Iraqi exiles put patriotism first as they return home to fight invaders (Merged)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Not sure why they are going to fight a losing battle but no doubt Americans and the Brits would be proud if their own citizens showed this amount of loyalty and patriotism even for a corrupt regime. Maybe the Allies are hoping to starve then bomb them into welcoming the invasion.

Iraqi exiles put patriotism first as they return home to fight invaders

Jonathan Steele in Saida Zeinab, Syria
Wednesday March 26, 2003
The Guardian

Young Iraqi exiles are rushing home to defend their country in growing numbers, even though many strongly oppose Saddam Hussein’s regime.
A fatwa issued by the highest religious leaders of Shia Islam, calling on Iraqis to “fight the aggressors and stand against the invasion”, will accelerate an already strong trend for young Iraqi exiles to go home to defend their country.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the warren of narrow streets in Saida Zeinab, a heavily Iraqi Shia neighbourhood of the Syrian capital.

“I’m against Saddam but I’m not for America,” said a young man yesterday behind a shop counter full of music CDs and cassette tapes of speeches and lectures by Shia scholars.

Until two months ago Abdullah, 25, (who did not want to give his real name) was a student of engineering from Kerbala, a town south of Baghdad which contains one of Shia Islam’s holiest mosques.

The tapes he can sell openly in Syria are banned in Iraq, where Abdullah passed them out clandestinely to friends until he felt the risk of being jailed was getting too great.

Now he is planning to go home. The patriotic drive to defend his country has overcome his hatred of Saddam’s regime, he said, though there are other factors too - peer group pressure and anxiety about his parents’ well-being.

“Many of my friends have gone back already in the last few days,” he said. “Even if I just dig a trench by our house and sit in it with a gun, I might kill one of the invaders. They’re coming down in parachutes so you might hit one.”

Round the corner Mohammed Ali Musa, 23, serves tea in a small room dominated by a television set on a high shelf. The customers, mainly middle-aged men, sit in gloomy silence as al-Jazeera beams the latest news of the war. The normal morning chatter has been replaced by pensive sipping and the rattle of worry beads.

“I’m planning to go back in three days’ time,” says Mohammed, another Iraqi Shia who left his wife and parents in Nassiriya two months ago in the hope of earning a better wage in Syria.

“I want to cut the Americans’ throats and throw them to the dogs,” he adds. “If I’d known it would have been like this, I would never have left Iraq. I just pray to God I can go back and make a contribution.”

In spite of the young men’s eagerness to go home, there is an obstacle. A US missile struck a bus carrying 37 Syrian workers coming home from Iraq on Sunday, killing five and wounding 10. Now few drivers want to take the risk of travelling the route.

Close to a hundred thousand marchers brought central Damascus to a standstill yesterday as the anti-war sentiment in the nation grew.

Young Iraqi men in Jordan, which like Syria hosts several hundred thousand exiles, have also been flooding back home since the war started.

Jordanian records show that 5,284 Iraqis have crossed the desert border overland into Iraq since March 16. Iraq’s consular office in Amman issued at least 3,000 temporary passports for exiled Iraqis in the war’s first three days.

The level of resistance from Shia Muslims in particular has been one of the biggest shocks for US and British forces. They predominate in southern Iraq and have a long history of being repressed by Saddam Hussein’s regime. They were expected to be natural allies.

“People remember the coalition’s position at the end of the first Gulf war in 1991 when they left the field and gave a green light to Saddam to destroy our uprising. They still don’t trust the Americans,” said Bayan Jabor, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the opposition groups with which the United States deals.

While middle-aged Iraqi opposition politicians comfort themselves with an image of a cautiously neutral population, the mood of the younger generation gives a different signal.

What moves them is not the past but today’s graphic news bulletins of bombs and invaders in foreign colours. Thousands are taking sides. They are opting for patriotism, however much they hate Saddam .

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oh Lord, I thought they will be arriving in Iraq to present flowers and hug the marching invaders.

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I read a similar article in the London Evening Stanadard a couple of days ago, which said that thousands of Iraqi exiles in Jordan i.e. those who had fled the Saddam regime, are returning home to fight the Anglo-American invaders. The US-UK are now faced with the ultimate nightmare of a the whole Iraqi nation, be they Shia, Sunni or Christian uniting to take on the invaders, and effectively boosting Saddam's status. It's one spectacular own goal after another...for the "liberators". :)

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A fabulous account of the bravery and fierce resistance being put up in the face of impossible odds not to mention seige, starvation and a overwhelming air power.

No matter what your nationality anyone would be proud to see their country and assets being defended so determinedly :k:

They are fighting for their independence, not Saddam

Resistance to the US-British occupation will not end with this regime

Seumas Milne
Thursday March 27, 2003
The Guardian

The Anglo-American war now being fought in the Middle East is without question the most flagrant act of aggression carried out by a British government in modern times. The assault on Iraq which began a week ago, in the teeth of global and national opinion, was launched without even the flimsiest Iraqi provocation or threat to Britain or the US, in breach of the UN charter and international law, and in defiance of the majority of states represented on the UN security council.
It is necessary to descend deep into the mire of the colonial era to find some sort of precedent or parallel for this piratical onslaught. However wrong or unnecessary, every previous British war for the past 80 years or more has been fought in response to some invasion, rebellion, civil war or emergency. Even in the most crudely rapacious case of Suez, there was at least a challenge in the form of the nationalisation of the canal.** Not so with Iraq, where the regime was actually destroying missiles with which it might have hoped to defend itself only a couple of days before the start of the US-led attack. **

But there is little reflection of this reality, or of Anglo-American isolation in the world over the war, in either the bulk of the British media coverage or the response from most politicians and public figures. Little is now heard of the original pretext for war, Iraq’s much-vaunted weapons of mass destruction, and regime change - that lodestar of the US hawks which Tony Blair struggled to dissociate himself from for so long - is now the uncontested mission of the campaign. Having lost the public debate on the war, Blair has demanded that a divided nation rally round British troops carrying out his policy of aggression in the Gulf. And under a barrage of war propaganda, the soft centre of public opinion has dutifully shifted ground - in the wake of those MPs who put their careers before constituents and conscience once Blair had failed to secure UN authorisation. Many balk at criticising the war when British soldiers are in action, but it’s hardly a position that can be defended as moral or principled when the action they are taking part in arguably constitutes a war crime. And whether public support holds up under the pressure of events in Iraq - such as yesterday’s civilian carnage in a Baghdad market - remains to be seen.

*Events have, of course, signally failed to follow their expected course. The pre-invasion spin couldn’t have been clearer. The Iraqis would not fight, we were told, but would welcome US and British invaders with open arms. The bulk of the regular army would capitulate as soon as soon as they saw the glint on the columns of American armour. The war might even only last six days, Donald Rumsfeld suggested, in a contemptuous evocation of the Arabs’ humiliation in the Six Day war of 1967. His hard right Republican allies insisted it would be a “cakewalk”. British ministers, as ever, took their cue from across the Atlantic, while the intelligence agencies and US-financed Iraqi opposition groups reinforced their arrogant assumptions. *

But Rumsfeld’s six days have been and gone and resistance to the most powerful military machine in history continues to be fierce across Iraq - in and around the very Shi’ite-dominated towns and cities, such as Najaf and Nasiriyah, that the US and Britain expected to be least willing to fight. Nor has the Iraqi army yet collapsed or surrendered in large numbers, while regular units are harrying US and British forces along with loyalist militias. One senior US commander told the New York Times yesterday, “we did not put enough credence in their abilities,” while another conceded that “we did not expect them to attack”. The International Herald Tribune recorded dolefully that “the people greeting American troops have been much cooler than many had hoped”.

There was little public preparation for the resistance that is now taking place. Third World peoples have after all been allocated a largely passive role in the security arrangements of the new world order - the best they can hope for is to be “liberated” and be grateful for it. There has been little understanding that, however much many Iraqis want to see the back of Saddam Hussein, they also - like any other people - don’t want their country occupied by foreign powers. No doubt Ba’athist militias are playing a coercive role in stiffening resistance. There are also those who cannot expect to survive the fall of the dictatorship and therefore have nothing to lose.** But the scale and commitment of the resistance - along with reports of hundreds of Iraqis struggling to return from Syria and Jordan to fight - suggests that it is driven far more by national and religious pride. Most of these people are not fighting for Saddam Hussein, but for the independence of their homeland. **

To fail to recognise this now obvious reality is not only condescending, but stupid. But then we have been subjected to such a blizzard of disinformation in recent days - from the reported deaths of Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein to the non-existent chemical weapons plant and Tuesday’s uprising in Basra - that it should come as no surprise to hear everyone from British and US defence ministers to BBC television presenters refer to Iraqis defending their own country as “terrorists”.

Of course, the US has the military might to break Iraqi conventional resistance and impose a puppet administration in Baghdad in order to change the regional balance of power, oversee the privatisation of Iraq’s oil and parcel out reconstruction contracts to itself and its friends. But the course of this war will also have a huge political impact, in Iraq and throughout the world. This is after all a demonstration war, designed to cow and discipline both the enemies and allies of the US. The tougher the Iraqi resistance, the more difficult it will be for the US to impose its will in the country, and move on to the next target in the never-ending war on terror. The longer Iraqis are able and choose to resist, the more the pressure will also build against the war in the rest of the world.

Almost 86 years ago to the day, the British commander Lieutenant General Stanley Maude issued a proclamation to the people of Baghdad, whose city his forces had just occupied. “Our armies,” he declared, “do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors, but as liberators.” Within three years, 10,000 had died in a national Iraqi uprising against the British rulers, who gassed and bombed the insurgents. On the eve of last week’s invasion Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins echoed Maude in a speech to British troops. “We go to liberate, not to conquer”, he told them. All the signs from the past few days are that a new colonial occupation of Iraq - however it is dressed up - will face determined guerrilla resistance long after Saddam Hussein has gone; and that the occupiers will once again be driven out.

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Indeed. Here is a report I mentioned earlier on this very topic:-

Every bomb fuels Arab fury

Burning American flags, thousands of angry people on the streets and exiled Iraqis returning home to fight. It is a far cry from the scenes of people throwing flowers on liberating troops that George Bush and Tony Blair might have imagined. Across the Middle East, antiwestern sentiments are hardening with every bomb seen crashing into Baghdad on Al Jazeera TV.

On the streets of Jordan hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march every day. In Saudi Arabia, senior Muslim clerics call upon their followers to wage jihad, holy war, against America. In Yemen, where three died last Friday in a march on the United States Embassy, western diplomats and oil company executives are given personal bodyguards.In Oman, people march and chant "Bush and Blair are God’s enemies. And in Egypt police have been fighting running battles with demonstrators. The governments and royal families of the region, who deal with the US privately but condemn them publicly, are growing increasingly concerned for their own futures and for the emergence of a pan-Arab Islamic militancy that they have spent years suppressing. “Not one of the Arab leaderships has any legitimacy, none is democratic, and they are getting nervous,” said Ahmad Lutfi of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "That is why all they do at the moment is go from Arab summit to Arab summit. “They want to prevent the anger in the Middle East from turning on them.”

For ordinary Arabs, however, that is not enough. “I used to dislike Saddam, but now I think he is a great leader,” said Nada Emad, a 23-year-old assistant pharmacist in Amman, Jordan. “This aggression is uniting Arabs, even people who didn’t see eye to eye before.” With Arab television stations showing images of civilian casualties, including one of a young boy with half his head blown away in Basra, public anger is increasing every day. Fayez Kazem, who fled Saddam’s regime four years ago, is preparing to go back from Jordan to fight the coalition. “I can’t stay watching the television, seeing Baghdad burning,” he said. “The Iraqi is born from the womb of his mother carrying a weapon.” Thousands of Iraqi exiles have been returning over the past week from Jordan, with many insisting they want to defend their country against US and British “invaders”.

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i would have done the same for my country or any country thats muslim. we must not forget one thing that this war is against muslims and islam as well. i've heard a lot of pasters and other religious people openly saying that religious significance of this war cannot be ignored.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by EntityParadigm: *
i would have done the same for my country or any country thats muslim.
[/QUOTE]

Then go.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *

Then go.
[/QUOTE]

get me a ticket then :-)

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And there are thousands like Hamad living in exile in Jordan returning to fight for Saddam or their motheland…

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC28Ak05.html

Young Hamad has every reason to despise Saddam Hussein, having lost his father and uncles to the Iraqi regime, and having been forced to seek exile in Jordan for fear of losing his own life. But, like thousands of others, he has chosen to return to his homeland to fight for Saddam. He tells Paul Belden why.

This is their gift to Iraqi people and they call saddam a savage.

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Baghdad once the center of civilization, science, medicine, art has been destroyed so many times. If I am not mistaken last time it was destroyed by mongol hoards… But every time it rises from the ashes…

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030327/4997279s.htm

Thousands of Iraqis head home to fight Driven by sense of nationalism
By Vivienne Walt
USA TODAY

AMMAN, Jordan – Bus No. 11 is packed and ready to head out of the depot. Destination: Baghdad.

On board are about 30 men. They’re among thousands of Iraqis who have headed home since the first bombs exploded over Baghdad a week ago. The men on the bus say they’re returning to fight against the Americans.

Taking a trip to conflict seems suicidal. But most of these travelers have seen scenes on television that have inflamed their feelings of nationalism. Watching their screens in Jordan’s capital, about 500 miles from Baghdad, they’ve seen columns of coalition tanks storm across Iraq and missiles pound their hometown. By Wednesday they could no longer stay away, many of the bus riders say.

‘‘I saw on television that civilians are defending Baghdad and other places,’’ says Rashid El-Khalidi, 40. ‘‘It made me want to join them. I’m angry.’’ The construction engineer who moved here from Baghdad last July to find better-paying work, doesn’t say he is inspired by devotion to Saddam Hussein. He says what’s driving him is the vision of the U.S.-led coalition’s ‘‘occupation’’ of Iraq.

‘‘This is not about defending Saddam. It’s about defending Iraq,’’ El-Khalidi says. ‘‘The war has made me a nationalist.’’

That fierce defense of Iraq – apparently something separate from protecting Saddam’s rule – is echoed in numerous interviews with Iraqis going home to Baghdad. A few express love for Saddam. They say they fear coalition forces might kill or oust their president.

A 32-year-old Iraqi farm worker says he is proud that Saddam has so far survived. ‘‘He’s more and more of a hero now because he’s standing up to the invaders,’’ says Mohammed Shehab Ali. Wearing a weathered jacket and sandals, Ali says he hopes to reach his village, about 50 miles south of Baghdad. ‘‘I’ll get a Kalashnikov rifle, and whatever I can do to defend the country I will do,’’ he says.

Many others say they’re fighting for Iraqi sovereignty. ‘‘It’s the principle of the matter. I’m furious about foreigners invading our country,’’ says Nasir Abdullah, 24, a well-dressed man traveling home with his friend. ‘‘I’ll stop in Baghdad and volunteer to fight in the city.’’

Aid organizations had predicted that Iraqis would be moving out of Iraq, not in. The United Nations and Jordanian relief groups built two refugee camps on Jordan’s border with Iraq for thousands of Iraqis expected to flee bombs and gunfire. As of Wednesday, the camps were empty.

Jordan’s border-control officials report that 4,333 Iraqis have taken the road to Baghdad since the first bombs fell last Thursday morning local time. That’s only about 1% of the estimated 380,000 Iraqis who are temporary workers or who fled here after the 1991 Gulf War. But on Monday alone, 429 took the perilous journey across the desert.

The five-hour drive from Iraq’s western frontier to its capital takes travelers straight through a battle zone. U.S. military officials say they would regard Iraqi civilians who return home and take up weapons as valid military targets. ‘‘If they’re walking down the street and present themselves as civilians, they are non-combatants and they won’t be targeted,’’ Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman at Central Command in Qatar, said Wednesday. ‘‘But if they take up arms, they’re part of the battlefield, and they will be taken out. If they train their weapons on me, I’m going to pull the trigger first.’’

Hakim Hassan, 32, an Iraqi driver who brought a Japanese television crew from Baghdad to Amman, says the road is treacherous. ‘‘I counted 11 bombed-out cars on the road when I came from Baghdad today,’’ Hassan says. He says this week he is charging $1,000 for a journey that for years cost about $100.

The two bus riders, Abdullah and El-Khalidi, come from Qadissiya. The southern city, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, is on the Euphrates River. Abdullah works in an Amman factory that produces cleaning fluids. He says he quit his job Tuesday after Iraqi television showed wounded children in a Baghdad hospital. The footage was broadcast in Amman on satellite services.

Like Abdullah, El-Khalidi says the sight of wounded civilians prompted him to hurry home. He spoke before news broke Wednesday of a missile hitting a Baghdad marketplace, killing at least 15 civilians.

Despite the overwhelming military odds against Iraq, Abdullah believes Iraqis can defeat the U.S.-led coalition. Like others, he cites centuries of battle between Iraqis and some of history’s fiercest warriors. Among them: Alexander the Great, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, and the Persian and Ottoman armies.

Many proudly point to the thousands of British soldiers who died in Baghdad in 1920, when Iraqis forced Britain to end its control over the territory. Abdullah’s townsmen in Qadissiya are best known for defeating the Persian army nearly 1,400 years ago.

Adel Khalil, the Jordanian driver of bus No. 11, says he now transports five times the number of people to Iraq as before the war. He charges 6 dinars (about $9) per person to drive to the Iraqi border post. Passengers then switch to Iraqi buses for the journey to Baghdad. Khalil says the new flow of Iraqis into battle does not surprise him. ‘‘Iraqis are famous among us Arabs for being brave,’’ he says.

About 20 Iraqis thronged Iraq’s embassy here Wednesday, waiting to renew their passports so they could go home. After embassy staff distributed posters of Saddam, the group chanted their support. ‘‘Don’t be quiet, Abu Uday!’’ they sang in Arabic, using Saddam’s familiar name. ‘‘We’re beside you, and we’ll die for you!’’ It was unclear if they believed their demonstration might bring quicker service.

Yet even those who profess hatred for Saddam say they would not fight alongside U.S. forces. ‘‘No one’s convinced by the idea of America coming to help the Iraqis,’’ says Mahmoud Ali, 30, a displaced Baghdad resident who runs an unofficial store selling Iraqi dates. Ali says he is ‘‘wanted’’ by the Iraqi government because he opposes Saddam. ‘‘In the last two days Saddam’s suddenly looked like a hero to some Iraqis. He’s stood up to the Americans.’’

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A former citizen of Iraq explains why the Iraqis haven’t rolled over yet which is what most people predicted (including myself). Apart from the obvious deep patriotism which runs through all Iraqis she points to high cancer rates and a big percentage of deformed children thanks to the depleted uranium shells left by the British and Americans after the last Gulf War. No wonder they won’t just hand over their assets having suffered so badly last time round.

WELCOME TO IRAQ?

Mar 28 2003

By British Iraqi Dr Shatha Bestrani Co-ordinator of the British Iraqi Community Association who left her home in Baghdad in 1980

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Iraqi expatriates return to battle U.S.

I dont think this was posted before..its really brave of these ppl to go back to iraq and fight the coalition forces..some might find them dumb to back now but these ppl have families living there

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0326war-jordan26.html

AMMAN, Jordan - Clothes stuffed into carry-on suitcases, furry synthetic blankets rolled like sleeping bags, packages of cookies and stout hearts. They are the motley supplies of hundreds of Iraqi expatriates leaving Jordan on buses bound for Iraq.

The men are returning as volunteers to defend their homeland against the U.S.-led invasion.

Jordan, Iraq’s neighbor to the west, has served as a haven for at least 300,000 Iraqis who over the past 15 years have fled their country’s wars, repression and economic hardships. Now, with a military conflict intensifying, many feel a patriotic urge to go home.

“I called my father last night in Baghdad. He told me come home right away. He said I am needed to fight the aggressor,” said Ali Latoush, a 21-year-old tailor who has worked in Jordan for 15 months. “I’m ready to become a martyr to keep the Americans out.”

Jordan has kept its borders open for civilians who have wanted to leave Iraq. As of Tuesday, few refugees had appeared on the border.

The stream in the other direction, however, is strong. From March 16 to 24, 4,330 Iraqis have returned to Iraq from Jordan, according to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

Bus drivers who have traveled the road from Amman to the border town of Ruashiyeh since the start of war report an increase of traffic, saying about eight buses leave Amman for the Iraqi border each day. The vast majority of their passengers are men of fighting age who have traveled with only a few personal items, they said.

The U.S. military warned Iraqi civilians Tuesday against using roads. A U.S. warplane intending to destroy a bridge dropped a bomb Monday that also hit a bus filled with Syrians evacuating Iraq. The Pentagon expressed regret.

The 50 males aboard a packed Greyhound-size bus Tuesday that left downtown Amman, the fifth departure of the day, expressed more bravado than fear.

Several men interviewed in the drizzling rain as they waited for the driver to load their blankets and small bags said they are experienced soldiers and want to take up guns against U.S. troops.

“Whether we are Shiites or Sunnis, we are prepared to fight. The invaders made a big miscalculation if they thought otherwise,” said Hussein Sharif, an accountant who said his older brother is fighting the allied forces at An Nasiriyah.

In the Iraqi community in Jordan, pressure to return and fight is strong, with honor and dignity at stake.

“How can I be happy when our country is under bombardment?” asked Zeid Ismail, 26. “If we (my family) are going to die, we are going to die together. If we are going to be saved, then I am going to be needed to help protect them. We don’t want America or Britain to control our lives.”

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"Whether we are Shiites or Sunnis, we are prepared to fight. The invaders made a big miscalculation if they thought otherwise," said Hussein Sharif, an accountant who said his older brother is fighting the allied forces at An Nasiriyah.

And that is a national and patriotic sentiment that has built up and solidified as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasion, and if this sentiment holds together then the Iraqi people will be masters of their own destiny.

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Insha’Allah.

Apparently it is not Iraqi exiles, but Arabs in general who are going to fight - not for Saddam Hussein, but for Iraq.

Islamic militants prepare for Iraq fight, Frank Gardner, BBC, 31 March 2003
Arab volunteers have begun arriving in Iraq, vowing to help defend a Muslim nation against what they see as an unwarranted Western attack. Iraq has proclaimed that 4,000 such volunteers are now in the country, ready to carry out suicide attacks if necessary, to repel US and British forces. These are almost certainly not al-Qaeda operatives, although their methods and their motives are starting to look quite similar.

On Sunday, the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad announced that it had sent “the first batch of suicide bombers” to help Iraq. This is not a threat to be taken lightly, as the group has honed its methods in years of attacks on Israelis. More volunteers will doubtless follow from other militant groups such as those in Algeria. **But so far, many of those who have volunteered are ordinary Arab civilians, often family men, from Yemen, Algeria, Syria and elsewhere. They feel so passionately about the war in Iraq they are prepared to leave behind them everything they hold dear.

Importantly, they have not come to Iraq to defend Saddam Hussein, although that is in effect what they are doing, they say they have come to protect the land of Iraq, once the centre of a mighty Islamic empire.

After weeks of hostile Arab media coverage, it should come as no surprise that some people are volunteering to fight for Iraq. When Arab viewers see daily images of bloodied bodies, crying children and bombed cities, all apparently perpetrated by non-Muslim Americans and Britons, it makes their blood boil. They simply do not believe the Bush-Blair message that the war in Iraq is one of liberation. Too many Iraqi civilians are getting killed or wounded for that concept to take hold in the Middle East.

So, as the war drags on, Arab public opinion is starting to agree with the gist of a recent message presumed to come from Osama Bin Laden. That a US-led war on Iraq would be an assault not so much on Saddam Hussein’s regime, but on innocent Iraqi civilians.

On Monday, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak warned that this war would create “a hundred Bin Laden’s”, so profound is Arab anger. Bin Laden, if he is still alive, must be telling his followers "I told you so." He has already urged Muslims to go to Iraq’s aid. Independent of his message, some are now doing exactly that.

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There was a funny cartoon I saw of Rumsfeld strangling an Iraqi for not "uprising" against Saddam, but this also demonstrates that point:-

[thumb=B]Uprising.JPG[/thumb]