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Iraqis Burn US Flags to Mark War Anniversary
Protesters march as bombers strike in several cities
In five other Iraqi cities, supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also marched or stood in protest after prayers to demand the release of their allies detained at Iraqi and US-run prisons.
Karim Kadim/Associated PressFollowers of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burned an American flag during a demonstration yesterday marking the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. (Karim Kadim/Associated Press) The protests came as a suicide bomber in Fallujah killed an Iraqi police officer and five other people, including civilians, in an attempted attack on the home of the local leader of Sunni security volunteers who turned against Al Qaeda.
Also, a pair of roadside bombs exploded within 10 minutes of one another after sundown yesterday, wounding four policemen and three civilians in Baghdad's Karradah district, police said. A police colonel and his aide were wounded in a bombing yesterday in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, police said.
In the capital, Sadr aide Sheik Haidar al-Jabiri urged supporters to join an April 9 march to protest the sixth anniversary of Americans taking over the city.
"Today, a remembrance of the cruel occupation of Iraq, and on April 9, there will be a chant for liberation," Sadr aide Sheik Haidar al-Jabiri told worshipers gathered in Baghdad's Shi'ite district of Sadr City for Friday sermons.
He added: "Sayed Moqtada invites you to march by the millions on April 9, the anniversary of the cruel occupation."
Baghdad fell to US forces on April 9, 2003.
The war began with a missile and bombing attack on south Baghdad before dawn on March 20, 2003 - March 19 in Washington.
Demonstrators responded by lifting a banner reading: "To the Iraqi government, when will you be trustful and release our detainee sons?"
"No, no for occupation. Yes, yes for liberation. Yes, yes for Iraq," the demonstrators chanted.
Two American flags were set on fire.
Thousands of Sadrist followers in five other cities - Basra, Kut, Diwaniyah, Amarah, and Nasiriyah - also took to the streets in an apparent planned series of protests.
In Kut, up to 1,000 worshipers marched from the grand mosque in the center of the city to Sadrist offices a short distance away, denouncing the US occupation and calling for detainees to be released.
Outside Fallujah, an Iraqi police officer and a small group of civilians died yesterday while trying to stop a suicide bomber from reaching the home of Saadoun al-Eifan, who runs the local branch of the Sunni volunteers, the Sons of Iraq.
Police Major Hamed al-Jumaili said the bomber was trying to get past guards monitoring a bridge in rural Albu Eifan, where Eifan lives, about 6 miles south of Fallujah.
He detonated his explosives belt after bring confronted by the police officer and residents, Jumaili said.
The protests and bombings came a day after a US airstrike on a militant hideout north of Baghdad killed at least 11 insurgents, the United States said.
A search of the site by ground forces after the strike found a cache of weapons, munitions, and parts to build improvised explosive devices, US military spokesman Major Derrick Cheng said yesterday.
Cheng did not immediately know yesterday whether any civilians were killed or injured in the strike, or exactly when it occurred.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllObviously, we have won Iraqi hearts and minds. They should be praising and thanking us for their "freedom". Yes, this is a cynical and sarcastic post.
I say its time to come home. Let them choose freedom or dictatorship for themselves.
Who knows, they may prefer to live under a dictator rather than make their own decisions. Its time to let them run their own country.
Are you talking about America or Iraq?
Ethier way I agree!
LOL!
I'm still laughing........I shouldn't put targets like that up!
"Who knows, they may prefer to live under a dictator rather than make their own decisions. Its time to let them run their own country."
My good friend Thomas,
Your above comment is exactly the point. It is indeed time to to begin the process of going home.(Everybody) The systems of government and economics are for the people of Iraq to decide....Not the western world.....We all must learn to live with those who have different ideas on how societies are to be structured...It is time to stop putting our noses in other people's business.....
Amen!
Between Iraq and Afghanistan, the world will watch as we bleed out. God help us if the Zionist controled Congress gets us into a war with Iran.
As with all empires we are murdering and slaughtering people who do not have our weaponry and technically sophisticated warfare materials.
We have their blood on our hands, and our continued presence there is tragic. We are self indulgent narcissistic cowards as a nation, completely unaware of our own evil and sadistic intentions. Psychologically damaged are we, inspired by the drug of our own dillusionary superiority.
Everytime I read an article like this my heart goes out to those we oppress and I am ashamed and disgusted at my "fellow Americans" and to be one of them.
Will we ever awake and get the news that what we have done around the world and continue to do is plain wrong?
I "hope" Obama can and will begin to put a stop to this. What a dreamer I continue to be!!!
Poor Hillary! She once stated:
"It has been five years this week since our president took us to war in Iraq. In that time, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything we ask of them and more. They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did. So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone 'they gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom'."
______________________________________
How disappointed she must be! After We gave Them the gift of Shock and Awe-- whoops, sorry, I meant to write "Freedom"-- this is the kind of ingratitude they show! I mean, it just PROVES the point that these degraded Musselmen are a barbaric and inferior race, doesn't it?
It's said that a foreign visitor once joked to Teddy Roosevelt that the Amerikan flag looked like a peppermint stick. Teddy supposedly replied, "Well, it's a peppermint stick that can't be licked!" Good comeback-- but although it can't be licked, it can be burned.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Our brave men and women in uniform have given Iraqis the gifts of:
violent death,
torture,
imprisonment,
sexual humiliation.
rape,
being refugees by the millions,
having one's property stolen or plainly destroyed,
having been mentally and physically impaired for the rest of one's life,
having one's country's infrastructure reduced to rubble,
being without electricity or running water most of the day,
having one's economy, constitution, and legal system remodelled to suit the interests of foreing powers and corporations,
having one's museums emptied of their riches for the benefit of American art and antique dealers,
having one's historical and archeological sites used as camps for the U.S. military, with all the ensuing irreparable damage to these places,
having one's towns levelled,
having one's oil riches controlled and exploited by foreign companies,
terrorism and internecine wars,
having one's land polluted by depleted uranium and strewn with deadly mines and cluster bombs,
and many other such lovely things.
Yes, Iraqis were given the deadliest and most contemptible gifts one can give to one's fellow human beings.
Well, nobody's saying that there haven't been a few bumps in the road along the way...
· Yr Obd't Servant
Replace "insurgents" with "rightfully outraged citizens."
Rome, too, controlled most of the "known world," through superior military science, weaponry and an unsurpassed military. However the "barbarians" learned their methods and gradually how to circumvent them. Meanwhile, through greed and corruption, the legions became poorly supplied, with defective weapons, bad grain, etc., as the military supply contractors became richer and more powerful.
Eventually, the "barbarians" broke through Rome's defenses and the rest, as they say, "is history."
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Santayana
Bring America Back !!!!............Attaboy General Betrayus...you're doing a hellofa job over there winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis over to democracy.
See you at the Super Bowl !
free2bee
And now the finale. Our DECIDER is writing a book of ers, ehs, and unnerstands that only other malcontents will appreciate.
The photo says it all. From it I can clearly see how shock and awful and the great surge have turned around Iraqi hearts and minds. If the photo shows them loving us, I hope we never have to feel their hatred.
What is the matter with you guys? For God's sake these are terrorists. There is a lot more work to be done in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is an impressive parody of North Amerikan wingnut complacent and credulous thinking. It had me going for a second, I'll admit!
· Yr Obd't Servant
The USans who support the US occupation of Iraq know nothing about Iraqi culture, care nothing for the Iraqi people, and actually loathe Iraqi race and religion. The only things these USans like are the geology and geography of Mesopotamia. To these USans, Iraq represents nothing more or less than a strategic fuel supply to further power the USA's cultural/social isolation from the world community and pretense of dominating it.