09-04-2004 06:09									#1
	Iraq, Shiite Armageddon, the Mahdi Army, chaos theory and the Hidden Imam Enter the AD-FREE zone

Its always good to know your enemy

A friend of mine is a leading government expert on Shiite Islam and Iran. He's been over in Washington briefing the US government before.

He was telling me that Al Sadr's insurrection strikes deep chords with Shiite believers and Al Sadr's playing on this to get support. Quite effectively it seems.

Firstly Al Sadr is identifying himself with the Prophet Ali and since Iraq is the home of the holiest places of shiite islam that isn't hard. The prophet Ali btw died leading a last stand of his followers against the caliphate in the same mosques and towns Al Sadr and his followers are now occuppying. You may have seen the posters of Al Sadr, next to them is often a poster of the Prophet Ali. This symobolism is very powerful.

Secondly, some Shiites believe that there is a messiah like figure called the "hidden Imam". The hidden imam will appear in a time of great chaos so extremists believe that creating chaos hastens the appearance of this Shiite saviour. The chaos caused by the fall of the Saddam regime and the occupation of Iraq by non beleiver forces has fed this kind of end of the world thinking. There is certainly plenty of chaos to build on.

Thirdly Al Sadr has called his forces the Mahdi Army. This is a direct reference to the forces of the hidden Imam who will arise in the armageddon-like time of chaos. It's like a millenarian movement (look it up) and it's not the first time that such forces have appeared. A Mahdi army led by a charismatic holy man fought the British in Sudan quite fanatically at the end of the 19th century - Gordon of Khartoum, that sort of thing.

So this is what you are fighting - a bunch of crazed fanatics who believe they are bringing about messianic salvation for Shiites by creating chaos in Iraq.

(I may not have the above 100% right because we were just discussing it over our morning coffee.)

It just gets better and better doesn't it?

	09-04-2004 06:15									#2
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and of course we knew this before we invaded

	09-04-2004 06:44									#3
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quote: Originally posted by MRT144 and of course we knew this before we invaded

If we didn't, we should have.

	09-04-2004 06:49									#4
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but why would we want the culture of people affect our plans for invasion

	09-04-2004 06:51									#5
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Well, you do have a point there. The whole region is filled with nutcases who make David Koresh look like a poster child for sanity.

	09-04-2004 06:59									#6
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Very informative news A.H. Thank you.

There is certainly something romantic about this uprising. It is quite distressing that if this rebellion is crushed, it means not only thousands of people's lives lost, but it means the end of people's dreams and hopes and adventure.

	09-04-2004 07:00									#7
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Well we will have to kill or capture all the insurgents and end this. Certainly these people do not speak for even a sizable minority of Iraqis.

"It is quite distressing that if this rebelion is crushed, it means not only thousands of people's lives lost, but it means the end of dreams and hopes and adventure."

Disgusting. These people are nothing more then thugs.

	09-04-2004 07:00									#8
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td? I thought you were a commie? Why are you romanticizing reactionary feudalistic right-wing evil?

	09-04-2004 07:02									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Tripledoc Very informative news A.H. Thank you. There is certainly something romantic about this uprising.

There is nothing romantic about those thugs and terrorists.

	09-04-2004 07:03									#10
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara td? I thought you were a commie? Why are you romanticizing reactionary feudalistic right-wing evil?

He must like the idea of kidnapped Japanese being burned alive if their government doesn't bow to the demands of terrorists.

	09-04-2004 07:10									#11
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara td? I thought you were a commie? Why are you romanticizing reactionary feudalistic right-wing evil?

I don't know. Something inside my head has moved me. I don't know what it is. Conscience?

I understand history in marxist terms, but I guess now I understand the present in other terms.

	09-04-2004 07:15									#12
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quote: I don't know. Something inside my head has moved me. I don't know what it is. Conscience?

I'd say that an irrational hatred of America is a much more likely source for your new love affair with terrorists.

	09-04-2004 07:22									#13
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quote: I'd say that an irrational hatred of America is a much more likely source for your new love affair with terrorists.

Sadr may be a bastard, but there's no reason to call him a terrorist.

Anyways, I think that Sadr's clout has less to do with these mystical factors, and more to do with our ineptitude, namely in several months of promoting in the hopes of co-opting (or weakly opposing them, we haven't had a coherent policy) private militias including the Mahdi Army as well as i.e. the Badr Corps, our total failure to create a civil society independent of religious strife through exacerbating unemployment by privatization and opposing trade unions (and, of course, supporting militias), not addressing the legitimate political demands of the Shia, in terms of our picks for local councils and our opposition to democratic elections, and more recently, going after Sadr through first attacking a legit institution - a newspaper (an action which served absolutely no practical purpose) at precisely the worst time to do such a thing.

I just have to get that off my chest.

	09-04-2004 07:22									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Tripledoc Very informative news A.H. Thank you. There is certainly something romantic about this uprising. It is quite distressing that if this rebellion is crushed, it means not only thousands of people's lives lost, but it means the end of people's dreams and hopes and adventure.

If it this is true, and these people's hopes, dreams, and adventure consist of creating chaos in order to hasten the apocalypse, it doesnt distress me at all if these dreams are crushed.

Fundamentalist whackjobs

	09-04-2004 07:34									#15
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I don't hate America. I have been to college in America and I liked it a lot. I found the teachers there very much inspiring. They always said "Think for yourself". I have seen Grand Canyon, and many other wonders.

I saw the violence. I saw the poverty too. And I saw a lot of decent people. I heard a lot of anger.

The most decent man I saw was our college dorm watchman who was a veteran of the Vietnam War. A black man with the thousand yard stare. He was always there when the cops or the security guards tried to bust someone for something. He drove us on trips to see the nature, to ski, or go waterrafting. A good man.

I disagree with US foriegn policy, which I feel is not beneficial to the American people.

	09-04-2004 07:36									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Tripledoc I don't hate America. I have been to college in America and I liked it a lot. I found the teachers there very much inspiring. They always said "Think for yourself". I have seen Grand Canyon, and many other wonders. I saw the violence. I saw the poverty too. And I saw a lot of decent people. I heard a lot of anger. The most decent man I saw was our college dorm watchman who was a veteran of the Vietnam War. A black man with the thousand yard stare. He was always there when the cops or the security guards tried to bust someone for something. He drove us on trips to see the nature, to ski, or go waterrafting. A good man. I disagree with US foriegn policy, which I feel is not beneficial to the American people.

Well you want American soldiers dead, and that says enough. You want this rebellion to kill more and more soldiers. 'Nuf said

	09-04-2004 07:50									#17
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Our watchman kept several guns in his house. Someone asked him why? He asked us if we trusted our governments.

I think that is why I understand why Americans have guns. I went to a shooting range myself. But I was a very poor shot. The man who tried to teach me to shoot was very friendly, but he agreed that guns was not for me.

	09-04-2004 08:35									#18
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And this explains, in what way, the romantic feelings you have for these insurgents?

	09-04-2004 08:38									#19
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dude, the insurgents are resisting an oppresive government they percieve in the united states. they are not very different from militias is the mountain states.

	09-04-2004 08:56									#20
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Hey AH I heard you feel like Shiite.

Don't Mecca big deal out of it.

	09-04-2004 09:03									#21
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quote: Originally posted by MRT144 dude, the insurgents are resisting an oppresive government they percieve in the united states. they are not very different from militias is the mountain states.

True.

They are both made up of whackjobs.

	09-04-2004 09:20									#22
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The Shi'as I've met in Iraq don't seem to be motivated by religious zeal so much as a desire to finalli see the majority shi'a take over Iraq. Sadr & Sistani have been claiming the Americans want to rig the system to disanfranchize the Shi'a (the Sunni are better educated and prior to the war were seen as more socialist and thus more pro-western). That's one of the reasons Sadr and Sistani keep pushing for immediate direct elections.

	09-04-2004 09:43									#23
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Give the guy a break. There's something human about having at least a guilty feeling that you wish you could support the hopeless underdog, even when it's a group of crazy murderous fanatical terrorists. There *is* something romantic about a few hundred people taking on the biggest superpower in the world for reasons they think are right, even if they only think that because they're rabid loony fundamentalists.

But acknowledging it's romantic doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to see them totally crushed.

	09-04-2004 09:43									#24
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You also have to consider recent polls showed only 1 out of 10 Shi'as support violence against coalition soldiers. So I think Sadr and Sistani are digging their own graves.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...ia_arabs_poll_1

"Shia Arabs in Iraq (news - web sites) generally do not support attacks against coalition forces like the ones that occurred over the weekend, according to a nationwide poll of Iraqis.



On Sunday, Shia Arabs in several parts of the country fought with coalition forces, killing at least 52 Iraqis and nine coalition troops. The confrontation threatened to open a dangerous new front: a confrontation with Iraq's powerful Shia majority, which has until now largely avoided violence with the Americans.


Attempts by U.S. troops to arrest Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have heightened tensions with Iraq's Shia majority at a time when those troops already face the Sunni guerrillas' bloody insurgency.


Anger at the United States peaks among Sunni Arabs, especially those who live in the central Iraq province of Anbar. That province includes Fallujah, where four contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated last week.


Shias are less likely than Sunnis to say the invasion of Iraq was wrong — by about 30 percentage points. And only one in 10 Shias say attacks on coalition forces are acceptable, compared with three in 10 Sunni Arabs and seven in 10 Sunnis in the Anbar province.


The poll of 2,737 Iraqis age 15 and older was conducted from Feb. 9-28 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, larger for subgroups like Shia Arabs. The poll was conducted by Oxford Research International for ABC News, the BBC, the German network ARD and the Japanese network NHK."

The Sunnis are more prone to violence against the coalition.

	09-04-2004 09:59									#25
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Al Sadr does not represent mainstream Iraqi shiite opinion.

	09-04-2004 10:00									#26
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quote: Sadr may be a bastard, but there's no reason to call him a terrorist.

In one of his speeches (or was it a statement?) he associated himself with Hizbullah and Hamas and supports these two groups. He who associates with them and therefore calls upon the killing of civilians, is a terrorist. He has also called upon his followers to "terrorise the Americans".

	09-04-2004 10:07									#27
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Sadr is a terrorist plain and simple. He doesn't represent the Shi'ia population, is actually hated by many shi'ias, and is putting his people through suffering. He isn't only terrorising americans there, he is terrorising his own people. He should be shot dead on sight and I think the majority of Shi'as would cheer that.

	09-04-2004 10:12									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Giant_Squid But acknowledging it's romantic doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to see them totally crushed.

I see this in the typical germanic urbanite sort of fashion.

Ach so the Amis have taken our oil-fields.
Let us build some cars which go 100 km per litre.
Maybe we can make a pop song or two.

	09-04-2004 10:15									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Tripledoc I see this in the typical germanic urbanite sort of fashion. Ach so the Amis have taken our oil-fields. Let us build some cars which go 100 km per litre. Maybe we can make a pop song or two.

No offense or all, but are you high on crack?

	09-04-2004 10:22									#30
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Note to self. Send more money to Spain.