posted 04-08-2003 09:06 AM            

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Oakland police fired rubber bullets to disperse about 750 anti-war demonstrators on Monday in what was believed to be the first use of the projectiles against U.S. protesters since the American-led war on Iraq began.

Several people suffered minor injuries and demonstrators complained that police overreacted because protesters had simply blocked access to a firm they claimed was profiting from the war in Iraq when police shot rubber bullets and wooden pellets into the crowd.

One man lifted up his shirt to show a welt about the size of a baseball, and several were hit as they were moving from the scene, as evidenced by large bruises on their backs.

"I have been to many protests over the years, and I have never seen police resort to shooting people because they didn't like where they were standing," said Scott Fleming, 29, a lawyer hit several times in the back.

"They had loaded guns and started charging."

An Oakland police spokeswoman said officers warned before firing. At least a dozen protesters were arrested.

"We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them ample time to disperse," said police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford. "When we give our dispersal order, that's pretty much it. (If) there are safety issues involved, that's when we step in."

The action is believed to be the first police use of anti-crowd munitions against U.S. demonstrators since President Bush launched an invasion aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

'NOT PROFESSIONAL'

The police action angered many in the crowd, which later dispersed, with some moving to a different part of Oakland.

"This was not professional, to say the least," said Joel Tena, a constituent liaison for Oakland's vice mayor. "I was afraid for the safety of the protesters and concerned that a nonviolent protest had turned violent at the hands of police."

Susan Quinlan was hit with pellets twice in the back. "I never heard any warning to disperse. They pursued us and shot us as we walked away," she said.

Leone Reinbold, a spokeswoman for Direct Action to Stop the War which organized the protest, said she saw a policeman run his motorcycle into one woman and another man get hit with a rubber bullet to the nose.

"We weren't there to confront the police. We set up a peaceful picket line," she said. "The worst injury was to the long, tried-and-true tradition in this country of picketing."

Jerry Drelling, a spokesman for American President Lines, the company that was the object of the protest, said it has some government contracts but declined to provide details. He said no one at the firm had been injured.

"The Oakland police department managed to keep the ingress and egress open so that worked out pretty well," he said. "We're trying to run a business and you want to keep the gates open."

At a separate demonstration, San Francisco police detained about 20 protesters blocking the Federal Building. Several people also briefly blocked one of the city's main highways.

Anti-war activists in the San Francisco area said they were resuming protest actions on Monday after a period of relative quiet in a city famous for its history of dissent. Police arrested more than 2,000 people in San Francisco in the first two days of the war.

Also on Monday, New York police arrested two or three dozen people who blocked the entrance to the Manhattan building of the Carlyle Group, a firm with a stake in the defense industry.

posted 04-08-2003 12:25 PM            

If ever there was a justified use of force, this one was it. The police made the correct call. These so-called war protestors (America protestors, really) were illegally interfering with a private business which was shipping supplies to our own service men and women over-seas. Under the sedition act, this is treason during a time of war....not to mention criminal and amoral. They were directly threatening other human beings. The police did EXACTLY what they should have done. Only in America is non-lethal force really used with such great caution. Any other country would have shot these traitors…no questions asked.

Ironic how these morons are protesting the very country that gives them the freedom to protest and to even violate the law with willing acts of treason such as this, and stay alive to do it. Ask the Chinese what they think of rubber bullets….Can you say Tiananmen Square anyone? And Nazis? I don’t think so. The Nazis would have lined them up single file and shot them with one bullet so that they wouldn’t waste any ammunition.

Here we have a time of national emergency, when the first responders such as police could be needed to respond to a terrorist threat, and these protestors are sapping those resources. In other words, by constantly absorbing the attention of the police, they are making areas more vulnerable to terrorism, not to mention, costing the city tremendous amounts of money (which could be going towards security) and diverting resources away from real crime. In fact, it honestly could be said these protestors work for terrorists and regimes such as Saddam Husseins (past tense) against America. They are anti-capitalism, anti-America, anti-military and would prevent our troops from being supplied, if they could.

posted 04-08-2003 04:28 PM            

Perhaps these protestors realize that this government DOESN'T work for us...but the multinationals and international bankers. The protesters chose to block access to a company for a reason...they were prepared to take the consequenses. The police DID over-react. They
simply could have arrested them and taken them away. 95% of all the protesters are peaceful people. Violence was not necessary on the part of the police.

Saying that "the protesters were taking away from supplying the troops" is ridiculous at best, if you consider the logistics ability of the military. Also, saying that the protesters are on "the side of Saddam" is what I would call SKY-HIGH rhetoric. Absolute BS.

posted 04-08-2003 06:14 PM            

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1596785.php

The police most likely just wanted to try out their nice new shiny crowd control gear that Bush/Ashcroft/Ridge gave to them.

posted 04-09-2003 02:01 AM            

We have no buisness invading sovereign countries who didn't attack us.

Like I said,

The "liberated" Iraqis will be only briefly "liberated".

You people like having your rights stomped, MOVE to a different country.

Get out of MY America.

Take the PNAC and NEO-CONS with you

posted 04-09-2003 07:22 AM            

GET OUT OF OUR AMERICA!

You sound like a broken record, or a scratched disk for that matter. Your flappin your gums but nobody is listening. Can't you see that these "peaceful" protests are doing nothing but disrupting the flow of America. Your websites you get your information from are all nothing but propaganda and hate sites.

Sherman Skolnick, Alex Jones, all of them have been stirring shit in this country for quite awhile, and making a lot of money also, from "faithful constitutionalists" who read and buy into their BS. If they speak the truth, then how come the CIA, NWO, or what ever you think is planning on running the world, has not had them silenced, permanantly

posted 04-09-2003 07:42 AM            

Aping that TV brain of yours won't do me or any other REAL American any good.

Obviously you are 100% intolerant of differing viewpoints about world affairs.

posted 04-09-2003 03:13 PM            

When we saw that 20 foot statue of Sodamn Insane fall today, did you notice the joyous celebration in that square ? There was not hatred for the American troops there that we saw in Oakland and in San Francisco. There was mutual love and respect and admiration….Those troops are seen in Iraqi eyes not as conquerors, but as liberators. The pictures tell a thousand words.

Do you leftists on this board have any idea of the magnitude and significance of what we are seeing here? Bush and this beautiful military of ours have just liberated the Iraqi people from one of the, if not THE most brutal dictator in human history, a man who has killed and tortured almost 3 million people during his reign. Where were your cheers, O leftists on this board when the 150 children were freed from Iraqi prisons yesterday?

Did you notice the sentiment among newly freed Iraqis?…They LOVE the US and British military presence. They are free for the first time in over 30 years to now say and show what they think and believe without the risk of having themselves or their family members brutally tortured and killed by the satan on earth who has controlled them for that time. I watched as they danced on the fallen body of Saddam’s statue and as they dragged the head through the streets, and beat it with the soles of their shoes (the ultimate Iraqi insult). Did we see any Mechs or Davids or Swamp Gasses out there? Did we see any whining protestors of American military? If anything we saw grown Iraqi men trying to kiss our soldiers! Did you see the smiles on those soldiers faces as the Iraqis danced on Saddam?…..They know the big picture.

posted 04-10-2003 05:00 AM            

No Weapons of Mass Destruction.....eh Mech?

The truth is the truth no matter what the bias, but Mech is extremely intolerant of those who do not accept his lies and spin. He is always the last to see the truth, and like now, will never admit when he’s wrong… He’s a little like “Baghdad Bob”, telling Al Jeezera that there is no war in Iraq (as the bombs are going off in the background). Take no notice of those Marines and American special ops forces down the street….It’s all an illusion….And those aren’t tanks you are seeing, it’s all a Hollywood production….And they are not REALLY pulling down Saddam’s statue from paradise square. It’s all in your mind.

Hey…if you miss Baghdad Bob, there’s always Mech.

Pay no attention to the picture below…Those Iraqis were upset with the fall of Saddam. The Americans forced them to take the statue down..right Mech?

posted 04-10-2003 05:23 AM            

Bu$h is following the orders of the globalists and secure Iraq's resources. Saying the "iraqi people love us" is PURE BS. A lot of them are VERRRRY pissed off at us even though they ALSO hate Saddam.

They don't want an imperialist nation telling them how to live.

The "statue pull-down" was so staged and obvious.

It was a perfect, classic CIA style PSY-OP for the okies back home sitting at their TVs.
Completely staged. Right down to the flag-draping incident.

Bu$h WON'T be seen as a hero in the comming months...

I predict in less than a year he will be the most despised man in the world.

posted 04-10-2003 10:49 AM            

Only problem with your little theory there Mech, is that you are wrong...and you are consistently wrong. Millions of Iraqis would say you are wrong right now. You are actually telling us right now that millions of Iraqis want to keep a tyrant in place who has been torturing and killing their family members for over 30 years. You are now saying that they do not have any incentive to want to take down the remnants of a fallen regime like the statue which is symbolic of their oppression. Remember, this is going on all over Iraq...Iraqi people pulling down statues of Saddam and burning his pictures. In fact, it was a large group of Iraqis who first threw a rope around the statue's neck....but the rope broke, and certainly, just people pulling on it was not enough to bring such a huge structure down. The Americans there weren't even going to interfere, except they were asked to help with their tank retriever (given that they happened to have their armored equipment there just perfect for the job)...and that's when they brought out the chain that would do the trick. The Iraqi rope just wasn't going to cut it.

The notion (which you are trying to present here) that Iraqi people do not have any incentive to do this on their own is, quite frankly, idiotic Mech. And remember, this footage was broadcast live from a prominent Arab media outlet, Abu Dhabi, (read here…anti-American propaganda machine). Are you now telling us that this is a CIA asset as well? Did the CIA pay those Iraqis to hit the statue's base with a sledge hammer and dance on the statue, and drag it's head through town? Are you telling us that Iraqis have no incentive to do this on their own? How does it explain the people burning Saddam's photos and taking his statues down nation wide? Are these all CIA plants? And what about the random encounters with the people that our military is reporting...random acts of gratitude, and thanks....was this all staged too? Are all these eye-witness accounts by soldiers on the battlefield along with imbedded reporters, paid off by the CIA?

There is only one conclusion that any thinking person can possibly come to Mech, and that is that you are completely delusional. You are still living in your dream world and rationalizing realities that don't seem to fit this fantasy you've conjured for yourself. For example, you've convinced yourself that Bush is hated by the people we are now liberating...so you've explained away everything, the pictures of Iraqis kissing photos of Bush, and expressing their thanks....the pro-US messages of the Iraqis in the streets....This all does not fit your delusion so you've rationalized it away in your own mind as all being a CIA staged event. Wow...this CIA of yours must be all-powerful Mech!

Why don't you ask those Iraqi children freed from the imprisonment imposed by Saddam's regime if they hate the US military who just set them free. Ask them if they hate the American president who just set them free. Iraqis have been living under a state of terror for over 30 years. Do you really think the CIA needs to stage an event where they are showing hostility towards Saddam? Do you really think that CNN or Dan Blather wouldn't love to show you pictures of Iraqis burning US flags? (I think they'd jump at a chance to do that if they could). Do you really think that the Democratic party isn't wishing for failure in Iraq, and wouldn't jump at the chance to use images of Iraqis hating their new liberation, to make GW look bad in a heart beat?

You really are clueless Mech. You have no idea how things work in the real world and what motivates people because you are so mired in your own delusions.....

You've been consistently proven wrong Mech, while GW Bush and his administration have been consistently true to their words. Yet still, even in the face of glaring and obvious falsehoods that you spit out being proven false, deny and rationalize and make up further fantasy....and dig your hole deeper..It's all a CIA staged event... Bush is sitting on around 80% popularity in the polls...(but now the polls are wrong in your mind). Everything is illusion created by these invisible mastermind NWO order guys (who must be freakin geniuses to pull this kind of mass scale deception off)...

Isn't it time to wake up and try living in reality Mech? Your delusions are becoming more obvious with every false statement on this board that flies in the face of the reality that people are seeing for themselves. It flies in the face of common sense and logic as well. That's why your arguments are so easy to shoot down Mech. I can beat them on logic and common sense alone.

Just curious though....Do you still think that WMDs and the Iraqi nuclear program is still all illusion? Is World Net Daily (from which I linked the article)....a CIA propaganda organization? Is the man formally in charge of Saddam's nuclear bomb program, Dr Kadhir Hamza, who testified as to how close Saddam was to developing a nuclear weapon, a CIA plant? Are all these Iraqi immigrants lying in their stories of the atrocities of Saddam's regime? Is their happiness of Saddam's overthrow false, and their expressions of love for the great country of the United States, false? Is the former Iraqi I personally talked to the other day, who tells me of his happiness at Iraq's liberation lying? Is everyone who loves the Bush administration and what America is currently doing to liberate the Iraqi people, a CIA plant?

OR

Is Mech just delusional?

You decide.

posted 04-10-2003 12:10 PM            

Only a BRAINWASHED FOX NEWS watcher would think otherwise.

"Everyone loves Bu$h"..

LOL!!!

posted 04-10-2003 02:28 PM            

Hey, here's an interesting quote from that article I provided.

quote:

---

"Once again the Arabs have fallen victim to the lies of their leaders and media. We never learn from our mistakes. When the war erupted, I warned my sons not to watch Arab TV stations so they would not be disappointed and depressed when the truth eventually comes out."

---

Bin watchin too much Arab TV Mech? Even some Palestinians have learned to distinguish propaganda from truth….yet you live in America but seem incapable of accomplishing the same feat. Apparently, you believe guys like "Baghdad Bob", more than even they do! Amazing!

posted 04-10-2003 03:32 PM            

Hide your eyes Mech, no weapons of mass destruction here...

posted 04-10-2003 03:56 PM            

Planting FALSE stories in the press isn't hard to believe.

Look up OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD/CIA.

posted 04-10-2003 04:06 PM            

Wahhh wahhh. What kind of lawyer has the time to go out and do "many protests"? He must be a horrible lawyer. I won;t even go into those schleps who do protests for a living across the country. Sorry pieces of crap, I say.

>>An Oakland police spokeswoman said officers warned before firing... "We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them ample time to disperse," said police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford. "When we give our dispersal order, that's pretty much it. (If) there are safety issues involved, that's when we step in." >>

Seems perfectly right to me. Where's the problem? Don't people understand that when they break the law or go against authority's orders there is eventually a penalty of sorts to maintain order? That's the problem with all the radical liberals, they always go against authority and government-- but aren't they usually the ones sucking the lifeblood from them for welfare, unemployment, disability, yadda yadda fucking yadda?

And I have YET to hear ONE REAL reason they are against the war. The oil argument is stupid, and anybody who believes that's the sole or main purpose to this war is an uneducated twit. They should just admit they hate Bush and that if Clinton liberated the hell that was Iraq he would have been hailed a God.

posted 04-10-2003 04:20 PM            

GET OUT OF MY AMERICA IF YOU DON"T LIKE DISSIDENTS.

W.BU$H IS A MURDERER JUST LIKE HIS DADDY.

You like being lied to? You like UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS...YOU LEAVE.

AMERICA ARMED SADDAM.

We have NO RIGHT to invade a sovereign country..no matter how horrible the guy in charge is.

The right to protest is a FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE is VERY AMERICAN.

Violence against unarmed people is a sure sighn of COWARDICE.

The police could have arrested those that were ALLEGEDLY "blocking the way" without using force.

Again...you want a BANANA REPUBLIC? Why don't YOU move to one.

HANDS OFF my Constitution.