http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040405/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716 ___ OK, guys, here is the next slaughter coming up... If I read this story right, a guy named Al-Sadr, a 30-year-old Shiite cleric, is going to stage a "sit in" at a mosque in Kufa, where he has delivered fiery weekly anti-US sermons for months. Why is this the next slaughter site? Glad you asked. It is because US forces in Iraq want to arrest him. Why does arresting this man pose a sure clash/slaughter? Because al-Sadr is considered by many in Iraq to be clergy of yet another of their beliefs, with many followers. "I am happy to die for al-Sayed [a Shiite clergy]," 21-year-old Ali Hussein said after being shot in the arm during fighting with troops in Najaf. "Take me to see my mother first then let me die." An example sentiment of one of his students, a Shiite. This "sit in" will most likely happen within the week. Such influence does Shiite have within Iraq that the arrest of Muqtada al-Sadr, a cleric, sparked 4 different riots that left many US soldiers and Iraqi faithful dead and wounded (not necessarily in that order). He may be staging a sit in for a couple reasons: 1) he knows insurgents will appear and blow themselves up in the crowds - this may be blamed on the US occupation; 2) he knows that the US may try to arrest him, thus be able to use himself as a trap to lure in US troops to be taken on by both the faithful Shiites and insurgents. If enough "faithful" Shiites get body bagged "by US troops" this may ignite a mushroom cloud explosion within the religious ranks of Islam, turning more and more of their "clergy" into having anti-US occupation sentiment, thus influencing additional followers, and so on. This also may be... bad... for the US's standing in the world's sight - there may even be a direct condemnation of the US actions thus increasing pressure to withdraw. Here's the kicker: If the US does NOT act, this "sit in" could be the catalyst for strengthening anti-US sentiment among Iraqis. Thoughts? Sam
Sam, No thoughts but the word, "quagmire" keeps coming closer and closer to describing what is taking place in parts of Iraq. DS
Imagine all the man power and money being wasted just on keeping order ( not to mention the death toll keeps increasing )...In the mean time all this is being diverted from our goal of fighting terrorism.... MAV what say you amigo??
Sad but true. Brent Scowcroft was right, but no one in the Bush Administration wanted to listen to the former National Security Advisor.
As a nice side-effect, the continued conflicts in the middle east helps keeping the oil prices at new highs. So the administration is doing in the tax payers in double terms - both in sense of the military expenses and the oil prices. Not to forget the new generations of would-be-terrorists, who got their families killed.
This guy is already holed up in the mosque. As soon as the US gets thru filling a few more body bags in Fallujah, they will head over and try to arrest this guy. These guys are like mushrooms and they will never go away. It's like going to the carnival and playing "whack-a-mole" while everyone is pushing and shoving you, and about every third guy in the crowd behind you has an RPG. I don't see this getting much better any time soon. This is starting to look like Somalia on the ground.
The cleric is reported (by CNN) as holding up in a mosque with a few thousand of his most militant followers, mostly armed. Today 12 US soldiers were bagged in the violent attempt to stem the uprising, and experts reported that Al-Sadr just has a 3-0-40% following of all the shiites in the country. A "massacre" of these followers in/around the mosque by "infidel occupiers" would not play to nicely around the world (esp. middle east). A real powder cake of a situation.
The Marshall Plan was able to turn post WW2 West Germany into a modern civilized nation. If the plan worked with the genocidal bloodthristy German savages, couldn't the same sort of plan work with these bloodthirsty Islamo-savages? I don't know the answer...just asking.
Rearden, sure - just do some more carpet bombing, a few tens of millions of collateral civilan damage ... then I guess they'll be passified for good, just like the german civilians. With Japan - all it took was 2 bombs. Bush Sr. said a nuclear war is winnable - why should Jr. think any different ?
And how does this actually differ from terrorism that the Bush administration is "fighting"? How killing civillians is different from the last bomb massacre in Spain or in NYC on 9/11/2001?