UK raid angers Basra politicians

Last Updated: Tuesday, 26 December 2006, 01:22 GMT

UK raid angers Basra politicians

Basra City Council has withdrawn co-operation from UK forces in southern Iraq after the police's serious crimes unit was disbanded by troops.

More than 1,000 troops blew up a police station run by the unit, which has been blamed for robberies and death squads.

Major Charlie Burbridge said local politics was "complicated" and the actions had been justified.

Mohammed al Abadi, head of the city's council, said the raid was provocative and illegal.

Basra police commander Brigadier General Ali Ibrahim also expressed similar views.

"This storming operation is illegal and violates human rights," he said. "We think that what the operation sought to achieve is very simple and could have been settled by Iraqi troops."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6209249.stm

Earlier story posted in DU:

British forces storm Iraq police station

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2664651

They shouldn't be crooked murderers.

What we call corruption is the norm in tribal politics. This is not the first time the Brits have stepped on tribal toes. This is why they are pretty much living behind bunkers in Basra, a place where they used to walk about in their soft hats just a couple of years ago.

After all - who was it who drew up Iraq's borders in the first place when it was their imperial colony. Here's a hint, it wasn't Germany.

Kind of ironic when you think about how it's sort of their own fault for creating the mess that exists there now by mindlessly pairing various tribal, ethnic, and religious groups together who hate each other and who have been at each other's throats for the better part of the last 1000 years.

Iraq wasn't some arbitrary British creation, it has a geographical unity shared by few other states of the Arab East. If the Brits had carved it up into sectarian statelets as the French tried to do in Syria (succeeding only with Lebanon) they'd be at far greater fault. Sectarianism wasn't on the regional agenda in 1920, nationalism was, with Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike resisting foreign rule. Britain's crime was to renege on its promise of independence in the first place, and eight decades later to help destroy the state it had brought into being.

"Iraq wasn't some arbitrary British creation, it has a geographical unity shared by few other states of the Arab East."

Nonsense. If you read how the border was drawn, the Southern border in particular, it will make your head turn about how, through some seemingly insignificant random motions of a pen, we could have so much trouble in the world right now. A British colonel I believe it was as I read once was with his Anglo delegation along with a delegation from the Saudi royal family. To make a long story short the people of "Iraq"(a pseudo-name created by the British that had never been used for the region before in any broad context) had no say in the matter and the British officer resolved the bickering between his Anglo colleagues and his Saudi allies by saying "how's about this" and then he arbitrarily drew a border that both sides grudingly accepted. I don't know what geographical unity you speak of other than perhaps that the 2 main rivers in the region run through the middle of the country - but trust me, there is nothing "unifying" about this Anglo-creation. Just ask any of the millions of Iraqis who are fighting and dying right now to split their country up into 3 respective parts.....

"If the Brits had carved it up into sectarian statelets as the French tried to do in Syria (succeeding only with Lebanon) they'd be at far greater fault."

I somehow doubt it. As can be seen in occupied nations that were ethnically, linguistically, and culturally unified such as Italy, Germany, and Japan - unification went about rather smoothly and today these countries are 1st world economies leading the world in various industries. Now look at such post WW1 hodgepodges as "Yugoslavia," "Czechoslovakia," "Poland," and "Iraq."

They didn't hold together too well did they without a dictator putting his iron shoe on top of them to keep them in one piece. It's the same thing that's happening in Iraq. We took the glue off the model and now it's falling apart because the dictatorial glue so to speak was what held the contraption together in the 1st place.

"Sectarianism wasn't on the regional agenda in 1920, nationalism was,"

I think you misunderstand the issue. Nationalism indeed was on the table but various ethnic groups wanted their independence from their "bigger brother" who was overshadowing them in various circumstances. That can be perfectly illustrated by how that KKK-loving old-guard pseudo-Democrat racist socialist-hating pig Woodrow Wilson "gave democracy" to only the white people and gave German African colonies to the various "allies" without complaints and Germany's Pacific colonies to Japan, New Zealand, and Australia - all without asking those occupied peoples if they gave a damn

"with Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike resisting foreign rule."

Actually at the time most of the resistance came from the Sunni pan-Arab nationalist movement. There may have been examples of Shia, Kurdish, Turkomen, Assyrian, etc. resistance to Anglo rule, but by-and-large, it was a Sunni socio-political movement and brainchild.

"Britain's crime was to renege on its promise of independence in the first place, and eight decades later to help destroy the state it had brought into being."

Again, I think you miss my point. Multi-racial and multi-ethnic states can only exist in 2 circumstances peacefully:

1) Under the rule of some kind of authoritarian power

or

2) In a relatively wealthy country like ours or say the current UK where capitalism deters and blinds enough people regardless or race, ethnicity, or religion to care about killing each other. But given a sharp depression or downturn in our economic circumstance and I shudder of what would happen to this country. I fear another civil war personally.

But all that aside, multi-ethnic/multi-"diverse group" states rarely hold together for very long without fracturing or dropping into all-out civil war and blood shed like we also saw in Afghanistan in the 90s.

hypocrites.

...about a year ago. This is one of the stories that mentions it. For those who do not recall, here is the BBC story with pictures of some of the armaments as well as disguises the two SAS (elite special forces) were caught with and a picture of the dejected gentlemen (censored in the UK) before release.

  Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Also, that 1,000 soldiers participated in this operation. That's a hell of alot of soldiers. That's almost 15% of all UK troops stationed in Iraq. And blow up the building. Also interesting.

  I'm not saying there's anything more to this than meets the eye. Really. The SAS rescue (as well as the operation in which the SAS operatives were participating) was a curious affair for a number of reasons, especially because they killed Iraqi police (apparently) just trying to do their job to escape.

  Anyway, just thought it might be useful to add that to this thread. I'm not sure if it has any real relevance.

PB

I think this quote from a British soldier in Basra sums it up: "we're just another tribe now".