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Peaceniks fall out on human shield mission (HOLD MUH BEER!)
The Sunday Times ^ | February 9, 2003 | Jane Mulkerrins

Posted on 02/08/2003 4:21:47 PM PST by MadIvan

A PLAN by a group of peace campaigners to travel by bus to Baghdad to offer themselves to Saddam Hussein as human shields has been threatened with collapse by the personal clashes, logistical chaos and the loss of their leader.

One of the group’s three double-deckers has been abandoned in Italy with engine trouble and plans to travel through the Balkans were aborted as “too dangerous”. The head of the delegation, a former American marine, has been deported from Turkey for trying to enter the country with a “world citizen” passport after renouncing his United States citizenship.

The second of the two remaining red buses and an accompanying white taxi limped into Istanbul yesterday after being stranded in blizzards for two days. Several members of the peace convoy spent the day scrabbling around the Turkish city trying to hire four-wheel-drive vehicles or trying to book plane or train tickets to take them on to Baghdad. “There comes a time at which we have to leave the buses behind and move on without them,” said John Rose, an American who spent seven years with the Zapatista rebels in Mexico and has joined the trip in Turkey. “We just have to cut them loose now.”

Yesterday the dwindling group of 40 “peaceniks” was joined by 35 Turkish volunteers. There was also a shock. Organisers told the human shields they must each stump up $1,000 before they could enter Iraq. In addition, they would have to leave their mobile phones at the border, cutting off all communication with home, and be subjected to tests for HIV.

Helen Williams, 34, from Newport, south Wales, said funds were already running dangerously low. “Some people are getting down to their last few pounds,” she said. “The sooner we get to Baghdad where we can live more cheaply, the better.”

Rajia Dhanjani, a 22-year-old hairdresser from south London, said: “I thought it would be hard when we got to Baghdad, but I had no idea the trip would be this awful. I thought the journey would be one long party.”

Last night the group held a crisis meeting at a cafe in Istanbul. The Turks showed themselves determined to impose more efficient organisation on the ramshackle British expedition which arrived almost a week behind schedule.

After three hours of debate, the Turks won through. The convoy will now remain in Istanbul until tomorrow.

“We have to show we are together on this,” said Tolga Temuge, 36, a Turk who quit his job as campaigns director of Greenpeace in the Mediterranean to travel to Iraq.

The British contingent were keen to strike out today for Ankara before heading to Syria en route for Jordan and then Iraq. However, the Turks, shocked at the shambolic antics of the British, pushed for a delayed departure to allow time to regroup.

The two red London buses, the white taxi and two minibuses will now head for Ankara tomorrow. Volunteers are trying to switch their minds from the disarray of recent days to the situations they will face on arrival in Baghdad, assuming they get there.

One of the buses, however, may have to find a new driver soon. Its driver, who identifies himself only as Gary, said the Syrian authorities had told him he would not be permitted to drive his vehicle through their country because his mother works for the Ministry of Defence in Britain.

If Gary’s mother’s job has made his journey difficult, his place in the convoy has been of little help to his mother. “My mum has had a really hard time because of me,” he said. “She works in intelligence and she has been blackballed by the ministry ever since they found out I was on the trip.”

Many participants are concerned they will run short of money and are unhappy at the prospect of a compulsory HIV test on the Iraqi border, about which they were not warned until this weekend.

“We are buying our own hypodermic syringes”, said Williams. “They could just as easily give you HIV with the needles in Iraq.”

Joe Letts, 52, a father of four from Dorset who was a cameraman during the last Gulf war and owner of the two red buses, was relieved finally to arrive in Istanbul last night but is determined his buses will make it to Baghdad.

“It was pretty hairy getting here and there were times I thought we wouldn’t make it. But the buses are running well now and we are definitely taking them all the way,” he said.

The rows started almost as soon as the group left London a fortnight ago, with arguments over which routes to take. A black bus owned by Ken Nichols O’Keefe, 33, a tattooed former US marine and Gulf war veteran, and full of young firebrands, drove through Germany — with a sightseeing stop-off at Dachau concentration camp — to Italy even though the vehicle was too tall for the Alpine tunnels and scraped its roof.

Another bus, one of the lumbering Routemasters owned by Letts, drove through France and waited for Nichols O’Keefe in Milan.

The tension was compounded when a group of Italian peace campaigners in designer clothes joined the Britons, many of whom are elderly activists wearing hippie-style clothes and cooking lentils aboard the buses. Instead of heading towards their objective, the peaceniks took a detour to Rome last Sunday for sightseeing.

Most of them eventually caught a ferry to Greece, but Nichols O’Keefe and a handful of others stayed behind with a stricken bus before flying to join the others. He was promptly detained in Istanbul and deported back to Italy.

He has angered other peaceniks by planning to meet Saddam on his arrival in Baghdad. At least five have returned home rather than deal with him and a Welsh couple have set out to reach the Iraqi capital on their own.

“People have got so fed up with him that they have dropped out,” said Letts. Nichols O’Keefe was dubbed “the messiah” and “Gandhi” by his less-than-enthusiastic fellow travellers. He had warned them any breakdowns “would be the work of the CIA”.

He is being held this weekend in an Italian jail and is facing deportation to the United States. His mother, Pat, who is continuing on the journey to Baghdad, said: “That would be the very worst outcome. It would be a disaster for him.”

Temuge, who is emerging as one of the new leaders of the group, said he thought the deportation was a political action on the part of the Turkish government. But volunteers were yesterday becoming increasingly disillusioned about the trip, its organisers and their chances of ever reaching Iraq.

Grace Trevett, a mother of four from Stroud, Gloucestershire, said: “There has been no democracy at all. Ken just tells people they have to like it or they can f*** off. If they can’t respect us, how are they going to respect the Iraqi people?” A soothing role has been played by Godfrey Meynell, 68, an Old Etonian former high sheriff of Derbyshire and son of a Victoria Cross holder. His wise air is helped by the copy of Plato and His Dialogues by G Lowes Dickinson which he reads in the bus. He admitted, however: “There is a real difference in spirit between the groups.

“Of course we are aware we may get used as propaganda or worse by Saddam Hussein. That is why we are very clear about our mission now so that it can’t be misinterpreted.”

The group will hope their experience is more fortunate than Meynell’s previous experience of a similar peace convoy. In 1956, he drove a van packed with corned beef to aid Hungarians rising up against the Soviets. The vehicle was stopped at the border.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: algorons; arewethereyet; baghdaddios; barbequethisbus; blair; bush; detritus; elitistlosers; escargotkrieg; excellentadventure; flowersforsaddam; freakinclowns; geekorama; gotducttape; holdmuhkumbuhyuh; imbreathless; iraq; journeywithjihad; kumbayatour; leftcoasters; lentils; magicalmorontour; notwithoutmytiedye; peaceniks; rollingblunder; saddam; saddamcrew; sendmetothemoon; silenceonthelam; spinaltap; suicidalidiots; targetthis; uk; unwashed; us; uselessmisfits; utterscum; wastedyouth; weenieroast; youthagainstsoap; youthwasted
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To: Asclepius
Turkey deported him to where, precisely?

The diplomatic thing would be to dump him in international waters.

One questions for the 'human shields':

Do you realize that after your flesh and bones are vaporized by American daisy cutter bombs, your ultimate human impact will be simply to have added to the greenhouse effect?

61 posted on 02/08/2003 5:13:08 PM PST by Monti Cello
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To: feinswinesuksass; Mercuria; HangFire; Lady Jenn; dead; dighton; Thinkin' Gal
Schadenfreude alert!!
 
(It doesn't get any better than this, FRiends. Who wants to write the script?)

62 posted on 02/08/2003 5:15:11 PM PST by AnnaZ
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To: MadIvan
Liberals could f*ck up a wet dream.
63 posted on 02/08/2003 5:15:30 PM PST by Trailerpark Badass
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To: MadIvan
Now if we cn get them to hold the GPS devices, they won't live long enough to remember seeing anything.
64 posted on 02/08/2003 5:17:47 PM PST by John Lenin
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To: MadIvan
The sooner we get to Baghdad where we can live more cheaply, the better.”

There's a revealing statement.
Pity if they don't make it. I'd love our armed forces to do Darwin's work with these idiotarians.

65 posted on 02/08/2003 5:17:47 PM PST by JAWs
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To: MadIvan; feinswinesuksass; Mercuria; HangFire; Lady Jenn; dead; dighton; Thinkin' Gal

Talking Heads --  Road To Nowhere

WELL WE KNOW WHERE WE'RE GOIN'
BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHERE WE'VE BEEN
AND WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE KNOWIN'
BUT WE CAN'T SAY WHAT WE'VE SEEN
AND WE'RE NOT LITTLE CHILDREN
AND WE KNOW WHAT WE WANT
AND THE FUTURE IS CERTAIN
GIVE US TIME TO WORK IT OUT

We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride

I'm feelin' okay this mornin'
And you know,
We're on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go

CHORUS

Maybe you wonder where you are
I don't care
Here is where time is on our side
Take you there...take you there

We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere

There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
and it's all right, baby, it's all right

And it's very far away
But it's growing day by day
And it's all right, baby, it's all right

They can tell you what to do
But they'll make a fool of you
And it's all right, baby, it's all right

We're on a road to nowhere

66 posted on 02/08/2003 5:18:02 PM PST by AnnaZ
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To: MadIvan
..or how about, "Suppose they threw an anti-war rally and noone came." LOL
67 posted on 02/08/2003 5:18:22 PM PST by perfect stranger (I like to leave this area blank.)
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To: MadIvan
If they think the trip was bad, wait until they are confronted with the choice of being blown to bits by the USA or shot to death by the Iraqis.
68 posted on 02/08/2003 5:20:05 PM PST by Rome2000
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To: lizma

London to Baghdad...999

Baghdad to Smithereens...Priceless :=)

69 posted on 02/08/2003 5:22:33 PM PST by Bob
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To: MadIvan
Bill & Ted & Saddams's Excellent Peace Advaenture

Dude.....I think we're lost!

70 posted on 02/08/2003 5:23:47 PM PST by keithtoo
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To: MadIvan
There are so many ironies in this article, that I just have to laugh!

For example, Saddam Hussein, the "benevolent dictator", requires that the people coming into his kingdom who support benevolent dictators, take HIV tests, whereas the US, under the "Evil Republican Capitalist" requires no such "discrimination". LOL! You can't make this stuff up!

71 posted on 02/08/2003 5:24:33 PM PST by Dec31,1999 (I wish Consevatives had thought about this 30 years ago!)
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To: Monti Cello
Do you realize that after your flesh and bones are vaporized by American daisy cutter bombs, your ultimate human impact will be simply to have added to the greenhouse effect?

Thanks a lot, I sprayed Mug Root Beer all over my screen! ROTFLMAO!!!

72 posted on 02/08/2003 5:26:01 PM PST by cardinal4 (The Clintons; second only to the Rosenbergs on hating America)
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To: MadIvan
“We are buying our own hypodermic syringes”, said Williams.

Bringing their own heroin too, no doubt.

73 posted on 02/08/2003 5:26:20 PM PST by Alouette
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To: MadIvan
Would some generous donor please come forward and finance the rest of the trip for these idiots so they can get to ground zero in Baghdad before the war starts and be quickly put out of their misery. Sheeesh!
74 posted on 02/08/2003 5:29:01 PM PST by Enough is ENOUGH
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To: MadIvan
Spinal Tap could not have put together a better tour.

Very funny.

75 posted on 02/08/2003 5:32:12 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Bob
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Turn over 999 and what do you have? :-P

Would've been better for the world if we allowed them passage. That way, when the bombs start falling, we would have less morons taking up space on this world.
76 posted on 02/08/2003 5:33:29 PM PST by Simmy
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To: MadIvan
The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft astray.

Someone should inform the Turkish authorities that these scum-sucking commie rats have secreted drugs where the sun don't shine. Hee hee

77 posted on 02/08/2003 5:33:52 PM PST by AF68
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To: CyberAnt
Yea, a cell phone does emit a weak EM signal. If you have an EM amplifier you can hear it send out short static bursts. How else do you think your phone gets calls? It's constantly querying the local cell tower to keep updated. Thus the little signal strength bar.
78 posted on 02/08/2003 5:34:03 PM PST by Bogey78O (It's not a Zero it's an "O")
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To: MadIvan
M.I.

Talk about miserable people...

If I was the CIA, I would hand-out roadmaps, money and food and get this same reporter to write daily stories regarding these troubadours of useful idiots...
79 posted on 02/08/2003 5:35:10 PM PST by Atilla_the_Hun
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To: perfect stranger
I'm thinking of learning Flash animation just so I can make a nice music video of them set to "I'm your puppet" by the boxtops.
80 posted on 02/08/2003 5:37:26 PM PST by Bogey78O (It's not a Zero it's an "O")
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