Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Diego Union-Tribune
January 27, 2008 By Dean Yates, Reuters
BAGHDAD – The Iraqi parliament's move to adopt a new, temporary national flag has provoked an outcry, with one city refusing to fly it and ordinary Iraqis attaching the old flag to their cars in a silent protest.
Iraqis have flooded chat rooms on the Internet with criticism of last week's decision, which had long been demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner was a reminder of his brutality.
Many Iraqi Arabs disagree. They see the old flag as having little to do with Hussein, a Sunni Arab, but as one under which countless soldiers died fighting in various wars.
"It's shameful. Thousands of Iraqis lost their lives so this flag could fly. ... Changing the flag ignores their sacrifice," said one Iraqi in a comment posted on an Arab chat room.
The new flag is very similar to the old one.
It is still red, white and black, but three green stars in the center representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Hussein's now-outlawed Baath party, have been removed.
The phrase Allahu akbar (God is great), added in green Arabic script on Hussein's orders during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, remains, but no longer in his handwriting.
Officials in Fallujah, a city in Anbar province and once a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, rejected the new flag.
“This is a disaster. ... I am using the old flag in my office and at home,” Mayor Saad Rasheed said, adding that he would raise the new one only if the Anbar provincial council told him to.
A long-running debate over whether to change the flag had been given urgency by a planned pan-Arab meeting of politicians in Irbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag, which is banned in Kurdistan.
The new flag will last for one year while debate continues on what the final banner should look like.
January 27, 2008 By Dean Yates, Reuters
BAGHDAD – The Iraqi parliament's move to adopt a new, temporary national flag has provoked an outcry, with one city refusing to fly it and ordinary Iraqis attaching the old flag to their cars in a silent protest.
Iraqis have flooded chat rooms on the Internet with criticism of last week's decision, which had long been demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner was a reminder of his brutality.
Many Iraqi Arabs disagree. They see the old flag as having little to do with Hussein, a Sunni Arab, but as one under which countless soldiers died fighting in various wars.
"It's shameful. Thousands of Iraqis lost their lives so this flag could fly. ... Changing the flag ignores their sacrifice," said one Iraqi in a comment posted on an Arab chat room.
The new flag is very similar to the old one.
It is still red, white and black, but three green stars in the center representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Hussein's now-outlawed Baath party, have been removed.
The phrase Allahu akbar (God is great), added in green Arabic script on Hussein's orders during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, remains, but no longer in his handwriting.
Officials in Fallujah, a city in Anbar province and once a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, rejected the new flag.
“This is a disaster. ... I am using the old flag in my office and at home,” Mayor Saad Rasheed said, adding that he would raise the new one only if the Anbar provincial council told him to.
A long-running debate over whether to change the flag had been given urgency by a planned pan-Arab meeting of politicians in Irbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag, which is banned in Kurdistan.
The new flag will last for one year while debate continues on what the final banner should look like.