Posted on 09/08/2004 12:08:38 PM PDT by PastaBagel
From Pastabagel.com
Moqtada Al Sadr, the religious zealot behind the uprisings in Iraq, needs to go. And by “go” I mean to jail forever, or straight to hell. Whichever. Because if Al Sadr is still walking the Earth a free man in January, he will either become the legitimately elected ruler of Iraq, or its kingmaker.
As bad as things are now, if Al Sadr isn’t gone by the time Iraqi elections are held in January, the situation there is going to get a lot worse. We could end up losing the war in Iraq, which in turn could become an islamofascist playground.
And you can blame the U.N., and France in particular, for creating this problem. I’m not joking. Thanks to a U.N. election mandate driven by the French behind the scenes, Iraq’s electoral system will use a proportional representation system similar to that found in most of Europe that will guarantee gridlock and fringe politics.
Read the rest of this analysis on Pastabagel.com
Let's shoot the bastard already!
Sadr will be neither the elected leader or the "kingmaker". IT wont happen. Either he is free, or capture/killed, the Najaf business has soiled his rep with the Iraqi people to the point that he does not have the clout he used too. Besides, he and Sistani are on the outs a bit because he used the shrine as a courtroom according to the AP.
I disagree with your analysis, of course it may look that way outside of Iraq too...
These mopes don't have a clue. Mookie provides excellent training situations for the new Iraqi forces and keeps the Americans fresh. They also seem ignorant of the fact that most of the killing of our troops are not by the lame-brains he has but by the Sunni carbombers.
Bless you boy and keep the faith.
forgot to post this as well....
Sadr is an @$$, but he is also a cleric. The Iraqi people will look past their current differences if we kill Sadr because we will then be killing a cleric of their religion, kind of similar to if you are Catholic and someone pops the Bishop....
You're sort of missing the point. All those people carrying guns for Al Sadr will get a chance to vote for him or Sistani or some puppet stand-in. Sadr's already said he wants to be a part of the political process.
The moment he gets any votes, he becomes a player, because he can broker his percentage to somone looking to build a coalition. It's not like here, where anything under 50% doesn't count. In proportional representation, any percentage gets that many seats in parliament. Do we really want theocrats like al sadr, or even sistani, getting a say in the future of the country when their idea of the future is iran?
There aren't...
However, if Sadr really had the following of a bishop (Sistani does, but he is a much higher ranked cleric as well), we would still be fighting in Najaf. He doesnt.
But if we kill him, the people will see him as a martyr...right now they see him as a troublemaker. This isnt as far fetched as you would think....and it will rile the Shia populace like the killing of a Catholic Bishop, for example, would with the Catholic faithful....
I dont think I am missing anything....
First off, Sistani doesnt like what Iran has become. He says that the islamic revolution there isn't a revolution of the "people".
Secondly, Sistani is not so far as I have heard, getting involved in the politics of this nation. He is a Cleric, he knows it, and he likes it.
Sadr didnt have that many followers. his contingent won't be that big unless we do something stupid and make him into something he isnt. Right now, he is breathing air and, like Kerry, loses support every time he opens his mouth. If we kill him, the people who are around him will build him up into something WE all know he isnt, but the Iraqi people will have just lost a Cleric and are more apt to believe that he was something special....
Killing Sadr isn't an option anymore.
Take that back...I found a instance of a Jesuit revolt against Spain and Portugal in paraguay in the MId-1700's....
John Gunther states that the Catholic Church grew rich and decadent in America. In fact, Paraguay became practically a Jesuit colony. “Nowhere did the clergy, secular or regular, bestow upon the people anything like proper recompense for their inordinate position, though an effort was made in education.”41
In agreement with Gunther is Mariano Picon-Salas who wrote that even long before the expulsion the generally bad relations between Spain and the order were at their worst in Paraguay “where they held a virtual fiefdom.”42
In 1754 the Paraguayan Fathers led their Indians in a revolt against a Spanish-Portuguese boundary treaty, and in Peru, Jesuits were accused of terrorizing Indians and depriving them of land, wages, women, children and personal freedom. The Bourbons also cited widespread smuggling, graft, cheating of Indians and a general tendency to ignore orders from Spain.43 This weakening of the bonds between. the Old World and the new invited intervention by rival powers and this, too, became a factor in the expulsion of the Jesuits.
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/5/82.05.07.x.html
I refuse to click on unknown, personal blogs when you could just as easily post the WHOLE article. Stop pimping for blog hits.
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