British headlines: "SIX BRITISH SOLDIERS DIE"

"Cold Blooded Murder" say the government.

(No mention of Iraqi casaualties)

The British version
9.30am Tuesday A joint British patrol with Iraqi guards and interpreters searches for arms. They are attacked by a crowd throwing stones. They come under fire from Iraqis and return fire. A vehicle is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. One British soldier is wounded. A rapid reaction force, including light tanks and a Chinook helicopter, arrives to help, but the helicopter also comes under fire. It retreats, after seven people on board are wounded, two seriously. A second rapid reaction force arrives and recovers the wounded ground soldier.
11am A police station comes under fire. The siege lasts two hours. Six British military police training Iraqi police officers are found dead.

The Iraqi version
Monday morning British troops patrol town searching for weapons. This provokes demonstration outside police station. Agreement townspeople will disarm within a month.
Tuesday 7am British troops continue to search.
9.30am Iraqi civilians gather in bazaar and confront British paratroopers. Rocks are thrown. Troops fire rubber bullets. Former Ba'athist leader opens fire with handgun. British troops open fire: five Iraqis killed and 13 injured. Crowd disperses.
11am Armed Iraqi crowd arrives at police station. Police inside advise British military police to leave. They refuse.
12.45pm Police station stormed by Iraqis.
3pm Bodies of the six military police recovered.

See Full report [Guardian]

My comment [ECA]

How insensitive can imperialists be?
Misquoting Shakespeare: "The Merchant of Venice", substituting Iraqi for Jew:

Hath not an [Iraqi] eyes? Hath not an [Iraqi] hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, sunject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us,, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

It is clear that Iraqi resistance to the occupation of their country is growing apace - and unfortunately it is also clear than many more Iraqis and many more British and American soldiers will die before our governments recognise the futility of their occupation of Iraq.

It is ironic that soon after the end of WWII it was the Americans who were calling for Britain and France to free their colonies - and now our government has followed America in new imperialist adventures.

BRITAIN and USA must be condemned by the whole world.

Copyright © Paddy Apling 27th June, 2003.

See Bring the British troops home for the full article:

Resistance to the occupation of Iraq is a response to its tyranny

Sami Ramadani
Thursday June 26, 2003
The Guardian

The long-awaited uprising in Iraq has begun - not to welcome the invaders as some imagined, but to demand their withdrawal. The spread of resistance to the south and the killing of British soldiers around Amara on Tuesday might have come as a surprise to the British public. But such developments have been anticipated within Iraq for several weeks.

.................

The invasion of Iraq has developed into a colonial war, while popular sentiment is far outstripping the political programmes of the main Iraqi political organisations. That is evident in the way they have rejected the plans put forward by Paul Bremer, the head of the US occupation administration, for an appointed advisory council and called for a speedy transfer of power to Iraqis.

Contrary to the mythology propagated in the US and British media, popular sentiment in Iraq was always strongly against the invasion. With very few exceptions, at no time did Iraqis confuse their hatred of Saddam's brutal tyranny with their opposition to his White House sponsors. And popular opposition to the occupation and its terror tactics is the real force behind the rising tide of armed resistance.


Anti-War Index   Next Page