British Smash Into Iraqi Jail to free 2 Detained Soldierss
This was the headline, if you read on this is part of what you will read:
Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives. Photographs of the two men in custody showed them in civilian clothes.
When British officials apparently sought to secure their release, riots erupted. Iraqi police cars circulated downtown, calling through loudspeakers for the public to help stop British forces from releasing the two. Heavy gunfire broke out and fighting raged for hours, as crowds swarmed British forces and set at least one armored vehicle on fire.
Witnesses said they saw Basra police exchanging fire with British forces. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia joined in the fighting late in the day, witnesses said. A British military spokesman, Darren Moss, denied that British troops were fighting Basra police.
We saw the story on local TV, It all began when an Iraqi checkpoint in Basra discovered a car filled with explosives, two british men in civilian uniform were in the car, I'm not sure if there was an exchange of fire or wasn't, but the Iraqi police was able to take the two in custody, later to a detention center in the city. I have no idea what they were going to do with all that much explosives, and why they weren't in uniform, but it is obvious they were doing something illegal, because British tanks went through the walls of the jail, fighting with Iraqi police in order to get those two commandos out, and in that process about 150+ prisoner escaped, aren't those detained supposed to be criminals or even terrorists, and now they are back in the streets. Way to go.
The British government denies using force to get the soldiers out, and claims they used diplomatic reasons to get the soldiers out. This will probably mean that the British government has something to hide, doesn't it, or why wouldn't they go to the easy way. The reason is that it would have probably taken longer, or that the Iraqi police might do some investigation with two commandos and might discover a few things they aren't supposed to know.
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posted by Hassan | 6:00 PM
12 Comments:
You spoke my mind
i am so ashamed of my government. it kept silent without doing anything. why do the Brits and Americans criticize the armed who freed prisoners in Anbar province once a time? they did it in the same way. how rediculous! i think this governemtn is busy with the 5-star hotel they are building inside the Jersey wall-surrounded Green Zone!
i don't even know what to say any more..
Killing is a bad problem. Fiji had that problem in the 1800's.
It would make Iraq war like a walk in the park, simply because the dead are eaten. Cooked of course.
As for the British. Keeni-Meeni is a Swahili word ( means snake in the grass) that fits their Government's template of subversion.
One of the worst kind of wars seen in Fiji, is the tribal conflicts between families. Pray that Iraq does not descend into that level of Hell.
Hey Hassan,
You make a really good point here... there is a lot to this story that is still unanswered, and may never be answered.
The two British soldiers were allegedly operating undercover, dressed to look like Iraqis, well armed, and carrying fake ID. The big question here is why.
Why these soldiers were doing all this is a big unanswered question, and probably something certain people would prefer to remain unanswered (at least for now). I personally suspect this may be why these soldiers got into a firefight with two Iraqi policemen trying to arrest them (killing one). It is also possible the British were in a big hurry to extract them from jail because the answer to this big question might come out if they were there long enough to be interrogated.
Maybe in several years, after most of the information from the Iraq war is declassified, we may learn what really went on in Basra. Until then, this whole incident will remain a big mystery.
Until the full story comes out, and we know why these soldiers were operating undercover like that, I'd prefer to reserve judgment.
Reserving judgment is one way to handle something like this, although it amounts to burying one's head in the sand. Another approach might be to use this incident to look for patterns. I seem to recall an incident shortly after the US takeover when some foreigners were caught by locals in northern Iraq and subsequently freed as allies by the US military. There is, of course, all the suspicion about Zarqawi and his "blessing in disguise" usefulness to the US agenda. Are there other incidents that the mainstream media hasn't reported? Is there a pattern?
Juan Cole has done an analysis.
"The British military is denying rumors that the two SAS men were attempting to obstruct Iranian operations in Basra. They rightly point out to the Independent that there are enough munitions in Iraq, and enough organized local militias, that one simply does not need to posit the Iranians as the troublemakers.
I find it difficult to believe that they two were simply gathering information, as suggested by their disguise of ordinary Arab clothing. They obviously could not really pass as Basrans. My suspicion is that they were on a mission of extraordinary rendition, i.e. capturing or killing some local leader they felt was endangering the British mission but who could not be detained through ordinary means. I don't think it makes much sense to suggest that they were planning to blow up British soldiers and blame it on Shiites, so as to allow British troops to stay in Iraq (this is a conspiracy theory that has been alleged."
http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/tens-of-thousands-demonstrate-against.html
When it comes to conspiracy theories, even the hands off British allowing the thugs to take over the Basra police are not off limits.
You have extremists like Juan Cole from his ivory tower literally thousands of miles away issuing likely theories but with no facts.
Where are the facts showing how they were captured and what if anything they were carrying? There are none but just the typical self-serving Arab conspiracy theories to fit some typical tripe.
Basra is already heading into a non-democratic, rule of law future BECAUSE the British have not done enought to intervene in the local scene. Suggestions that the opposite are the case is extremely shortsighted in the least, and completely idiotic.
I am so ashamed that the ignorant post here from the West without having a clue as to the role the religious groups have in assasinating and destroying an infant democracy.
They are the dupes of the left in the West.
Reserving judgment is not the same as sticking one's head in the sand. There is a huge unanswered question here, which is why these British soldiers were doing, dressed as locals and armed to the teeth. If we knew the soldiers' mission, it would be possible to assess whether the end was worth the means. Without this information, this type of analysis is impossible.
Juan Cole seems like he may be onto something when he suggests they might have been trying to capture or kill someone who could not otherwise be captured by "normal" means. If this is the case, and depending on who they were trying to nab, perhaps their methods might have been justifiable, and for certain targets (Muqtada al-Sadr, etc.), perhaps even my friends Najma and Hassan might agree it was justifiable too.
But, right now, we don't know. And, with this big unanswered question in the middle of this issue, we don't have enough information to make an informed judgment.
What is clear, however, is that the British need to do some serious work on their relationship with the Basra police. The fact that these two soldiers ended up in a firefight with the Basra police, and then the British ended up busting into a police station evidences a complete lack of trust between the Basra police and British army. Not a good situation at all.
The case of the two British soldiers in Basra is a classic example of the clandestine interference by British and USA forces in Iraqi politics. I have no doubts whatsoever that British and US "black ops" are doing all they can to force a civil war in Iraq, which would give Bush the pretext to stay in Iraq for decades to come.
Exactly. Divide and Rule.
Another interseting development. The bombing of mosques.
There is no way a muslim had the nerve to bomb those. Similar no way a Christian can bomb churches.
Hi, you might find the following linked article of interest in the context of the failing efforts of imperialism to outsource their wars of oppression to local proxies.
http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=227
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