Iraqi troops mortaring Iraqi protesters!

The BBC is reporting this as well.

Can't be doing much for international opinion to have that get out. (For Iraq, that is.) I'm suprised it is happeneing so quickly. I thought it would happen tomorrow or the next day as the humanitarian crisis builds. Maybe it is already further along than we thought.

I think it's more of a reaction to being used as human shields than to humanitarian crisis.

Are you trying to link people involved in an uprising to protesters around the world in an attempt to set up a false equivalence?

Uprising = putting your life on the line to overthrow a ruling party/dictator.

Protesters = speaking their minds usually under the auspices of free speech.

Now, if you are using the word protester to insinuate that the world has it lucky that their governments don't bomb them for disagreeing, just say so.

Well, this is reasonably good news (the uprising, not the Iraqi military targeting of the uprising). For a while it appeared that there would be substantial resistance which was leading towards more and more Urban warfare.

Urban warfare would be a total disaster for the US/UK. Not because they would lose, but because we still have to face the prospect of running this country when the shooting stops. You don't want Iraqi cities turning into Gaza.

Of course, it should also be noted that anything short of popular uprising against the Ba'ath party in Basra would be a staggering defeat. This is the center of the Shi'ite majority that have fought against the regime for decades and suffered most since the Gulf War (the Kurds were better isolated and protected by the no fly zones).

I mean, if Basra didn't rise up and support our efforts at regime change, things were going to be very bleak indeed.

NY Times had an interview with an Iraqi in which they quoted him saying that Saddam had been such a disaster for Iraq that he must have been an American agent. If that kind of sentiment is more popular than we think it is, post-Saddam Iraq could be a very ugly place indeed.

no, we just unleash a hord of doughnut eatin' pork that beat the crap outta anybody who dares to critizise the decisions of the american regime.

btfw, when has any protester ever claimed that the "policies" implemented in iraq are preferable to those in a democracy?

From the BBC link above: "the Iraqi forces, are firing on those people who are protesting against Saddam Hussein's regime"

And the "donut-eating pork" got heavy-handed only when the protesters turned violent. Peaceful protest is cool. Destroying private property and threatening the safety of others is not. If all they got was a beatdown they got off light.

****. This thread is about to turn into an episode of the Young Ones.

There seems to be a large group of muslims that have decided to take up arms and go after Saddam as well.

I thought the Muslims would be against such a thing? I mean that it was I was told by the liberals.

hah, dream on. i saw a fairly detailed report on the protests in sf on tv the other day. the cops were beating up on kids left and right.

ahahahahaaaaaaaaaaahahahaaaaa

Care to show us any proof on the matter? Or is this just another one of your "Because I said so" type of post?

I am truely curious.

Maybe they shouldn't have done stuff worth gettin' a beatin' for.

The latest report, as yet unconfirmed but reported by the Pentagon, is that the fedayeen scumbaags are donning US and British uniforms, accepting the surrender of Iraqi troops, and then shooting them. "Animals" does not even begin to describe these scum. These are the guys who have been hiding weapons, ammunition, and even a tank at a hospital!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82088,00.html

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar _?_The Shiite majority in Basra have started a popular uprising against Saddam Hussein's forces with the help of British troops, Sky News reported Tuesday.

yeah, like protesting against the war for oil...

and your point is....?

oink

It's almost like they have a play book.

Response 435: "war for oil"

When did that war happen?

Not sure, depends on what you mean by



Whatever that meant.

it's on right now...on every major ****ing newschannel. grab a bag of chips and enjoy.

Heh


The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center is a non-commercial, democratic collective of bay area independent media makers and media outlets, and serves as the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network.

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We strive to provide an information infrastructure for people and opinions who do not have access to the airwaves, tools and resources of corporate media. This includes audio, video, photography, internet distribution and any other communication medium.

We support local, regional and global struggles against exploitation and oppression.

We function as a non-commercial, non-corporate, anti-capitalist collective.

San Francisco Indymedia involves volunteer participants and allied collectives organized along anti-authoritarian principles of open and transparent decision-making processes, including open public meetings; a form of modified consensus; and the elimination of hierarchies.


Hardly a unbiased news source.

Sorry if Its hard for me to swallow that they have no political agenda.

Here let me show you a link to one of Iraq's web pages to show you how Saddam really isn't a bad guy after all!

Try again.

Hmm, sorry I just surfed the news. I didn't see any war about oil going on.

you noticed that too?

I am waiting for deekay to start going off on how the President didn't win the election again. As that has anythying to do with this topic either.

deekay is a one trick poney it seems.

deekay and zim, sittin in a tree
d-i-s-a-g-r-e-e-i-n-g (elide the last four letters to fit)
first comes quote
then comes counter-quote
then comes too many posts in the forum-boat

Well, it sounded better in my head...

hah, i knew you'd just go ahead and slander my source. you're such a loser!

I love those +1 +2 +3 quotes - I am waiting for the day that i have a screenful of 'ignore list' messages covering my screen


Didn't someone say the other day "if you're not with us you're against us!" - the Iraqis must have heard this as they are screwing the people who are against them.

Sad times but not unpredicted

oh that's why you think bush won the election according to democrating principles and isn't insanly unpopular around the world. you must be getting a completely differnt set of tv channels than the rest of the planet...okay, carry on.

Doughnuts are bad for a pig's health. It makes them fat and stupid.

British source says unaware of any Basra uprising

KUWAIT, March 25 (Reuters) - British military officials said on Tuesday they had no information on any popular uprising in Iraq's second city of Basra, but added that they would do everything possible to encourage such a revolt.

"We don't know anything about a Basra uprising," said a British military source in Central Command in Qatar.

wow, that was really funny...NOT!

You too, it's becoming quite a clutter.

Goes like this:

Normal post
Zim_ignore
Zim_ignore
Zim_ignore
Normal post
Zim_ignore
Zim_ignore
Normal post
Normal post
Zim_ignore
Zim_ignore
Zim_ignore

Ah, the fog of war.


CNN

So who are we supposed to believe. Reuters reporting in Kuwait, or an ITV jounalist talking to the commanders on the spot?

I don't know. How about we just wait and see.

In addition: BBC:



20:25 GMT

Indeed:

British troops withdraw from Basra

The dateline on that article was yesterday.

Exactly.

Now I'm confused. We were talking about an event that is happening today, so why do you bring up "old" news in a way that seems to cast doubt on the current events?

BTW, the dateline on your original post was two hours before the BBC report. Things change fast in war.

My point was that you have to take all those reports with a grain of salt. Sorry if I failed to make that clear.
Propaganda is an integral part of warfare, and is been used by both sides. Conflicting reports are part of the propaganda effort - or 'fog of war' as Simey pointed out. The same facts that you see reported today will change tomorrow, etc. etc.

As for the dateline, this report is even more recent:

Coalition forces face urban warfare in Basra:

The British have three brigades to the south and west of Basra.
All three are now "regrouping" and "attempting to subdue sporadic pockets of enemy resistance" in a bid to consolidate their positions, British spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ronnie McCourt said..

awwwwww....

I took simey's post to say that facts change fast, and you need to wait to rush to judgement...not that either side was propaganda. The "Fog of War" being a reference to ambiguity not purposeful clouding.

And just because the dateline was later, doesn't mean the info was as up-to-date. It doesn't reference the situation one way or the other. It pretty much regurgitates what your last post does. If you are trying to follow the progress of a report, you need to look at the date-line, but that is not relevent in the article you just linked.

Exactly. The term "fog of war" was coined by Von Clausewitz and refers to confusion. It has nothing to do with propaganda. I Actually, fog of war refers to the confusion suffered by a battlefield commander unable to make proper plans because of conflicting information coming from the battlefield.

The other Clausewiczian observation we should be thinking about in the next few weeks is "friction." Things in war don't go as planned and little mistakes, snags, and errors add up.

Less academically, troops like to say that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The troops themselves say that sh1t happens.

I didn't know that, I thought the term has a much broader menaing... I stand corrected then.

Still: those conflicting reports are often inflated (or diminished) as we all have observed in the last days (Basra taken, then 'regrouping', then 'secured', etc.). Or the SCUDs on Kuwait, or the WMD factory...

Point taken. First reports are almost never correct. Reports come closer to the "truth" after time.

I've also heard that Hamas, Hezbollah and other pro-Saddam terrorists have entered Iraq and begun to supplement the terror troops who have infiltrated the populace. I heard that it was going to happen, but I haven't found any hard news reports on it yet. So a lot of the anti-civilian stuff may be happening because of recruited terrorist types. Perhaps that was behind the boat incident.

I think you mean libel, and it wasn't that either.



Oh gee deekay, let me come up with something as equally clever.

It takes one to know one!


Because he did. Something you have yet to show proof otherwise.

I don't ever recall saying Bush was insanly popular.
Or I am not looking at the TV with my blinders on.

pfft. stfu.



"i know you are, but what am i" *duh*, dumbass



why don't you go ahead and prove that most americans actually DID vote for bush on election day.



no, in your case the blinders are "built in" and say "made by jesus" on them...

How old are you again deekay?
Well gee deekay, how does that prove that Bush stole the election. NO president has won the election on the popular vote. NOT ONE. Why? That isn't how it works. That also wouldn't be fair. Bush won the election just like every other president before him. Through the electoral votes. So if you are going to say Bush stole the election, so did every president before him. You are showing that you really don't know why we use the electoral voting system.

Come back when you have some proof deekay. Otherwise, all you are doing is posting verbal masturbation.