn't work, and you are trying to convince me that this system is better than anything else? please!

you got a better way spill it sister

[mr mahs]

Socialism... would be perfect even thoughnit has FAILED in so many countries...

She is so brainwashed by some loon professer on her campus that preaches socialsm and anti-american rhetoric...

Sassa

To answer you r question of why we think we are great....

We are...

[mr mahs]

The anti-liberation media have tried to spread that a ant-american in the majority of Iraq this is untrue... Below is a article that explain who is really behind the protests..

April 17, 2003 -- TWO weeks before the war to liberate Iraq began, Syria's President Bashar Assad made a visit to Tehran for 12 hours of "dense talks" with Iran's ruling mullahs.

The visit, Bashar's fifth in two years, underlined his growing dependence on Iran as a regional ally. (By comparison, Bashar's father, the late President Hafez Assad, visited Tehran just once in his 30-year rule, and then only for six hours.) At the visit's end, officials on both sides spoke of the "strategic partnership" between the Syrian Ba'athist regime and the Khomeinist ruling clique in Tehran.

Both sides knew that the war had become inevitable and that Saddam's days were numbered. But they did not think the "Vampire of Baghdad" would fall so quickly.

Just days before the war Ali Khamenehi, the "Supreme Guide" of the ruling mullahs in Tehran, prophesied that Iraq would become " a quagmire" for the American "Great Satan," signaling its "final destruction." Bashar called on Arabs to prepare for "holy war" against "the invaders."

Tehran and Damascus did their best to prolong the war:

* Iraqi Shiite parties, financed by Iran and headquartered in Tehran, called on their brethren in Iraq not to cooperate with "the invading forces."

* Iranian "sleeper" terrorist cells in southern Iraq issued death threats against clerics who wished to welcome the coalition.

* Syria, for its part, began shipping Russian-made and other military equipment and spare parts, to Iraq while opening its borders to Arab " volunteers for martyrdom" who wished to fight to save Saddam.

With the fall of Saddam, the Syrian and Iranian regimes move to the top of the Richter scale for rogue states. Both have a record of sponsoring terrorism, have stockpiled chemical weapons and have a history of human-rights violations. Both know that they could be the next targets for regime change, not necessarily through direct U.S. military intervention.

The leadership elites in Damascus and Tehran are divided over how to cope with the new situation created in the region. One faction urges change to transform Iran and Syria from rogue states sponsoring terrorism into law-abiding ones keen to seek a role in building a new Middle East. Another faction wants to turn Iraq into "a giant-size West Bank" for the United States and organize a campaign of terror designed to wear out Washington's resolve and force it to withdraw from the region in despair.

The reformist faction in Syria includes technocrats such as Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shiraa and Economy Minister Ghassan al-Rifai, and is backed by younger army officers, businessmen and segments of the ruling Ba'ath Party.

The anti-reform camp in Syria is led by Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and Defense Minister Gen. Mostafa Tlas, and supported by the military-security mafia that is plundering occupied Lebanon.

Until recently, the pro-reform faction claimed to have President Assad's "quiet support." That, however, may have been a case of self-deception. Right now, Bashar appears to be on the side of the old guard.

In Iran, the pro-reform faction is led by former Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mussavi and includes clerics, parliamentarians and businessmen who seek a change of course by the regime. The faction is partly supported by President Muhammad Khatami, a mid-ranking mullah once seen as a possible leader for the reform movement.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani leads Tehran's anti-reform faction, with former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati acting as chief theoretician. Khamenehi, also a mid-ranking mullah, supports this faction.

The anti-reform factions in Tehran and Damascus are working hand in hand to prevent, or at least postpone, the emergence of a democratic system in Iraq. They are active on three fronts.

On one front, they are using their Iraqi Shiite clients as a means of preventing the Shiite community from taking part in U.S.-led plans for a new government.

Together, Iran and Syria control five Iraqi Shiite groups:

* The Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), led by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer Hakim Tabatabai (also a top leader of Tehran's anti-reform faction).

* The Islamic Call Party, led by Muhammad Bahr al-Olum.

* The Islamic Labor Party, led by Muhamad-Taqi Mudarressi.

* The Iraqi branch of the Hezbollah, a semi-clandestine military organization with "sleeper" cells in some Iraqi Shiite cities.

* The Badr Brigade, led by Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim.

On the second front, Syria also controls a number of smaller Iraqi groups, including a breakaway branch of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. The Syrians hope that, if things do not settle in Iraq, they might be able to set up an Iraqi Ba'athist regime in exile and challenge a pro-American government wishing to seek recognition from Arab and Muslim countries.

On a third front, Iran and Syria are actively campaigning to prevent Arab and Muslim countries from recognizing a new pro-American government in Baghdad.

The opening shot in this joint attack on any such government came earlier this month, when a mob murdered Hojat al-Islam Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, a moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric, in Najaf.

Few may have noticed it, but Iraq has already become the latest battleground between the Tehran-Damascus axis and the United States and its allies.

E-mail: amirtaheri