Iraqi Shias burn US flags on regime fall anniversary

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2007/April/focusoniraq_April72.xml§ion=focusoniraq&col=

NAJAF, Iraq - Hundreds of thousands of chanting Iraqi Shias burned and stamped on US flags at an anti-American rally called by firebrand cleric Moqtada Al Sadr on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Large crowds of men, women and children holding Iraqi flags and anti-US banners massed in the Shia holy city of Najaf shouting ‘No, No to America! Yes, Yes to Freedom!’


Jubilant Baghdadis who welcomed the US troops on April 9, 2003 now blame the rampant bloodshed and chaos on what even some of Iraq’s most senior leaders brand an unwanted occupation.


‘In four years of occupation, our sons have been killed and women made widows,’ cried Ahmed Al Mayahie, 39, a Shia from the southern city of Basra.

‘The occupier raised slogans saying Iraq is free, Iraq is liberated. What freedom? What liberation? There is nothing but destruction. We do not want their liberation and their presence. We tell them to get out of our land.’


US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox called the rally a sign of a growing ‘democratic society’ in Iraq and added that he was not ‘bothered necessarily’ with the burning of US flags.

"US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox called the rally a sign of a growing ‘democratic society’ in Iraq and added that he was not ‘bothered necessarily’ with the burning of US flags."

It would be funny if it wasn't so frigging tragic.

Now the war mongers will cite this flag burning as a reason to stay there. Swell.

and look what happens. They are burning them over there so they don't have to burn them here.

After all, they are about the only ones making Old Glory these days and such demonstrations make money for them, big time.

As for the Iraqis, why do they hate America? All we've done is give them their freedom and a little bomblove. As the old song goes, "you only hurt the ones you love." Jeez! I'm so tired of ungrateful people.