The UK government's attempt to ban a march in support of bringing troops home from Iraq is scuppered by strength of popular resistance.
Gordon Brown looked set to make an ass of himself protesting the suppression of democratic freedom of expression in Burma while at the same time banning a peaceful demonstration in Britain, under threat of police suppression. Under new legislation the British government would have been'legally' entitled to physically restrain protestors, thereby drawing a direct and relevant comparison between scenes in Burma and on the streets of London. But that embarrassment was neatly avoided. The first sign that a volte face had occured was when the BBC started to report that the protestors were 'claiming' that a ban had been imposed! Desperate stuff. See 'Lenin's Tomb' website for ongoing updates on the situation: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/10/ban-broke-demo-report.html
Bear in mind folks, that the UK is a country that arrested a woman protesting in the vicinity of Downing Street for the crime of reading out a list of UK soldiers who had died in Iraq. She was regarded as a terrorist threat.
Thousands of Iraqis protest against the United States
NAJAF, Iraq, April 9.—Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in various cities in protest at the occupation of their country by the U.S. forces.
According to AFP, people who took to the streets of Najaf, south of Baghdad, shouted slogans against the United States on the fourth anniversary of the fall of the government of Saddam Hussein.
“No, no to the United States. Yes, yes to freedom!” “We will die, but we won’t give up,” were the slogans most heard, while U.S. flags were set on fire.
Many placards bore slogans against the United States and its president, George W. Bush, like “Down with Bush!” “Down with the United States!”
Footage taken from a helicopter by the public television channel showed a human tide with thousands of Iraqi flags. “In four years of occupation, our sons were murdered and our women widowed,” explained Ahmed al Mayahie, aged 39, who joined the protest from his city, Basra (550 km south of Baghdad).
“The occupiers say that Iraq was liberated. What liberty? There is only destruction. We do not want their liberation. We are asking them to leave our land,” he added.
Here is a 6 minute video of selected clips from a programme that aired in June, highlighting the difficulties western media organisations and journalists face in Iraq.
US Army Desertions on the Rise
WASHINGTON.—Desertions and other unauthorized absences of soldiers from the U.S. Army have considerably increased in the last four years, according to The New York Times.
In 2006, 3,196 soldiers left the army, a total showing an increase since 2004, when 2,357 U.S. soldiers fled from active service.
That trend in military units led to thousands of court martials during the period, involving both recent recruits and veterans from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, the daily reported, quoted by PL.
Military sources state that court martials for desertion have increased since the start of the war on Iraq in March 2003.
From 2002 to 2006, the annual average for abandoning one’s duty tripled in relation to the five years from 1997 to 2002 to reach approximately 6% of conscripts, from a 2% in previous samples.
According to Dr. Thomas Grieger, a U.S. Marines psychiatric expert, the majority of the soldiers were psychologically pressured by the hazardous course of the war in the Middle East and many of them refused to return to the battlefront.
Grieger cited the case of a rookie sergeant who chopped off his trigger finger with a hatchet to avoid his mobilization.
These poignant scenes show an Iraq where it was still possible to go out on the streets in safety. All that changed when Bush and Blair brought their peculiar brand of "democracy and freedom" to the unsuspecting people of a country they turned into a hell on earth.
