Iraqis don't like the new flag Bush gave them - Anyone remember the first time he tried this?

[NNN0LHI]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2008-01-26T145052Z_01_L26622903_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-FLAG.xml

Discontent in Iraq over new national flag

Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:51am ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - 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 this 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 Saddam, a Sunni Arab, but as one under which countless soldiers died fighting for 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.

[msongs]

1. sound like the same logic behind the "rebel" flag of the confederacy nt

[NNN0LHI]

2. Here is the flag Bush tried to give the Iraqis in 2004. Didn't go over real well

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1204666,00.html

Colouring the outcome


A nation's flag is usually a projection of a political identity, and Iraq's new design is a bold departure, says Simon Jeffery

Tuesday April 27, 2004
Guardian Unlimited

Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has had a little trouble with flags. Not at the same level as its lack of security or a basic infrastructure, but trouble nevertheless. One of the many iconic images from April 9, the day the statue fell, was the brief hanging of the stars and stripes over the old dictator's face.
Old Glory was hurriedly replaced with an old Iraqi flag, a pre-1991 design, which was rushed up the US army's statue-toppling hoist. The Iraqi flag was by that stage almost as recognisable as the Americans'. The red, white and black stripes with the Arabic script and three green stars had, after all, been pitted against the stars and stripes for many months before.

But that flag may be going the same way as the Soviet hammer and sickle, the orange, white and blue South African flag, and countless others swept away with the end of old regimes. The US-appointed Iraqi governing council has approved a radically different new design. Drawn by Iraqi artist Rifat al-Chaderchi, the two blue stripes represent the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq's Mesopotamian heartland, the yellow is for the Kurds and the crescent for Islam.

It has been met with some bewilderment in Iraq, largely because it resembles the Israeli flag more than any other. It also breaks the bonds between Iraq and its neighbours. Green, black and white, said to represent Islamic caliphates, are combined with red, the colour of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turkish empire, to form the pan-Arab colours. Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Sudan all have them on their flags.

[sam sarrha]

5. that is pretty sissy.. Dubya must have done that one with his broken crayons.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Right away there's a god damn flag. What's the deal with this flag

stuff?

[sam sarrha]

4. this is part of the "SHOCK DOCTRINE" [naomi klein] destroy personal, community and national identity...

then re-write it. same thing happened in central and south America, in the 70's and 80's when we did it to them.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. At least this one isn't blue and white like the Israeli flag

That design went over like a lead balloon. This new design isn't all that different-basically the stars are removed-but just doing that has upset a lot of Iraqis, and shows the level of discord and lack of compromise within the country. One thing I didn't get-how would they have had "Allah ho Akbar" in Saddam's handwriting on the flag?

[annabanana]

7. I understand that most ticked off are the Sunni militias with whom we

have made deals outside of Baghdad. .