Dead Man Blogging

Remember, these people might not want to be liberated. It’s a quagmire!!!!

Iraqis Celebrate, Loot Baghdad Offices

They danced in the streets, waving rifles, palm fronds and flags, thrusting their arms in the air and flashing the V-for-victory sign.
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On a Baghdad street, a white-haired man held up a poster of Saddam and beat it with his shoe. A younger man spat on the portrait, and several others launched kicks at the face of the Iraqi president.

“Come see, this is freedom. This is the criminal, this is the infidel,” he said. “This is the destiny of every traitor. He killed millions of us.”

As a direct result of coalition military action, up to 150 children found themselves on the streets of Baghdad yesterday. They were described as “under-nourished” and “wearing threadbare clothes”, desperately searching for their parents.

Stop this evil war! (But read the link first!)
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News.com.au - Iraqi feed hungry marines

Yep, they hate us all right.

Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear.

Sergeant Kenneth Wilson said Arabic-speaking US troops made contact with two busloads of Iraqis fleeing south along Route Seven towards Rafit, one of the first friendly meetings with local people for the marines around here.
“They had slaughtered lambs and chickens and boiled eggs and potatoes for their journey out of the frontlines,” Wilson said.

At one camp, the buses stopped and women passed out food to the troops, who have had to ration their army-issue packets of ready-to-eat meals because of disruptions to supply lines by fierce fighting further south.
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Corpsman Tony Garcia said the food donation was an act of appreciation for the American effort to topple the brutal regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“They gave us eggs and potatoes to feed our marines and corpsmen. I feel the local population are grateful and they want to see an end to Saddam Hussein,” he said.

“It was a lovely, beautiful gesture.”

Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.

In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: “We like Americans,” adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because “he was not kind”.

He said Iraqi civilians living near him were opposed to Saddam Hussein and that most were hiding in their homes and were extremely tired.
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Lance Corporal David Polikowsky…had been moved by comments from local civilians.

He said they told him: “We welcome you. What is your name? We will pray for you.”

He said another group of POWS, largely conscripts, had been moved south.

“They told me they wanted to go to America after the war. I said where. They said California. I said why? They said the song Hotel California and they left singing Hotel California.”

ABCNEWS.com : Villagers Rejoice Over Freedom From Militants

“How dare they call us infidels! If you say ‘There is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet,’ then you are a Muslim,” said Osman Wahab, 65, freely puffing on a cigarette for the first time in three years.

In the village of Biyara nestled in the mountains near the Iranian border in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, men were busy this weekend shaving their beards and smoking ? reveling in their new freedom. A woman stood in the center of town and tore off her enveloping black abaya. She tossed her hair in the sun for a moment, smiling broadly, before donning a simple headscarf.

At least 700 Ansar militants had established Taliban-like restrictions on about 30 villages here, forcing the local residents to practice a narrow interpretation of Islam that was alien to the moderate Muslim traditions practiced among most Kurds.
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Wahab lost his house and two shops in the recent airstrikes, but says it was worth it to be rid of Ansar. “We thank God they are gone,” he said. “Even having nothing is better than living with Ansar. Now we are free.”
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“They were very angry people, and now we thank God that they are gone,” said Astera Ali, 50. She fled Biyara with her daughter and son two years ago to the nearby city of Halabja because of Ansar. “I saw that when Ansar came, they were very different from the real Islam.”

All across the territory once held by Ansar al-Islam, Kurds were busy reclaiming their religion. At Sergat, the site identified by Colin Powell as a chemical weapons and terrorist training facility, Kurdish soldiers spray-painted the initials for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on the dome of a mosque. In the Biyara prison, others were gathering up green leather-bound Korans for their own use.

Tariq Said Sadiq, 25, a peshmerga soldier, walked through the ruins of Ansar’s mosque headquarters in disgust. “I graduated from an institute of Islamic law. These people were not Islamic, they were against Islamic principles. Islam is for peace, for health, for faith, not for killing.”

Fox News has another story that we must not forget when the revisionists strike.

Emad Alkased of the Iraqi Youth Reunion ? an educational group that wants to rebuild a post-Saddam Iraq ? has been leading a recruiting drive in Dearborn, which has the largest ethnic Iraqi community of any U.S. city.

The drive is part of an all-out appeal to Iraqi-Americans who want to return to their homeland to help the U.S.-led coalition topple the dictatorship.

“I don’t want American people to die for my country ? I want me to be the first one,” Alkased said. “I appreciate what American people are doing for my country, but I don’t want them to spend their blood. I am ready to spend blood for my country.”
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Dave Alwatan needs no convincing.

“As an American Iraqi, all our people here want to go in the front of the American military to fight Saddam’s regime,” he said.

Alwatan’s nephew has brain damage and facial scars after Iraqi soldiers kicked him in the face when he was a year old in order to get information during the first Gulf War. Alwatan said the military was searching for him and his brother.

“I want to fight Saddam’s regime, not our people,” he said. “Saddam will never, ever go away without fighting. We know that. Saddam, he must go very soon.”

Another Iraqi-American, Thea Alemari, said there’s no doubt it’s time for the dictator to go.

“You can’t breathe. If you need to breathe, you have to have approval from government to say something,” he said. “If you say something about the government, you be in jail or you’ll be killed.”

“We can speak to the people of Iraq, we have connection with the people of Iraq,” Alemari added. “They feel not safe right now, but when we talk to them, I think we have large support inside Iraq.”

Alemari said many Iraqis were afraid to speak out or aid coalition forces because they feared the current regime would survive this war, as it did the first Gulf War.
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“It’s my backyard. It is my city. It is my village. It is my people,” said Casey Mahuba of the Iraqi Youth Union. “I know who is Fedayeen, who is Baath and who is honest people.”

She said many people in Dearborn were willing to fight.
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“We will liberate our country. We will free Iraq no matter which it is going to cost us,” Alkased said. “This is the last choice for us and this is what we are going to do.”

Mahuba said fighting for her country would be worth her life.

“For me it is the freedom. It is my country. I want to sacrifice myself there,” she said. “I want to die there if that is what it is going to cost. The price is the freedom.”