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| 7/9 |
| 2004/8/23-24 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:33087 Activity:insanely high |
8/23 Besieged Al-Sadr keeps grip on shrine
"Iraqi government claims that police had arrested hundreds of the
radical cleric's fighters and taken over his headquarters in Najaf
could have come from Saddam's Comical Ali ..."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1288386,00.html
\_ Hey! Have some respect for other cultures. They didn't really
mean they had arrested hundreds of Al-Sadr's men and taken over
his HQ's.
\_ I predict that if the Sadr militia isn't exterminated, it was
because of "politics". U.S. military forces won every battle but
lost the war because of "politics". Dang, that's how we lost
the Vietnam War! Hmm, who to blame ... I blame the Iraqi people
the Vietnam War! Hmm, whom to blame ... I blame the Iraqi people
who don't want to take firm control of their own country! And if
France/Germany/Russia had fessed up to their financial motives and
had joined our coalition before the war, we would have had the
international consensus to build a free Iraq!
\_ Funny me.. I thought we were at war against Saddam. Or was
it Al Qaeda? Or terrah?
\_ Your logic is so tortured that I can only assume it was
meant as satire.
\_ ... and if Kerry becomes President, then we'll definitely
have someone to blame!!!!1!
If the economy slows down, it's because he withdrew the tax
cuts. If the economy picks up, it's because the tax cuts
are finally taking effect!!1!!!
If there's a terror attack, it's because he's not protecting
the homeland, like Bush would. If there isn't one, that's
because of the strong homeland security dept Bush set up!
I could be the next Karl Rove!!!!%1!!%$15
\_ I personally think that if we could convince some national
level whackjob to join the csua and post to the motd it
would rule.
\_ stop frothing. it isn't becoming.
\_ Dignity gentlemen. Unless you want your grandkids speaking Arabic,
Chinese, or Spanish.
\_ you are saying that Chinese, Arabic or Spanish are somehow
inferior?
\_ I'd rather that my kids speak Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, _and_
English. Why do you want to limit my grandchildren? Why do
you hate children?
\_ Of all the threads the censors choose to delete or save, why in the
Hell did you leave this useless multi-trolled PoS? Is there any
reasaon at all for these useless bits to waste more precious
bandwidth? Seeing this crap stay but real political discussion
and debate backed by URLs, etc, get purged instantly makes me
think the censoring is not anti-politics, but anti-I-just-got-
crushed-in-a-debate censorship.
\_ An article that suggests the media is, once again, not reporting
reality, versus an endless series of lies about what happened
3 decades ago, and you call the latter "real political discussion".
\_ We know the media reports what they want not what is. The
rest of the posts that follow add nothing. It's 2+ pages of
snarky I-feel-so-clever comments and uhm, yeah.
\_ Uh, but the URL was the _media_ reporting what really seems
to be going on - it was more the Iraqi interim government
that is doing the "sky green, sea pink" reporting. I agree
with you that in general the coverage of the Sadr army
revolt has been abysmal, but the Observer tends to do a
pretty good job. --op [restored]
\_ His entire force is reduced to holding 1 building and the court
yard around it? He's doing well.
\_ You're being sarcastic, but it's exactly what he wants. The best
thing that could happen, as far as Al-Sadr is concerned, is for
the US forces to destroy the shrine and kill him. The
destruction of the shrine will create tens of thousands of
Shiite jihadis overnight, and Al-Sadr's death will elevate him
from a mediocre cleric with a revered father to the status of
a revered martyr.
\_ It's too late for that. He's gotten a huge following just
for resisting the US and keeping them from the Shrine. The US
has been too obsessed by this guy. I'm waiting for a marine
to go nuts and blast the shrine with something big.
\_ "Something big" - obviously you have no military training |
| 7/9 |
|
| observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1288386,00.html The Observer Asked how the battle was going, Commander Abu Mohammad Hilu showed off his latest trophy - a blood-drenched American boot. His colleague, Abu Ali, added: 'Originally there was an American foot inside it and a bit of the leg. We had been driving through the high street in Kufa, another stronghold of the Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr, some three kilometres from the shrine where he and his supporters are still holed up. Mahdi army soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs spotted us, then targeted us. In a convoy of two cars, with guns pointing and pushing at us, we were taken to Kufa's mosque. Ten minutes later The Observer's Iraqi fixer got us released after phoning a high-ranking Sadr aide. The aggression disappeared, the fighters turned profusely apologetic. More than two weeks after launching their uprising in Najaf, the Mahdi army was - despite reports to the contrary - still in control of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine - and much of the rest of Iraq. In pre-dawn darkness, American tanks and Humvees also staged a raid on Kufa, trundling down the high street and past the library. Crunching over the melted remains of ceiling fans, he pointed to a small annexe room soaked in blood. On Friday afternoon Iraq's interior minister claimed his police had taken control of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine and arrested several hundred 'lightly armed' fighters. It was a boast that might have come from Saddam Hussein's notoriously unreliable information minister, 'Comical Ali'. Arriving at the mosque a couple of hours later, I found nothing had changed. Hundreds of unarmed supporters of Sadr still loafed on mats inside the shrine's courtyard. In the narrow alleyways around the mosque, Mahdi army fighters - one wearing a black Manchester United strip - chatted in the late afternoon sunshine. Yesterday Sheikh Azhar Kenani, head of Kufa mosque, told The Observer that his fighters would mow down Iraqi troops, should they attempt to storm the shrine. But he has been reluctant to embroil himself in the crisis and is currently receiving heart treatment in London. The gesture is unlikely to end the standoff, the sheikh admitted. Sitting cross-legged on a carpet outside Kufa's gold-domed mosque, over cups of sweet black tea, other Mahdi army fighters yesterday said they had no intention of giving up. Nearby, a group of men were carrying away the latest martyr for burial - killed at 3am yesterday when an American tank blew a hole through the west corner of the neighbouring Maitham Tamar mosque. But even if American forces do seize the shrine, it seems unlikely that the Sadr insurgency raging across Shia Iraq will disappear. The College of Economics, which overlooks the shimmering Euphrates river, had a large Edam-shaped hole gouged out of its roof by an American bomb early yesterday. US warplanes control the skies above Kufa, dropping two bombs at 7am yesterday on a deserted mosque. But they don't control its streets - or the densely packed alleys around Najaf's shrine, where the Mahdi army appears to have shrugged off nights of bombardment. |