Friday, August 15, 2003

qWagmire

Winning hearts and minds...

From AP and Reuters in the Herald Trib here:

Guerrillas firing grenades wounded two U.S. soldiers and three Iraqi civilians in central Iraq on Friday, while thousands of Shiite Muslims gathered for prayers at a flash point in a Baghdad suburb.

Chanting "Yes for Islam," more than 3,000 worshippers flocked to a street in Al-Sadr City, a section of Baghdad where U.S. forces shot and killed one Iraqi and wounded four during a protest earlier this week.

American forces are facing a guerrilla campaign in Sunni areas, a hotbed of Saddam support, and there are also signs of surging resentment among Iraq's Shiite majority, which generally welcomed Saddam's overthrow during the U.S.-led invasion that began in March.

At the prayers on Friday, many Shiites beat their chests and waved red, black and green religious flags as they sat under a tower where U.S. troops fired into a crowd of thousands of protesters Wednesday.

Yep. "Taking to the streets" (back) got the Iraqis better electrical power...

What next, I wonder?

And I sure hope they take their tactics from, oh, Mahatma Gahndi...