Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Empire Gets Nervous Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

US Troops Open Fire On Fallujah Students at Shoe Rally

"Besides making an international celebrity out of Iraqi reporter Muntadar al-Zeidi, the now infamous shoe-throwing incident is cropping up in surprising ways across Iraq, where a population beaten and exhausted from years of war is once again finding its voice against the US military presence and the Iraqi government seen as its enablers.
The city of Fallujah was one of the hardest hit in all of Iraq, nearly destroyed earlier in the war. When students at the city’s university
held an impromptu rally in support of the jailed Zeidi, US soldiers were quick on the scene. The students raised shoes and some of them threw rocks, prompting the troops to open fire in an attempt to disperse the crowd. One student was wounded, shot in the foot according to his doctor."

The Wogs are getting uppity.

Did the shoe cause rebellion at Baghdad's July 14 Bridge?

"The square in front of the July 14 Bridge in Baghdad is closed by troops several times a day. The bridge leads into the American-controlled Green Zone. On the square, not far from the Green Zone, lie the offices of the president and the head of the biggest parliamentary bloc. Official convoys come and go all day long.
In the many times that I have been at that square, no one has ever objected to soldiers closing off the road while some official's convoy passes by. We all turn off our cars and sit there and wait.
Wednesday, however, was different. I couldn't believe my eyes.
Around 12:30 p.m. several vehicles loaded with Iraqi soldiers accompanying two or three buses stopped in mid square and tried to close it (like every day) but drivers refused to obey. We are tired of closed roads.
The horns of tens of cars were loud. Angry drivers yelled at soldiers. Not even when the soldiers brandished their rifles at the cars would the drivers stop. There were shots in the air, but the vehicles continued on. The military saw, for the first time I think, mass anger for blocking roads.

I have been in this square almost every day for the last four years, on the way to one official function or another, and nothing like this has ever happened. This time, the soldiers were forced to park their vehicles in a way that allowed civilian cars to pass."

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