The Offensive Against Sadr

[anonymous]

Originally posted by babek-
The majority of the iraquis are shiites - and actually the in Iran born Ajatollah Sistani is their leader.

If Sistani survives until the elections in Iraq he will become the most votes of the (shiite) Iraquis.

The cleric Sadr on the other hand is a member of an old iraqui shiite dynasty which produced many famous ajatollahs who were highly respected by the iraqui shiites during the history in Iraq.
(Have you never asked yourself why one part of Bagdad is named "Sadr-City" ?)

He wants to become the leader of the shiites - and for this he cant sit and wait for the election or that the old Sistani possibly dies of natural death. So he plays his game in Nedjaf.

There were two other importat shiite ajatollahs - both, Ajatollah Chorei and Ajatollah Hakim wanted to cooperate with the US-occupation forces. And both were assassinated by shiite fanatics - and there are many hints that Sadr was behind these assasinations.

There were also attempts to assassinate Ajatollah Sistani, but Sistani is well protected by his own militia, the Badr-brigade, which were trained in Iran and sent to Iraq after the fall of Saddam to protect Sistani.
The Badr militia outnumbers the Sadr militia, but these are young men who are religious fanatics.

So maybe Sadr hopes that if the most holiest city of the shiites is under attack of heretics he could get control over them.

The importance of Nedjaf and Kerbala for shiites shouldnt be underestimated:

For the shiite muslims Nedjaf and Kerbala are holy cities and much more important than for example Mekka or Jerusalem.

In the past one of the most holiest people for the Shiites, Imam Husein, died in a battle against the (per shiite definition) sunnite heretics. He was badly outnumbered and there was no doubt that he and his small army would be killed in the battle - but he went into this battle and died along with all his people - becoming a martyr of shiite islam and a symbol of those who sacrifice themself in battle against heretics.

And this is the danger in the situation now: Sadr must be captured alive and shown as a prisoner in TV and press - then he will loose all his power in the shiite population at once.

If he manages to get killed in the holy city of the shiites with an outnumbered army against christian and sunnite heretics he will become a martyr and the situation could get totally out of control.

And if the US-troops will stop their attacks instead of getting or killing Sadr he will also gain much power and maybe try again to get Sistani assassinated to become the religious leader of the iraqui shiites.

So its quite interesting to follow the events in Iraq and the possible consequences.

thats a pretty good summary. i think odds in favor of him being killed in battle which could lead to bad things as you said. cross your fingers.

[anonymous]

Originally posted by Curval
Are all of the Iraqis spearheading this assault Shiites?

If not then I forsee problems.

maybe but as long as they are iraqis the "foreigner" card cant be played to the iraqi people. also by default majority are probably shiite because they are majority in iraq. well all know within a week maybe two whats going to happen anyways just hoping that a bunch of civvies dont get caught in the middle with nowhere to go. end it fast thats the best way to keep innocents from getting hurt.

[Curval]

Yes, it is a good summary.  A very good summary of just how screwed up religion can turn into.

Clerics murdering each other?  I mean, am I to believe these are holy people who respect anything at all except their own power?

It is like the guys sawing off the heads of hostages and shouting "God is Great" while they do so.

[Edbert]

Originally posted by anonymous
thats a pretty good summary. i think odds in favor of him being killed in battle which could lead to bad things as you said. cross your fingers.

If it comes to a point where his capture is imminent, once of hie leutenants will cap him and claim it was the USMC that did it. A great tool for recruiting more tools.

[mosgood]

Originally posted by Curval


Clerics murdering each other?  I mean, am I to believe these are holy people who respect anything at all except their own power?

 

 i hear ya.

Than again, we have priest taking advantage of childeren here soooooo.... how hard is it to believe?

[Curval]

Originally posted by mosgood
i hear ya.

Than again, we have priest taking advantage of childeren here soooooo.... how hard is it to believe?

Fair point.

[Eagler]

killing him brings its own risks

even his enemies will then martyr the nutbag sadr at that point and unite against the US

capture alive maybe impossible

does he have a blue or black turbin?

[babek-]

Originally posted by Eagler

does he have a blue or black turbin?

Black - so this is another problem.

But if they get him and present him as prisoner or he just flees - he will be forgotten by the shiites while he spend the rest of his days in prison.

If he dies in battle then the bastard will become a shiite hero.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by anonymous
thats a pretty good summary. i think odds in favor of him being killed in battle which could lead to bad things as you said. cross your fingers.

Babek really knows what he is speaking about, and so far all his predictions turned out to be true.

I wonder if US troops have experts on Moslim religion, social life and traditions? In Soviet times there was a special institution of political officers who studied this questions and specialized in dealing with Moslim population.

BTW, does US armed forces employ Mosilm servicemen and officers as some kind of "special force"? Russian Empire had special (I mean - different from others) Moslim troops, and even made special versions of medals "for non-Orthodox" without pictures of humans and animals. This attitude really helped sometimes.

[Edbert]

At least in this century I have been impressed with the way Russia has dealt with militant islamicists who attack them. When they finished killing all of the terrorists in that opera house, they took the corpses, put them in bodybags, then filled up the bags with bacon grease and buried them in undisclosed locations. According to Muslim theory those people will never get their 72 virgins!

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Edbert MOL
At least in this century I have been impressed with the way Russia has dealt with militant islamicists who attack them. When they finished killing all of the terrorists in that opera house, they took the corpses, put them in bodybags, then filled up the bags with bacon grease and buried them in undisclosed locations. According to Muslim theory those people will never get their 72 virgins!

I doubt that it was really done. It was reported by the most "yellow" and unreliable tabloid, "MK" ("Moscow Young Communist"). According to tradition their bodies must have been buried in some unknown graves and never shown to relatives, but no such offencive things to Moslim religion.

At least 20% of Russian population are Moslims, and some Moslim nations, as Tatars, are officially "Fundamentals of Russian State".

[anonymous]

Originally posted by Boroda
Babek really knows what he is speaking about, and so far all his predictions turned out to be true.

I wonder if US troops have experts on Moslim religion, social life and traditions? In Soviet times there was a special institution of political officers who studied this questions and specialized in dealing with Moslim population.

BTW, does US armed forces employ Mosilm servicemen and officers as some kind of "special force"? Russian Empire had special (I mean - different from others) Moslim troops, and even made special versions of medals "for non-Orthodox" without pictures of humans and animals. This attitude really helped sometimes.

yes and yes. many public affairs guys working in middle east are muslim. babek a current a current or former russian soldier?

[BUG_EAF322]

72 virgins ??


first make a prudence life and than....
fk all u can

what's left for the women btw??

[babek-]

No - I am not a russian nor a russian soldier

Nevertheless I admire much the russian culture as I also respect many other cultures in this world and try to learn as much from their history, so I can get at least a chance to understand these people.

I am glad that I have friends from Russia, Germany, France, USA, Brasil and other nations and I am proud that they consider me as a friend too.

And I consider history and culture as a key for understanding, why people from a nation act in a way others dont.

So I try to learn from them.


I have read in this forum many unrespectful stories about arabs, russians, french, americans and so on.

And there the problem starts: If someone shows no respect for another culture he defines it as inferior.
And instead of treating everyone as an equal conversation partner there are soon "friends" and "enemies", "superiors" and "inferiors" and then the chance of a real discussion and understanding dies in stupid flamings.

Back to your question: No - I am not a russian but its only a coincidence that I wasnt born in this great country which has an impressive and long history.

My real name is Babek and I am from Iran - another country with an old history and rich culture.

Iran is not only Khomeini and his mullahs - like Germany is not only Hitler and his Nazis.

It has a great history during the pre-islamic and also during the islamic period. A country full of poets, music, wonderful cities and also an old and complicated culture which was developed in the 2500 years Iran exists.

The people who live there are not monsters or terrorists - but they are still under the heavy influence of policy of foreign nations.

Not only the USA but all the other nations who were great powers during history and tried to use Iran as an ally/satellite/puppet.

I saw some results of these policy.

I was in Iran when the Shah ruled and also after the islamic revolution. I have been in an iranian city which was attacked during the Iran-Iraq-War by iraqui Scuds and have seen enough terror for a whole lifetime, because we didnt knew if the warheads of Saddam were equipped with gas weapons or not.
And no one in the world protested against these attacks, because we were defined as the "bad guys" and Saddam as the nice one.

Members of my family were killed during the revolution by islamic fanatics, others died as members of the iranian islamic army during the war against the arabs of Saddam.

But this didnt brought me to hate iraquis or arabs or sunnites or mullahs or whatever.

I only try to understand them and to get an answer to the question why they have their actual behavior, which elements influenced them, so they behave like they do and then to try to calculate what they will do in future if the actual parameters are not changed or if some of these parameters are changed.

The main problem in dealing with other nations is, that there is no real understanding or respect of their culture. Mostly own parameters and definitions of cultures are used.

As long as no one try to understand the "others" we will see situations like in Iraq today.


PS: Just a reminder: I know that my English is not good and I surely made many mistakes. But I tried to show you my point of view - hope that there was a little success

[VOR]

Originally posted by Adogg
He's a radical cleric. I would imagine that the opinion of the locals is split, probably a lot of people are ambivalent.

All they know is that the Americans are coming in to take an Iraqi cleric out.

For some it may just be as simple as a "them/us" situation. Understandable if regretable. We might all do the same thing if it were our home town.

I don't envy anyone on the ground in Iraq right now.

Didn't someone once say that truth was the first casualty of war?

Well said.