thread for iraq copy-and-paste stuff (1 Viewer)

[silo]

"In the most dramatic ground advance, the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division traversed about 230 miles in 40 hours, racing day and night across the desert to take up positions roughly 100 miles from Baghdad. At one point, the soldiers ran into 100 Iraqi militiamen who had pickup trucks armed with machine guns. The unit killed almost all of the Iraqis, according to journalists traveling with the soldiers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17578-2003Mar24.html

 

[silo]

Correspondents say General Franks, the commander of the US-led invasion, gave a deliberately upbeat assessment.

"Progress toward our objectives has been rapid and in some cases dramatic. As you know our forces have been moving rapidly," he told a news conference.

"We have intentionally bypassed enemy formations, including paramilitary and the Fedayeen [militia], and so you can expect that our clean-up operations are going to be ongoing."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2881743.stm

 

[silo]

"A British soldier has been killed in action in Iraq, bringing the total British dead and missing to 19 on the fifth day of the war. It is Britain's first known combat casualty. "We regret to announce that a British soldier was killed in action today near Zubayr in southern Iraq," said a British military official at Central Command in Qatar. Britons have woken every morning for the past four days to news of killed or missing British troops. The total of 19 so far compares to 24 British losses in the whole of the 1991 Gulf War. Two soldiers were reported missing overnight following an attack on British vehicles in southern Iraq. Two Royal Air Force pilots died on Sunday when their Tornado fighter jet was accidentally shot down by U.S. troops as they returned to base near the Kuwaiti border. That loss followed helicopter crashes on Friday and Saturday in which 14 British troops died."

http://www.msn.co.uk/news/breakingnews02/

 

[steve albino]

THE OIL FIELDS: Fighting around seven burning oil wells in the Rumeila South oil field in southern Iraq has driven out some civilian firefighters, an official said Monday. U.S.-led forces had previously thought the field's facilities were secure. "It's not nearly as safe as they said it was," said Brian Krause, vice president and senior blowout specialist for Houston-based Boots and Coots. "We're kind of sitting ducks out there."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZ5RBWODD.html

 

[P. Littbarski]

Warmonger Explains War
With Iraq To Peacenik
Author Unknown
3-18-3

Peacenik: Why did you say we are invading Iraq?

Warmonger: We are invading Iraq because it is in violation of
security council resolution 1441. A country cannot be allowed
to violate security council resolutions.

PN: I thought many of our allies, including Israel, were
in violation of more security council resolutions than Iraq.

WM: It's not just about UN resolutions. The main point is that
Iraq could have weapons of mass destruction, and the first sign
of a smoking gun could well be a mushroom cloud over NY.

PN: Mushroom cloud? But I thought the weapons inspectors said
Iraq had no nuclear weapons.

WM: Yes, but biological and chemical weapons are the issue.

PN: But I thought Iraq did not have any long range missiles
for attacking us or our allies with such weapons.

WM: The risk is not Iraq directly attacking us, but rather
terrorists networks that Iraq could sell the weapons to.

PN: But couldn't virtually any country sell chemical or
biological materials? We sold quite a bit to Iraq in the
eighties ourselves, didn't we?

WM: That's ancient history. Look, Saddam Hussein is an evil
man that has an undeniable track record of repressing his own
people since the early eighties. He gasses his enemies.
Everyone agrees that he is a power-hungry lunatic murderer.

PN: We sold chemical and biological materials to a power-
hungry lunatic murderer?

WM: The issue is not what we sold, but rather what Saddam did.
He is the one that launched a pre-emptive first strike on Kuwait.

PN: A pre-emptive first strike does sound bad. But didn't our
ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, know about and green-light
the invasion of Kuwait?

WM: Let's deal with the present, shall we? As of today, Iraq
could sell its biological and chemical weapons to Al Qaida.
Osama Bin Laden himself released an audio tape calling on Iraqis
to suicide attack us, proving a partnership between the two.

PN: Osama Bin Laden? Wasn't the point of invading Afghanistan
to kill him?

WM: Actually, it's not 100% certain that it's really Osama Bin
Laden on the tapes. But the lesson from the tape is the same:
there could easily be a partnership between Al Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein unless we act.

PN: Is this the same audio tape where Osama Bin Laden labels
Saddam a secular infidel?

WM: You're missing the point by just focusing on the tape.
Powell presented a strong case against Iraq.

PN: He did?

WM: Yes, he showed satellite pictures of an Al Qaeda poison
factory in Iraq.

PN: But didn't that turn out to be a harmless shack in the part
of Iraq controlled by the Kurdish opposition?

WM: And a British intelligence report...

PN: Didn't that turn out to be copied from an out-of-date
graduate student paper?

WM: And reports of mobile weapons labs...

PN: Weren't those just artistic renderings?

WM: And reports of Iraqis scuttling and hiding evidence from
inspectors...

PN: Wasn't that evidence contradicted by the chief weapons
inspector, Hans Blix?

WM: Yes, but there is plenty of other hard evidence that cannot
be revealed because it would compromise our security.

PN: So there is no publicly available evidence of weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq?

WM: The inspectors are not detectives, it's not their JOB to
find evidence. You're missing the point.

PN: So what is the point?

WM: The main point is that we are invading Iraq because
resolution 1441 threatened "severe consequences." If we
do not act, the security council will become an irrelevant
debating society.

PN: So the main point is to uphold the rulings of the
security council?

WM: Absolutely. ... unless it rules against us.

PN: And what if it does rule against us?

WM: In that case, we must lead a coalition of the willing
to invade Iraq.

PN: Coalition of the willing? Who's that?

WM: Britain, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, and Italy, for
starters.

PN: I thought Turkey refused to help us unless we gave them
tens of billions of dollars.

WM: Nevertheless, they may now be willing.

PN: I thought public opinion in all those countries was
against war.

WM: Current public opinion is irrelevant. The majority expresses
its will by electing leaders to make decisions.

PN: So it's the decisions of leaders elected by the majority
that is important?

WM: Yes.

PN: But George B-

WM: I mean, we must support the decisions of our leaders, however
they were elected, because they are acting in our best interest.
This is about being a patriot. That's the bottom line.

PN: So if we do not support the decisions of the president,
we are not patriotic?

WM: I never said that.

PN: So what are you saying? Why are we invading Iraq?

WM: As I said, because there is a chance that they have weapons
of mass destruction that threaten us and our allies.

PN: But the inspectors have not been able to find any such
weapons.

WM: Iraq is obviously hiding them.

PN: You know this? How?

WM: Because we know they had the weapons ten years ago, and they
are still unaccounted for.

PN: The weapons we sold them, you mean?

WM: Precisely.

PN: But I thought those biological and chemical weapons would
degrade to an unusable state over ten years.

WM: But there is a chance that some have not degraded.

PN: So as long as there is even a small chance that such weapons
exist, we must invade?

WM: Exactly.

PN: But North Korea actually has large amounts of usable chemical,
biological, AND nuclear weapons, AND long range missiles that can
reach the west coast AND it has expelled nuclear weapons inspectors,
AND threatened to turn America into a sea of fire.

WM: That's a diplomatic issue.

PN: So why are we invading Iraq instead of using diplomacy?

WM: Aren't you listening? We are invading Iraq because we cannot
allow the inspections to drag on indefinitely. Iraq has been
delaying, deceiving, and denying for over ten years, and
inspections cost us tens of millions.

PN: But I thought war would cost us tens of billions.

WM: Yes, but this is not about money. This is about security.

PN: But wouldn't a pre-emptive war against Iraq ignite radical
Muslim sentiments against us, and decrease our security?

WM: Possibly, but we must not allow the terrorists to change the
way we live. Once we do that, the terrorists have already won.

PN: So what is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security,
color-coded terror alerts, and the Patriot Act? Don't these change
the way we live?

WM: I thought you had questions about Iraq.

PN: I do. Why are we invading Iraq?

WM: For the last time, we are invading Iraq because the world
has called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he has failed to do
so. He must now face the consequences.

PN: So, likewise, if the world called on us to do something,
such as find a peaceful solution, we would have an obligation
to listen?

WM: By "world", I meant the United Nations.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the United Nations?

WM: By "United Nations" I meant the Security Council.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the Security Council?

WM: I meant the majority of the Security Council.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the majority of
the Security Council?

WM: Well... there could be an unreasonable veto.

PN: In which case?

WM: In which case, we have an obligation to ignore the veto.

PN: And if the majority of the Security Council does not support
us at all?

WM: Then we have an obligation to ignore the Security Council.

PN: That makes no sense:

WM: If you love Iraq so much, you should move there. Or maybe
France, with the all the other cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
It's time to boycott their wine and cheese, no doubt about that.

 

[steve albino]

Saudis Make Peace Proposal to United States, Iraq
The Associated Press
Published: Mar 25, 2003




RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia has contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal, the kingdom's foreign minister told reporters Tuesday. He said he was still awaiting a response.
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, asked at a news conference whether Saudi Arabia had been in direct contact with the United States and Iraq in an effort to end the war, said: "We have made the proposal and we are waiting for a possible response."

He did not describe the proposal.

"I don't want to say we were rebuffed because we were not rebuffed, but nor were we given authorization that they're going with it," he said.

The Saudi government has quietly aided the U.S. war effort, even while anti-war and anti-U.S. sentiment simmers among its citizens. The kingdom fears a backlash from extremists.

At an Arab League foreign ministers meeting Monday in Cairo, Prince Saud told reporters he had hoped for a league resolution affirming "rejection of the military operation, rejection of occupation, and calling for immediate withdrawal.

"It is time to solve the issue peacefully," Prince Saud said Monday.

AP-ES-03-25-03 1034EST

 

[silo]

"Earlier this week the BBC was forced to promise that it would no longer show footage of seriously injured British troops, after the mother of a Royal Marine watched her son set on fire during a gun battle on a BBC early evening bulletin."

http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,922209,00.html

 

[Knacker]

Just to say that Al Jazera (misspelt!) were banned from the New York Stock Exchange. That was mentioned on NBC news last night.

 

[silo]

Originally posted by Knacker
Just to say that Al Jazera (misspelt!) were banned from the New York Stock Exchange. That was mentioned on NBC news last night.

yeah. apparently cos they're 'not a serious broadcaster'.

 

[Rimbaud]

And to add to that Al Jezzarra issue:
Their english web-site was knocked off line last night and this morning, by suspected hacker attacks to it.
Don`t know if its up again yet.
The websites host provider in the US , has announced that it won`t be hosting Al Jezzarra`s English language site, after the end of the month, as it will be hosted by a european provider...very strange eh?

Apparently this all arises because of Al Jezzarra being the first to air footage of US/UK p.o.w.s and dead.But immediately stopped airing the footage when asked - even though other stations contiued to run it.
This did not go down will at all.
Seen by the Arab world as oppression/censorship of Arab media?

 

[steve albino]

Originally posted by steve albino
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia has contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal, the kingdom's foreign minister told reporters Tuesday. He said he was still awaiting a response.
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, asked at a news conference whether Saudi Arabia had been in direct contact with the United States and Iraq in an effort to end the war, said: "We have made the proposal and we are waiting for a possible response."

He did not describe the proposal.

"I don't want to say we were rebuffed because we were not rebuffed, but nor were we given authorization that they're going with it," he said.

Saudi Arabia Backs Away From Iraqi-US Peace Plan
The Associated Press
Published: Mar 26, 2003




RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia on Wednesday backed away from an announcement that it had made a peace proposal to the United States and Iraq, saying only that it had "general ideas" about ending the war.
News of a peace plan had baffled both Washington and Baghdad on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia has been quietly aiding the U.S. war effort.

"What the kingdom put forward were general ideas it has stressed on more than one occasion, not an initiative," Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said in a statement distributed Wednesday by the official Saudi Press Agency.

On Tuesday, Prince Saud told reporters he had a new peace plan and pledged to "knock on all doors" to get it heard. He did not give further details.

Washington said Tuesday it was not aware of a peace proposal from Saudi Arabia, and Iraq's information minister described Prince Saud's comments as "baseless."

Wednesday's statement was meant as a clarification, the agency said.

 

[pete]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0326/morningireland/morningireland2b.ram


Interview with Robert Fisk on Morning Ireland this morning.

 

[kstop]

GRU's take - grains of salt ahoy

http://162.42.211.226/article2375.htm

(The GRU being Russian military intelligence.)

 

[Dr_stanley]

Below is an article by George Monbiot that everyone should read about the geneva convention


One law for them...


Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva Convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them."1

He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected ... against insults and public curiosity."2 This may number among the less heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions, ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defense department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and ear phones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (2, religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (3, access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).3

They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118), because, the US authorities say, their interrogation might, one day, reveal interesting information about Al Qaeda. Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth. No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever." In the hope of breaking them, however, the authorities have confined them to solitary cells and subjected them to what is now known as "torture lite": sleep deprivation and constant exposure to bright light.4 Unsurprisingly, several of the prisoners have sought to kill themselves, by smashing their heads against the walls or trying to slash their wrists with plastic cutlery.5

The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva Conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this re-definition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (Al Qaeda) must be regarded as prisoners of war.

Even if there is doubt about how such people should be classified, article 5 insists that they "shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."6 But when, earlier this month, lawyers representing sixteen of them demanded a court hearing, the US Court of Appeals ruled that as Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, the men have no constitutional rights. Many of these prisoners appear to have been working in Afghanistan as teachers, engineers or aid workers. If the US government either tried or released them, its embarrassing lack of evidence would be brought to light.

You would hesitate to describe these prisoners as lucky, unless you knew what had happened to some of the other men captured by the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan. On 21 November 2001, around 8,000 Taliban soldiers and Pashtun civilians surrendered at Konduz to the Northern Alliance commander General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Many of them have never been seen again. As Jamie Doran's film "Afghan Massacre - Convoy of Death" records, some hundreds, possibly thousands, of them were loaded into container lorries at Qala-i-Zeini, near the town of Mazar-i-Sharif, on 26 and 27 November.7 The doors were sealed and the lorries were left to stand in the sun for several days. At length, they departed for Sheberghan prison, 120 km away. The prisoners, many of whom were dying of thirst and asphixiation, started banging on the sides of the trucks. Dostum's men stopped the convoy and machine-gunned the containers. When they arrived at Sheberghan, most of the captives were dead.8

The US special forces running the prison watched the bodies being unloaded. They instructed Dostum's men to "get rid of them before satellite pictures can be taken."9 Doran interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison. "I was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner's neck. The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them."10 Another soldier alleged, "They took the prisoners outside and beat them up and then returned them to the prison. But sometimes they were never returned and they disappeared."11

Many of the survivors were loaded back into the containers with the corpses, then driven out to a place in the desert called Dasht-i-Leili. In the presence of between 30 and 40 US special forces, both the living and the dead were dumped into ditches. Anyone who moved was shot. The German newspaper Die Zeit investigated the claims and concluded that "No one doubted that the Americans had taken part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue."12 The US group Physicians for Human Rights visited the places identified by Doran's witnesses and found that they "all ... contained human remains consistent with their designation as possible gravesites."13

It should not be necessary to point out that hospitality of this kind also contravenes the third Geneva convention, which prohibits "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture", as well as extra-judicial execution. Donald Rumsfeld's department, assisted by a pliant media, has done all it can to suppress Jamie Doran's film,14 while General Dostum has begun to assassinate his witnesses.15

It is not hard, therefore, to see why the US government fought first to prevent the establishment of the International Criminal Court and then to ensure that its own citizens are not subject to its jurisdiction. The five soldiers dragged in front of the cameras yesterday should thank their lucky stars that they are prisoners not of the American forces fighting for civilisation, but of the "barbaric and inhuman" Iraqis.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Donald Rumsfeld, 23 March 2003. Transcript of CBS Face The Nation. United States Department of Defense.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/t03232003_t0323sdcbsface.html

2. Convention (III), relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

3. These were the conditions in Camp X-Ray. In Camp Delta, to which the prisoners have been moved, most of these omissions still appear to apply, and their confinement has become still stricter, though they are now permitted to exercise for two 15-minute sessions a week (Katty Kaye, 11 January 2003. No fast track at Guantanamo Bay. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/americas/2648547.stm). The Convention suggests that they should be able to exercise freely.

4. Duncan Campbell, 25 January 2003. US interrogators turn to 'torture lite'. The Guardian.

5. Frank Gardner, 24 August 2002. US bides its time in Guantanamo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/from_our_own_correspondent/2212874.stm

6. Convention (III), as above.

7. Afghan Massacre - Convoy of Death, now available on video from ACFTV, Studio 241, 24-28 St Leonards Road, Windsor, SL4 3BB, United Kingdom. All published details checked on March 24th 2003 with Jamie Doran.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. ibid

12. Giuliana Sgrena and Ulrich Ladurner, Masar-i-Scharif

Während des Afghanistan-Feldzugs gab es in Masar-i-Scharif ein Massaker. Zeugen sagen, US-Soldaten hätten daran mitgewirkt. Ein Beweis ist das noch nicht. Eine Spurensuche. Die Zeit. No date given. The cited text appeared, in translation in: Peter Schwarz, 29 June 2002. Further evidence of a massacre of Taliban prisoners. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/afgh-j29.shtml

13. Physicians for Human Rights, 2002. Preliminary Assessment of Alleged Mass Gravesites in the Area of Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan, January 16-21 and February 7-14. PHR, Boston and Washington DC.

14. Bill Vann, 12 February 2003. Film exposing Pentagon war crimes premieres in US.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/afgh-f12.shtml

15. Jamie Doran, 24 March 2003, pers comm.
_________________
Kick over the wall, cause governments to fall, how can you refute it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power, don't you know that you can use it?

 

[silo]

http://dearraed.blogspot.com/

a blogger who's an iraqi civilian in baghdad.

this is surreal. hyperreal. i don't think there's words to describe it.

23/3
8:30pm (day4)
we start counting the hours from the moment one of the news channels report that the B52s have left their airfield. It takes them around 6 hours to get to Iraq. On the first day of the bombing it worked precisely. Yesterday we were a bit surprised that after 6 hours bombs didn?t start falling. The attacks on Baghdad were much less than two days ago. We found out today in the news that the city of Tikrit got the hell bombed out of it. To day the B52s took off at 3pm, on half an hour we will know whether it is Baghdad tonight or another city. Karbala was also hit last night.
Today?s (and last night?s) shock attacks didn?t come from airplanes but rather from the airwaves. The images Al-jazeera is broadcasting are beyond any description. First was the attack on (Ansar el Islam) camp in the north of Iraq. Then the images of civilian casualties in Basra city. What was most disturbing are the images from the hospitals. They are simply not prepared to deal with these things. People were lying on the floor with bandages and blood all over. If this is what ?urban warefare? is going to look like we?re in for disaster. And just now the images of US/UK prisoners and dead, we saw these on Iraqi TV earlier. This war is starting to show its ugly ugly face to the world.
The media wars have also started, Al-jazeera accusing the pentagon of not showing how horrific this war is turning out to be and Rumsfeld saying that it is regrettable that some TV stations have shown the images.
Today before noon I went out with my cousin to take a look at the city. Two things. 1) the attacks are precise. 2) they are attacking targets which are just too close to civilian areas in Baghdad. Looked at the Salam palace and the houses around it. Quite scary near it and you can see widows with broken glass till very far off. At another neighborhood I saw a very unexpected ?target? it is an officers? club of some sorts smack in the middle of [???] district. I guess it was not severely hit because it was still standing but the houses around it, and this is next door and across the street, were damaged. One of them is rubble the rest are clearing away glass and rubble. A garbage car stands near the most damaged houses and help with the cleaning up.
Generally the streets are quite busy. Lots of cars but not many shops open. The market near our house is almost empty now. The shop owner says that all the wholesale markets in Shorjah are closed now but the prices of vegetables and fruits have gone down to normal and are available.
While buying groceries the woman who sells the vegetables was talking to another about the approach of American armies to Najaf city and about what is happening at Um Qasar and Basra. If Um Qasar is so difficult to control what will happen when they get to Baghdad? It will turn uglier and this is very worrying. People (and I bet ?allied forces?) were expecting things to be mush easier. There are no waving masses of people welcoming the Americans nor are they surrendering by the thousands. People are oing what all of us are, sitting in their homes hoping that a bomb doesn?t fall on them and keeping their doors shut.
The smoke columns have now encircled Baghdad, well almost. The wids blow generally to the east which leaves the western side of Baghdad clear. But when it comes in the way of the sun it covers it totally, it is a very thick cloud. We are going to have some very dark days, literally.
We still have electricity; some areas in Baghdad don?t after last night?s attack. Running water and phones are working.
Yesterday many leaflets were dropped on Baghdad, while going around in the streets I got lucky, I have two. After being so unkind to the people at [industrialdeathrock.com] I don?t know whether I should post images or not.
And we have had another email attack, this time I was lucky again and have copies of those, the sender is something called [[email protected]]. I have not checked on that yet. Three of them are to army personnel and two to the general public in those they gave us the radio frequencies we are supposed to listen to. They are calling it ?information Radio?.
:: salam 4:41 PM [+] ::

 

[pete]

"email attack"?

So on top of invading their country, bombing their cities and stealing their natural resources, the "coalition" are fucking spamming them as well?


jesus.

 

[pete]

As anti-war protests continue in several cities around the world, police in Australia have threatened to seek court orders banning school children from marching.

The move follows a march by students yesterday in Sydney, at which a group of people took the opportunity to cause trouble.

Four police and several protesters were injured as a group of people among the 2,000-strong crowd began defying police instructions and a scuffle broke out. They then moved to a nearby café and began throwing chairs, marbles, and bottles at police officers.

Police said the agitators were mostly 'Middle Eastern males' intent on causing trouble, prompting claims of racism from protest organisers. Thirty-three people, mostly teenagers, were arrested.

New South Wales police commissioner Dick Adams said he would seek a Supreme Court injunction against a march planned for Sydney next week if the organisers did not convince him 'they do have effective leadership and they have improved their act'.

Student activist Caroline Vu blamed excessive police force for the violence. 'The racist and violent actions of the police and the state yesterday will not make the war go away, nor will it quieten the dissent of the population,' she told AFP.

The Australian government's decision to commit some 2,000 troops to the US-led war on Iraq has drawn widespread criticism in the country and prompted ongoing anti-war marches.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0327/iraq02.html

 

[P. Littbarski]

i found this in my homail account today.

Now more than ever it's time to unite as Americans and show our support for the brave men and women risking their lives overseas to preserve the integrity of this great nation. Show your patriotic spirit as you wear your shirt with pride. Make a statement to the world that America will not stand for terrorism nor any of its backers. America is the single greatest nation on the face of the planet and every step, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, should be taken to demonstrate our unity and support of freedom and democracy the world over.


http://www.iraqtshirts.com

pricks

 

[silo]

"Britain's chief military officer in the Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, yesterday attacked American moves to hand over the running of Iraq's largest port to a company which has a history of bad industrial relations and has faced accusations of union-busting.

The firm, Stevedoring Services of American, has been awarded a ?3m contract to manage Umm Qasr by the Bush administration. Britain argues that the port should be run by Iraqis once it has been made secure.

Another contract in Umm Qasr - for construction work - has gone to a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice-President Dick Cheney's old firm.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the first ship carrying humanitarian aid to Umm Qasr has again been delayed because of the continuing risk from mines."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/dailybriefing/story/0,12965,924728,00.html