Originally posted by wulfie
'Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Amir Taheri reports on his experience with the pro-Saddam mob this weekend:
I spent part of last Saturday with the so-called "antiwar" marchers in London in the company of some Iraqi friends. Our aim had been to persuade the organizers to let at least one Iraqi voice to be heard. Soon, however, it became clear that the organizers were as anxious to stifle the voice of the Iraqis in exile as was Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
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False. The stop the war coalition has the endorsement of many Iraqi exiles. Iraqi exiles are now being traded as currency among pro and anti camps as 'evidence' that the war is a good/bad thing. This is equally distasteful on both sides.
The Iraqis had come with placards reading "Freedom for Iraq" and "American rule, a hundred thousand times better than Takriti tyranny!"
But the tough guys who supervised the march would have none of that. Only official placards, manufactured in thousands and distributed among the "spontaneous" marchers, were allowed. These read "Bush and Blair, baby-killers," "Not in my name," "Freedom for Palestine" and "Indict Bush and Sharon."
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False. Any one looking at the pictures will realise that yes, masses of placards were produced by the Stop the War Coalition, the MAB, CND and others, but there were also tens of thousands of home made placards, flags, banners, pennants souund systems and so on.
With only 500 stewards (the "tough guys supervising the march", half of whom were women, several of whom were Grandmothers) and 1,000,000 demonstrators headed for Hyde Park, either on the march or by their own route, there is no way in hell they could have supressed any kind of counter protest. They were far to busy working with the police and the marchers to ensure a peaceful and enjoyable demo.
Not one placard demanded that Saddam should disarm to avoid war.
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False. Plenty did.
There were tens of thousands of home made placards ranging from "DISARM NOW!" to "down with this sort of thing" and "George Bush has a Small noodle", "War is stupid", "Mad dogs and englishmen", "Stop giving us poodles a bad name". "Shrubs not Bush" "Bush and Saddam - kiss and make up" etc.etc. In fact all the best placards were home made since they showed a humour sorely lacking in most of the mass produced placards.
The goons also confiscated photographs showing the tragedy of Halabja, the Kurdish town where Saddam's forces gassed 5,000 people to death in 1988.
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I can't deny this, but these 'goons' were civilians on a civilian march. The idea of the stewards 'confiscating' anything of the marchers is laughable. Even if the Stewards had tried to do it, why would the Iraqi exiles have given them up, they would have been under no compulsion to do so, there would have been a police officer within 30 yards they could have legitimately asked for help. It doesn't add up
A 78-year-old Iraqi grandmother managed to reach featured speaker Jesse Jackson and asked if she could "have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life." Jackson's response: "Today is not about Saddam Hussein. Today is about Bush and Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq."'
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Yeah, that's Jesse Jackson talking.
There was a pro war demonstration outside the Iraqi section of the Jordanian Embassy, it might have made sense if they went there.
As a counter demonstration it went entirely unnoticed, and perhaps that was the point.
The author of the piece is an Iranian btw. I don't know whether that has anything to do with it, but it's conceivable he already wants a war on Iraq for other reasons.
Let's hope he's equally vociferous in support of a war on Iran for sponsoring terrorism and having a cruel and inhuman regime.
