[Peace] Fwd: US Military Assassinates Iraqi Peace Leader

[Belden Fields]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
> Date: July 9, 2007 6:05:03 PM CDT
> To: PORTSIDE at LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
> Subject: US Military Assassinates Iraqi Peace Leader
> Reply-To: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
>
> Murder of Iraq Freedom Congress leader is a blow to
> labor and peace activists around the world
>
> Now the U.S. military is assassinating Iraqi peace
> workers
>
> By Kathlyn Stone
>
> http://www.ifcongress.com/English/index.htm Iraq
> Freedom Congress July 8, 2007
>
> At 3 a.m. on the 4th of July, U.S. military forces and
> Iraqi national guards opened fire with a barrage of
> bullets and grenades on the Baghdad home of Abdel-
> Hussein Saddam. The severely wounded Abdel-Hussein was
> taken away and his 18-year-old daughter was left alone,
> injured and bleeding on the floor.
>
> Abdel-Hussein's beaten body turned up at the Yarmouk
> Hospital morgue on July 6. The murder of Abdel-Hussein
> was the most devastating of four attacks by the U.S.
> military on the Iraq Freedom Congress in the past 10
> months. The IFC is an organization comprised primarily
> of trade unionists, community leaders, and women's and
> children's rights workers who are determined to look
> after their own. IFC's goals are to salvage the lives
> of as many Iraqis as possible, and to end the
> occupation and sectarian fighting. Its slogan: "No
> Shiite! No Sunni! Ours is Human Identity.'
>
> The IFC has 22 offices or 'wards' in Iraq cities and
> neighborhoods. It establishes where and when it is
> invited by local community leaders. Since 2005 the IFC
> has been working toward a progressive democratic non-
> sectarian government in Iraq. It is as critical of the
> violent political Islamic forces as of the violent U.S.
> occupiers.
>
> Abdel-Hussein, 50, was born in Basra, and was a
> resident of Baghdad's Alattiba neighborhood at the time
> of his death. He was the head of the IFC's Safety
> Force, an organization of men who volunteer to protect
> and defend both Sunni and Shiite citizens from
> sectarian gangs. He spent two years of his life in jail
> in the 1990s for opposing the Saddam Hussein regime.
> 'Throughout the period of his leadership of the Safety
> Force, there had been no killing based on identity in
> the area where he lived and in other areas with the
> presence of the Safety Force,' the IFC said in a
> written statement.
>
> An IFC spokesman says the 'cowardly' attack is part of
> Bush's surge which is aimed at suppressing Iraqi
> political opponents. It could be, too, that IFC's
> growing influence as a protector and unifier within
> Iraq's pulverized society is seen as a threat to U.S.
> government objectives. A peaceful sovereign Iraq will
> not turn over its rich oil reserves to foreign
> invaders.
>
> The day before Abdel-Hussein's abduction, the IFC-
> sponsored SANA TV gave its inaugural broadcast over a
> satellite network. The program ran a story about the
> recent mass demonstration against the proposed oil law
> being pushed by the Bush administration. The program
> included an overview of the IFC's Safety Force and
> interviewed some of the five IFC members who had been
> arrested by U.S. and Iragi national guards June 7.
> Those arrested, Mohamed Karim, Ali Hussein, Mohamed
> Mahmoud, Hussam Salim and Abdul Amir Saleh, were
> interrogated at the U.S. base in Baghdad's Rustumiyyah
> neighborhood and then transferred to the local police
> station before being released 11 days later.
>
> An IFC spokesman said the Iraqi police intentionally
> misled US forces, stating that the IFC was part of the
> sectarian Al-Mahdi Army that was planning to expand
> into the Al-Askary neighborhood, and therefore a
> terrorist organization.  In fact, the IFC Safety Force
> had already confronted the scouts of Al-Mahdi and
> prevented them from establishing a foothold.
>
> The IFC won the detainees' release by waging a
> political campaign both locally and globally, as well
> as a judicial battle. It filed a lawsuit against the
> U.S. agents for raiding the office without judicial
> authorization or an arrest warrant.
>
> SANA is funded by IFC allies around the world, but
> primarily by Japanese supporters. Besides its 22
> chapters in Iraq, there are five chapters in Japan and
> south Asia, five in Europe and Scandinavia, and two in
> North America (one in Canada and one in the United
> States). IFC has ongoing collaboration with the 0
> million member US Labor Against the War, and the IFC-US
> chapter carried the IFC banner during the January 27
> protest in Washington D.C. SANA intends on using its
> solidarity network 'to amplify the voice of freedom,
> peace and the equal rights of all people in Iraq and
> the Middle East,' said Nadia Mahmood Al-Sanna, a SANA
> producer.
>
> The IFC Safety Force recently graduated its third group
> of volunteers who are trained in mediation and self
> defense. Besides protecting citizens from marauding
> sectarian gangs, the Safety Force provides escorts to
> people who are in danger, and has a proactive outreach
> program calling for an end to sectarianism. The IFC
> tries to influence citizens against falling for the
> trap of retaliation. The so-called 'insurgents' have
> also organized recreational play days for children,
> economic survival conferences for women, teams of
> doctors who go to the homes of people too ill or too
> afraid to travel to the hospital, raised money for food
> and medicine, and attended funerals to shield mourners
> from further violence. A primary goal of each project
> is to bring together Shiites and Sunnis in a spirit of
> cooperation and non-violence.
>
> IFC Executive Committee Member Amjad Al-Jawhary (Abdel-
> Hussein also served on the committee), said the U.S.
> administration is targeting efforts such as IFC that
> 'aim to restore security, safety, freedom, and
> prosperity. They [US] well know that such forces will
> jeopardize the presence of the occupation and threatens
> to undermine its determination and prestige.'  The IFC
> is trying to provide some semblance of public safety
> without government resources or sanction during a
> humanitarian crisis. Neither the trillion-dollar U.S.
> military led by the dazed and confused Bush
> administration, nor the dysfunctional police and army
> under Bush's puppet leader Al-Maliki have provided any
> measurable safety for Iraqis. If anything, civilian
> killings are growing by the day.
>
> Abdel-Hussein was a courageous man, someone an American
> would look up to, like John Wayne - only real. What
> will be the result of this all too common
> incomprehensible killing? It brings to mind an
> observation Cindy Sheehan shared when speaking in
> Minneapolis this year. 'It's common sense that when you
> kill an innocent person, it's going to piss off their
> relatives. I don't know why George Bush hasn't learned
> that from me.'
>
> I'm very pissed off, too. And deeply saddened for what
> we have become.
>
> []
>
> Abdelhussein Saddam, 1957-2007
>
> 'The assassination of Abdel Saddam Hussein by US forces
> mafia will not discourage the determination of the Iraq
> Freedom Congress and will be a new impetus to continue
> the struggle to rid the Iraqi society from all types of
> terrorists. They murdered Abdelhussein, but his spirit,
> ambitious aspirations, and bravery for building Iraq
> that is secular, humanitarian, and free from occupation
> and sectarian gangs, will be firmly in the hearts of
> freedom lovers.'
>
> -- From a statement by the Iraq Freedom Congress on the
> death of Abdel-Hussein Saddam, leader of the IFC Safety
> Force, July 8, 2007
>
> For more information:
>
> Iraq Freedom Congress: www.ifcongress.com
>
> IFC-USA: www.freewebs.com/ifc-usa
>
> US Labor Against the War: www.uslaboragainstwar.org
>
> ----
>
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