The Latest on "Baghdad Betty" (Ms. Uzma Bashir) Who 'Faced Down' USMC at Palestine Hotel

Asian Times Online ^ | 18 April 2003 | Asian Times Online

[AmericanInTokyo]

U.K. Citizen/Human Shield/High Rantress Ms. Uzma Bashir AKA "Baghdad Betty"

Title: "A Lady With Real Attitude"

By Paul Belden

BAGHDAD - On the first night of bombing in Baghdad, I recall having written about a much-loved young peace activist named Uzma Bashir who had gone to Iraq to serve as a human shield, and whose many friends had gathered in an Amman hotel to hear the latest news from Iraq. They were all very frightened for her safety, I wrote.

They needn't have bothered. As it turned out, the bombing campaign didn't hurt Uzma one bit. It did, however, really really piss her off.

When the first American tank column arrived in Paradise Park, on the east bank of the Tigris River (the park that later produced the now-famous images of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down by an American tank) on the morning of Wednesday, April 9, they met a young woman who was still pulling on her shoes while running out into the roadway holding up a huge hand-lettered sign that read: "How many children did you kill today?"

Naturally, one of the tank operators lowered his gun barrel so that it pointed directly at Uzma's face. "Bring it on!" she screamed. "You bastards! Murderers! Go ahead and kill me, you pricks!"

Some liberation. And some Uzma, too.

In the time since, as US forces have methodically consolidated their hold on the city, the legend of Uzma has grown in the telling, until she has become something of a force of nature in her own right. Nothing seems to stop her, and nothing shuts her up.

The US Marines who patrol the east bank of the Tigris River still talk about the candlelight vigil that Uzma organized around a tank. The tank had parked itself outside the Palestine Hotel, and Uzma persuaded about 30 fellow activists to surround it in the dark while holding candles and singing Kumbaya-type campfire songs.

"And now we'll observe five minutes of silence for all the civilian casualties," Uzma announced to the crowd, and when the soldier in the tank spoke out of turn, she followed it up with: "And now we'll observe another five minutes of silence for all the civilian casualties of this war." And this time the soldier kept quiet.

Seemingly every soldier has heard of her. On hearing her name mentioned in passing, one US Marine told me: "Yeah, we drove over to the the hospital in Saddam City to provide security the other day, and she was standing out front yelling, 'What, did you come to finish them off'!?"

As this Marine - who was just a young kid himself, no more than 19 - was telling me this story, he didn't seem to know whether to grin, curse or cry. So he just ended up shaking his head in bewildered wonderment.

A fellow peace activist, LaRita Smith, from Mississippi, recalled, "There was one little captain who came out and told us, 'We've come to liberate you', and he didn't know what hit him, you know? Uzma just lit into him, calling him everything in the book. And he just stood there and took it for a while - he was really taking it on the chin - but finally you could see it was getting to him. So finally another soldier came over and very gently removed him from her vicinity. Just guided him gently away. He wasn't the only one, either. When she gets started, some of them start getting mad, you know?"

They're not the only ones. "Yeah, my parents saw me on the BBC, and they called to tell me that they weren't impressed," Uzma said.

So the legend lives on, and grows in the telling, until it's not likely that many soldiers in this town who happened to cross her path will ever forget the name Uzma. Some of them even have listened to a word or two she has to say. "I managed to bring one soldier to tears," she crowed.

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[AmericanInTokyo]

It was reported in the wire services in Baghdad the US soldier who had cried did so because he informed the shouting Uzma that he had earlier scooped the brains up of two of his fallen comrades on his way to Baghdad, "and then have to face this s__t" (in reference to UK citizen/Saddam sympathizer Baghdad Betty and her in-your-face rants, disruption and apologies for the fallen Ba'athist Regime).

By the way, this British woman is still roaming around Baghdad free, causing trouble and disruption everywhere she goes. She is no longer a 'human shield' but now a 'free journalist' (accredited by "Baghdad Bob" under the Saddam regime), writing for Socialist Worker out of the U.K.

Can you spell "War Crimes" and "Guantanamo"?

[Conspiracy Guy]

Somebody needs to pop a cap on Oozemah.

[Joe Brower]

Can you spell "fatal traffic accident"?

[Cathryn Crawford]

What a bitch.

She obviously doesn't really care who or what she protests against, as long as she can stir it up.

[x1stcav]

and nothing shuts her up.

This part of the story I can definitely believe.

[Gefreiter]

How long before she's an MP back home, or lecturing at Berkeley?

Unfortunately, I feel that this woman's future will be remunerative and successful, and it really really annoys me.

[lelio]

You go girl! I say let this idiot rant on and people will see what kind of morons the liberals attract.

[wideawake]

I wouldn't blame any soldier for crying if he had happened to see a creature this ugly in person.

That's the last thing you need to see after a stressful day of being shot at.

[AmericanInTokyo]

You should have caught Baghdad Betty's act on Lebanon Broadcasting Corp (LBC) and al-Jazeera last week at the square the Marines liberated near the Palestine Hotel. Talk about pi--ing on a campfire (or at least trying to). She was foaming at the mouth. It is a wonder this yapping Yorkshire/Islamabad chihuahua did not get a rifle butt to the jowls.

[dighton]

The Marines exercised admirable restraint in not killing this trash.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yor correct there. Definite 'barf alert' over this 'babe'

[goodnesswins]

Someone should give her a burqua, and make her wear it.

[AmericanInTokyo]

sounds like a good approach

[T'wit]

Crimeys, you should have warned us before posting that photo. That face would turn away bombs as easily as it would stop clocks -- at least smart bombs. I can't imagine a bomb with an ounce of intelligence that would come anywhere near her.

[BrooklynGOP]

I say they throw her face down on the floor, cuff her, and send her up for processing. Let them spend a few days "figuring out" who she is.

[Retrofire]

My GOD that is one monkey-faced woman. She looks like an ugly pumpkin.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Is she named "Uzma" because that's the sound that people make when they see her for the first time?

[jjm2111]

What a mug. eeewww.... no wonder that captain got pissed.

[x1stcav]

I can't wait for the new Baghdad police authority to round up and deport these so-called shields. A little time in Iraqi incarceration might do wonders for this bitch's attitude.

[Illbay]

The tank had parked itself outside the Palestine Hotel,...

Wow, I knew we had "smart weapons," but I had no idea!