Thank you England

Iraqi | 30.01.2005 16:50

I was in London today voting for the first time in my life, my father for the first time in over 50 years

My mother was so determined she got out of her bed despite an illness.
I have spoken to my cousins in Baghdad and people of all religious beliefs are voting in numbers even higher than could have been dreamed off. In some areas nearly 80%. Old women have defied the gunmen and taken their sons and daughters to vote. The time of Saddam is over, the time of the B'ath is over. The Mullahs fear us and they fear democracy as it weakens their hold on the uneducated.

The resistence you are so quick to praise have tried to kill those who vote, why would you support them ? For Iraq and Iraqi people everywhere our day of liberation has come.

I thank the people of Britain who gave a home to my family when they fled Iraq and I thank the British troops who have given Iraq its freedom.

LONG LIVE A DEMOCRATIC IRAQ !

Iraqi

Comments

Hide the following 15 comments

Democracy rules

30.01.2005 17:16

I saw a women of age on the news this morning and it was ripping to hear her slagging off Saddam and saying how a few of his gunmen and the religious extremists werent going to stop her voting, she was an inspiration - go girl !

Democracy is always the right system, not perfect but still right. I know I will always remember the day Democracy came to Iraq. The latest reports on Al-Jazera show family groups in Basra throwing rocks at those who have tried to stop them voting and a line of women in Al-Jahda who all refused to wear the veil as they walked to vote despite abuse from a number of clerics and their followers.

Suzy Sue

Hope

30.01.2005 17:34

I hope your Hope and Faith in the US and UK is as strong in a couple of years. But somehow I can't see it. If Iraq is a genuine free democracy it should try testing it, how about asking Halliburton to stop the corporate ravaging it is currently participating in and leave your country and natural resources alone. Or asking the US military to stop building permanent military bases in your country and leave to be replaced by a UN/Arab League peace keeping force? I think you'll then find your country is not so free. The liklihood of any Iraqi leader even getting into a position to be able to ask these questions is remote to say the least. You now have the Right to Free Speech as enjoyed by 'Democratic' countries but unfortunatley as with most 'Democracies' you don't have a Right to be Heard, unless of course you're saying the 'Right' thing.

Sceptic

war cannot foster peace

30.01.2005 17:53

Don't count your chickens before they've hatched eh? Another 15 years of continued violence and half your extended family dead or injured and you may not be quite so grateful.

anti-war

Not a resistance

30.01.2005 19:53

We have seen too much crap talked about the resistance, too many of the contributions here have tried to portray these thugs as some of French Resistance style organisation. They have done this for one simple reason - they are attacking US troops.

The hypocracy has been mind-blowing. Support for anti-women, anti-freedom, anti-democratic thugs just because they were also anti-American. Hang your heads in shame. The people of Iraq spoke today and they spoke as one. Your liberal intelligensia has been shown to be as wrong about the election as you were about every other issue in relation to Iraq.

mmmmm...........meaningful

30.01.2005 19:54

NO SYSTEM!!

anarchkit

Saddam was a lackey of Britain and America

30.01.2005 20:23

Don't forget that Saddam Hussein was supported by both the UK and the USA when it was politically expedient of these powers to do so. They ignored Saddam's ruthless suppression of dissent, his use of WMD's on his own people. They excused his totalitarian form of leadership. But since Iraq could no longer send its sons to die in military jihad's against America's supreme Middle Eastern enemy, Iran, the West turned against their murderous ally.

Don't praise the greedy countries that supposedly gave your country freedom. America and Britain care nothing about freedom for Iraqi's. They never have and they never will. The democratic elections are a sham and a show for the ignorant masses in the West......The blood of Iraqi's is still flowing all over Iraq on this 'great' day.

Andrew
mail e-mail: andrewnowicki@linuxmail.org

tiny turnout

30.01.2005 20:32

I just wonder why, if this election is so meaningful, only 12.5% of Iraqi exiles in Britain bothered to register to vote? I guess the limited number of polling stations would have made it difficult for some but given the supposedly historic nature, it's still an incredibly low figure. Even worse in the US I believe - around 10%.

Andrew

12.5% ?

30.01.2005 22:36

12.5% ? What did you come up with that ? the BBC is saying 70%, ITV said 75% and the Tmes

Tony

Bogus

31.01.2005 00:13

The first two comments are bogus.

By the way, IM sometimes degenerates, like it has in this report, into an infant school chat room, so let precocious me contribute, seems I actually am still in infant school.

It's official the BBC's John Simpson refers to the 'Iraqi resistance', but it's rare to find them speaking French. The Iraqi resistance more closely resembles the Vietnamese resistance (who spoke French), when the US bombed the holy fucking shit out of their country in trying to conquer it. The US failed, in the end, and were ignominiously arse shifted out of there by the victorious Vietnamese.

Bring it on again. History repeat thyself.

B (aged 7)

in response to Tony

31.01.2005 03:10

The 12.5% figure came from here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1401297,00.html

I hope the elections ARE meaningful but I somehow doubt it. I can't see the coalition 'investing' so heavily in Iraq without some pretty heavy returns - in particular a compliant government that allows the permanent military bases currently under construction, an economic overhaul as outlined by previous pro-privatisation decrees, and a regime that won't seek decent trade/diplomatic links with Iran. I'm not so sure the Iraqi population will be that eager to give them all this. Not to mention the inherent contradiction that any government will be reliant on an unpopular occupying force to keep them in power, hardly democratic.

Andrew

Resistance

31.01.2005 16:46

It would be wrong to portray the resistance as a wholly benevolent force, but it is also equally wrong to portray them as a homogenous group of woman-hating anti-union regressive right wing ba’athists. In fact I have only very rarely seen people use the former generalisation, but the latter one has worryingly become the mantra of many here in the West who support the occupation. Have people forgotten that the level of support for the occupation among ordinary Iraqis stood at about 2% in a recent CPA poll?

Of course there are some former ba’athists, people who would repress women, and other fundamentalists killing people in the name of resistance, but there are also many people of the same description standing as legitimate candidates in the election, being lauded by the Western media! The majority of those who want the US out are ordinary Iraqis who want to run their own country, not a US proxy state.

As someone said above, should the new “government” decide to tell Coalition forces to leave Iraq completely by the end of the year, to renationalise the oil industry and public services, and implement progressive economic policies, what would happen?

Jurg

Facts only

31.01.2005 17:29

I see Jurg has started the re-write of history so beloved of those on what might be loosly termed the Left.

We had those who told us the Iraqi Army would stop the US/UK forces and force a stalemate in the Southern Iraqi lowlands - never happended

Another example was how we were told the US/UK Forces were "bogged down" by heavy rain and taking "massive casualities" by "stoic Iraqi foces" - later we learned this never occured and the US command timeline was shown to have been 2 hours ahead of schedule when they arrived in Baghdad

Other claims concerned how the people of Iraq were "rising up" against the US/UK Forces and forcing No-Go areas for coalittion forces - later shown to have been complete rubbish, in fact the overwhelming majority of Iraqi land is under the control of Coalittion / Iraqi Army control and the vast, vast majority of people welcome them.

Now the best of all.
The US will never hand over power to Iraqis - they did
The will be no elections - there were
The people will boycott the elections - they voted in enourmous numbers
The insurgents will prevent a meanigfull number of votes - they tried they failed

The people of Iraq with the support of US and UK forces showed very clearly what they thought of the so called resistance. Unrepresentitive and irrelevent to the new Iraq.

Remembers the past

Great

31.01.2005 18:57

It was both moving and inspirational to see so many Iraqis out and voting. The stories of a women voting while in labour, a man rising from his hospital bed, a former Saddam victim walking 20 miles to ensure he had voted. All small and yet major events.

There are those who are already trying to play this down so that events fit their own view of Iraq and its people but the reality is the insurgents and their message have been comprehensively rejected. This was no resistance of the people, they represented no one beyond themselves.

One image will stay with me, the woman in Basra walking arm in arm with a young British soldier as he helped cross to the polling station. He carrying her bag and chatting away, there was the reality of Iraq and its feeling for her liberators.

Les

Great - an inspiration.

31.01.2005 22:48

Les:

You have been inspired to poetic prose, and more? But what? Not just to vote New Labour, I am sure? Perhaps to join the armed forces on a freedom mission and maybe drop some bombs on evil Iran? Or will it just be to help old ladies cross the road, although that's unfairly under-rated? Tell us where your 'inspirational' quest against those who hate freedom will lead. I, for one, can't wait for your memoirs (just joking, but have you written any other stuff?).

I'm only old enough to infiltrate the cub scouts, but can see your words are mightier than the pea (that goes in the pea shooter). However, I've been inspired to send Tony Blair a bottle of piss so he can celebrate the kind freedom he has helped bring to Iraq - although unlike revenge, piss is best served up warm.

patience is a virtue...

31.01.2005 23:45

Does this day or 'triumph' not remind one of the 'end of hostilities' in Iraq, or the 'toppling of the statue of saddam', or even of the joyous celebrations on the media when 'saddam was caught'?

Well let the pro-war minority have their day. Because that's all it is. And that's all the previous days of triumph were as well. Days of triumph, close to both the terror of the past and the hopelessness of the future.

For the 100,000 who died in Iraq today means nothing. One day Blair et al will be on trial in the Hague. That'll be our day - even if we have to wait a while, it will come.

ICJ