Posted on 08/14/2004 4:36:01 PM PDT by fiftymegaton
Al-Sadr’s PLO Tactics And Why We Cannot Allow Them To Continue
Right now in Najaf, Iraq Moqtada al-Sadr and many of his Mahdi Army militiamen are holed up in the Imam Ali Shrine and in the surrounding cemetery. The Imam Ali Shrine is one of the Shi’ite muslims’ most holy sites. This is where al-Sadr retreated to after his Mahdi Army was beaten AGAIN by joint US and Iraqi forces. Yesterday or the day before when AGAIN al-Sadr’s future looked grim he AGAIN asked for a ceasefire with American and coalition forces. Coalition forces immediately obliged him and went to a defensive posture only. Just this morning August 14, 2004 al-Sadr called off ceasefire talks and proudly exclaimed that he and his followers ‘will fight to the death’. He apparently used the day or two of ‘talks’ to rearm and regroup. This begs the question of why do we continuously consider giving into a ceasefire and letting al-Sadr walk? This terrorist has led an uprising against coalition forces(Iraqis included) that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis and coalition troops plus hundreds if not thousands more being wounded.
Agreeing to a ceasefire with terrorists doesn’t work and there is a precedent that proves this. In Israel Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization(PLO) along with his Fatah group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad have continuously for years pretended they were considering a ceasefire with Israel just to gain a week or two in order to regroup and resupply in the preparation for more attacks against Israel and then they would simply reject a ceasefire agreement and continue their bombings, etc.
Al Sadr’s strategy seems to be almost identical to those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in their fight against Israel. But recently in the last few months the plans of Hamas have been disrupted as Israel has taken on a new strategy of their own in targeting and consequently decimating the leadership of Hamas. In fact in the time since Israel has employed this new technique terror attacks by Hamas have decreased by something like 90+%. It is obvious Israel’s strategy of attacking the terrorist leadership has worked and in my opinion these same tactics should be employed by the US in Iraq not just against Zarqawi but also against al-Sadr who is on an equal plain with his Sunni counterpart. Just capturing and imprisoning the terrorist leaders won’t be enough because their followers will still believe they have something(or someone) to fight for(the release of their leader). We need to kill these animals and the killings should start with al-Sadr.
I realize there is a general fear that killing al-Sadr will cause an even more widespread Shi’ite uprising but I think this fear is unfounded. Al-Sadr is a terrorist plain and simple. I believe that the great majority of Iraqis agree(Shi’ites included), seeing al-Sadr as a terrorist outlaw. Although al-Sadr’s Mahdi army consists of many Iraqi sympathizers(at most a few thousand) it also consists of many foreigners including many Iranians. This fact along with a pile of other evidence clearly shows al-Sadr is almost definitely acting on orders that originate in Iran. Seeing the definite connection between the current Mahdi army uprising and Teheran and consequently having the plans of the Iranian mullahs for Iraq exposed shows that the killing of al-Sadr should be carried out as quickly as possible. We should kill al-Sadr now and if someone steps up to be his replacement we whould kill him too or else the uprising will continue indefinitely and Iran will continue to undermine the push toward Iraqi democracy.
And the answer = Iran
I think the U.S. is trying to let the Iraqi government take more responsibility for the situation.
They don't seem to be stepping up very much just yet.
I agree, 50MT. And we've all heard the same crap about Arafat -- that killing him will "make him a martyr" and create a far worse situation. This is nonsense, of course. Brutal force is the only language Islamists are capable of comprehending, and serves to dissuade them if anything. Negotiating with them results in the exact opposite effect, of course. This incessant worry about upsetting the "Arab street" is getting pathological........and costly.
The longer he's a jihadi magnet, the more jihadis who line up in plain sight for us to kill them.
Israel used that tactic against the Hamas leadership a few months ago to great success.
We could pour liquid nitrogen into and over it and freeze those pukes, and not harm the mosque. There would be no survivors.
Holy is as Holy does. When those who proclaim sites to be holy, use them as havens of rest and fortresses for terror warriors. Only their foes with holes in their heads will continue to hold back the total destruction of the alleged Holy place.
It is past time that this so called holy place, gets turned into the mother of all holes in the ground.
My opinion.
lol.....or we could just gas it.
You mean like 'till the Hell freezes over'... !?
If we are going to use your strategy then we might as well nuke the entire middle east because he'll attract them forever.
Well, if you want to expand the scope of the solution to the entire ME, then yes I'd agree that an opening salvo of five very high yield nukes (Cairo, Damascus, Mecca, Medina, Tehran) would be appropriate. As far as Iraq itself goes, it costs the enemy a lot of resources to put a man in there, and gets them very little out of it. So while we're still fighting, guys like Sadr suck the life from the enemy.
Read up on how Algeria and Peru defeated their terrorists!
That said, two things are apparent:
1. If a warlord is allowed to gain political power, or to gain power to influence events, at gunpoint, then a democracy cannot exist. Negotiation with warlords only gives them an undeserved legitimacy.
2. Martyrs still have one thing in common...they are all dead. Since al Sadyr and those of his ilk obviously fear death and defeat (proven by their complete absence from the field of combat, and their willingness to "negotiate" when they feel the noose tightening), that fear should be encouraged by making it a VERY real and immediate possibility.
3. If opposing political parties and groups form in Iraq, that is a good thing and in keeping with free expression and democratic ideals. However, armed insurrection and wanton killing ARE NOT legitimate forms of dissent, and should be crushed immediately. in Iraq's current state, these "militia" groups and warlords can do NO good. They act only to seize power.
I do trust that our government, and that of Iraq, know these things. Al Sadr and his minions will soon exhaust their patience. President Allawi will probably soon give assent to the liquidation of al Sadr. He cannot allow such a challenge to the new government to stand, religion, "holy sites", or no.
Gasing the Mosque is illegal. Freeze it, with them inside.
Early on, Bush should have declared the Mosque Rules:
1. Prayers at all mosques in the Middle East are monitored. Should any word be uttered urging terrorism in any form, the mosque will be levelled the very next Friday during prayer session.
2. US military personnel are our most valued commodity. Should any weapons be fired at them from any mosque, the treatment described in #1 will be applied vigorously.
3. The timetable described in #1 may be delayed to suit our needs. (Keep the buggers on edge.)
4. Members of peaceful mosques will be offered rewards cards with frequent flyer points.
The "militias" will soon die off. These idiots are nothing but cowards.
The last time we really did this was in Grenada, and the time before that was in WWII!
If Israel had ever been allowed to completely defeat the enemy, the middle east would be a much different place today. Imagine what things might be like today if the USSR hadn't pressured the US and UN to force Israel to stop when they were just 50 miles from both Damascus and Cairo!
We need to give them an ultimatum, and if they don't evacuate the mosque, have the Iraqi troops reduce it to rubble. And if they don't, drop a single daisy cutter on the minneratte.
Mark
You seem to be under the impression that the anti-Coalition terror campaign going on in Iraq is being carried out solely by Iraqis and that is not the case at all. There have been reports of mainly Iranian and Syrian insurgents but also Saudis, Egyptians, Tunisians, Jordanians, Algerians, and who knows how many others. So if we are going to talk about killing all the jihadis then we can't limit our scope to just Iraq when the jihadis in Iraq are coming from the entire Middle East and beyond.
And although I agree that eventually we will have to deal with ALL the jihadis, I think in order to secure Iraq in the quickest possible fashion the best option is to kill the leaders of the anti-coalition groups. As to dissuade the rest of the would-be insurgents from wanting to travel to Iraq to fight the coalition and also to disrupt the current insurgents planning capabilities.
When you talk about keeping the anti-coalition, anti-democracy leaders alive so they keep attracting jihadis from abroad all in order to weaken the enemy(I assume you mean all other terrorist sponsoring states and international terror groups) by making them use up their resources to send terrorists into Iraq all I can think is I hope you won't mind twenty years from now when we are still fighting an insurgency in Iraq. Because all the real resources that are being used up are the terrorists themselves and there will always be a plenty supply of them as long as we allow them a group to be recruited into.
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