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Dear List, Mohammed Ali seems to be very selective as to what posts merit his informed comments. It is certainly his privilege, as it is his right to deceive himself as he wishes. To start with, there is no such thing as "the Coalition Forces", a term not even the US uses anymore. The US/UK forces in Iraq are "Occupation forces", even in the mind of the UN SC. The only people who insist on calling the occupiers "Coalition Forces" are their stooges who mistakenly think this will gain them recognition from the US.. How much they misunderstand history and its lessons... Mohammed says the looters are called "Ali Babas", but he fails to tell us that the Iraqis now call US soldiers "Ali Babas". That is because on numerous cases, some taking place in front of TV cameras, those soldiers stole money from Iraqis and were forced to return them amid shouts of "Ali Babas" from Iraqis present... Property has been confiscated, especially satellite phones, which those soldiers have used to call their families. We have heard reports of those caught in Jordan and the US with things stolen from Iraq.. Should those soldiers too be shot? What should be done to those "parties" that dismantled installations of Iraq's major dams in the North in 1991 and sold generators, masts and equipment to the Iranians? Are those "Ali Babas" who should also be shot? Then there were those who stole cars from the centre of Iraq and smuggled them to Iran too. What should be done to them? The world has criticized the US/UK forces of occupation for letting the looting take place while they were watching.. There are numerous reports that tell us how those soldiers not only allowed the looting, but in fact encouraged it.. It is not honest to now come and accuse us of not letting the soldiers do their job. They didn't do it when they should have, and now it is too late to try to correct the mistake (if it were indeed a mistake and not intentional) or cover up the bigger crime by shooting some petty thieves... When I spoke of selective replies from Mohammed, I meant his abstention from referring to the news reported by TIME magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030714-463062,00.html, that "in the case of the international airport outside Baghdad, however, the theft and vandalism were conducted largely by victorious American troops, according to U.S. officials, Iraqi Airways staff members and other airport workers. The troops, they say, stole duty-free items, needlessly shot up the airport and trashed five serviceable Boeing airplanes." The cost of the damage and theft go as high as $100 million. Does Mohammed want those responsible for these thefts to be shot in the same way as those who looted Iraq's archeological treasures?? We have also read reports of Al-Chalabi's men accused by the Americans of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Iraqi banks during the chaos. Should they too be shot?? Or should the former governor of Najaf, appointed by the Americans against the will of the people and later imprisoned by the US for theft, also be shot?? Mohammed asks: "what would they like these forces to do to please them and what is their alternative for the Iraqi people??" The issue is not pleasing us or themsleves. The issue is doing what is right and legal.. This war was illegal, and the occupation remains illegal regardless of what resolutions the SC adopts. As an Iraqi myself, I want the Americans to leave Iraq and let Iraqis decide for themselves what to do. For 13 years we wanted the US to lift sanctions and let Iraqis decide their lives alone, but the US, supported by people who call themselves Iraqis, refused that insisting that lifting sanctions was bad.. The US reverted to lies and fabrications about Iraq's weapons to justify an illegal war, all the time supported by the same "Iraqis". The alternative has been there for 13 years, but people like Mohammed insisted that the only way was that Iraq be attacked again, destroyed again, and thousands more killed. We were told repeatedly that that was a price worth paying to get rid of the regime. This is easy to say when those people sit in the US or UK; they are not the ones paying the price.. The alternative is for an Iraq free from intervention; an Iraq worthy of its heritage and its culture; an Iraq that does not need the world's worst terrorist state to teach it right from wrong.. HZ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk