‘Democratic’ Iraq rises up – against the occupiers

by Justin Raimondo

As the Iraqi police checkpoint in Basra loomed up ahead, the two elite British special forces soldiers – dressed in plainclothes, i.e., traditional Arab dress – readied their weapons. For some reason, they weren’t too eager to be questioned or examined too closely. As the [UK] Independent reports:

“In the confrontation that followed, shots were fired, and two Iraqi policemen were shot, one of whom later died. The Iraqi authorities blamed the men, reported to be undercover commandos, and arrested them.

“Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate said that the two men had looked suspicious to police. ‘A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them,’ he said. ‘They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and [suggested they] ask their commander about their mission,’ he added.”

The Brits were hauled off to the hoosegow, where their minor wounds were dressed – and word of the incident spread quickly across the city. A British tank on routine patrol was surrounded and pelted with stones.

The British response: the iron fist. Tanks moved on the Basra police headquarters as a crowd began to gather. Soon hundreds of Basrans were at the scene, as Shi’ite Paul Reveres called out the Iraqi equivalent of “The British are coming!”

Outgunned, the Iraqis stood their ground as frantic negotiations went on behind the scenes, with the Brits demanding the release of their two spies and the police – under pressure from the surly crowd gathered outside – continuing to delay and refuse, even when the Interior Ministry in Baghdad intervened on behalf of the Brits. The standoff quickly escalated into an all-out pitched battle, pitting the Iraqi police and the residents of Basra against the redcoats in what will go down in Iraqi history as their equivalent of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

“In a clear demonstration that the holding of the soldiers would not be tolerated” – as The Independent puts it – the British commander gave the order to attack the police station. His tanks brought down an entire wall before they found out the two captured Brits were being held at a nearby house: the captives were freed, but none of this occurred without resistance and some pretty dramatic television footage, which was broadcast via al-Jazeera and al-Arabiyah all over the Muslim world, as well as the West. By this time, the crowd was serving up Molotov cocktails, and news crews got a dramatic shot of a soldier aflame as he leapt off his tank and ran off in a hail of stones. A citywide riot followed, in which at least two Iraqis were killed and several injured.

The unraveling of the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq has been going on for some time: with the recent battle of Basra, however, it seems to have reached the point of no return. The coalition forces are no longer fighting just Sunni insurgents – they are coming up against the elected Shi’ite authorities in the south, where the latest incident bodes ill for the occupiers.

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