Kidnapping of Americans Linked to al-Sadr

ABC News ^ | November 17 2006 | LUIS MARTINEZ

[jmc1969]

A senior Defense Department official told ABC News that Shiite militiamen tied to anti-American cleric Moqtada al Sadr were behind the abduction of four American security contractors and an Austrian co-worker seized in a brazen attack on a supply convoy near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The search for the missing contractors resulted in a raid by coalition forces earlier today near the Kuwait border that resulted in the deaths of two Iraqi gunmen, but no hostages were found.

Throughout the day, statements from Iraqi officials — later discounted — led to reports that some of the hostages had been released or found dead. However, their employer, Crescent Security Group, said there had been no claim of responsibility, no demand for ransom and no communication of any kind from the hijackers.

Despite the confusion, new details emerged about the incident Thursday that took place 20 kilometers north of the Iraqi city of Safwan, located near the border with Kuwait.

A senior defense official said it was believed that the gunmen who ambushed the convoy were wearing newly issued Iraqi police uniforms that are supposed to be tightly controlled, hard to duplicate and were issued only last month.

Only a month ago, the coalition began distributing the digitally altered blue camouflage uniforms to National Police Brigades. The uniforms are also tied to the mass kidnapping earlier this week in Baghdad at the Education Ministry.

[RightWhale]

It would be time to deal with this permanently.

[Marine_Uncle]

The problem with these threads is that to often what we in haste for whatever reason(s) put in print a quick response, that really requires sometimes dozens of paragraphs to outline in detail each point we want to make relative to the over all picture.
We, at least I, take it for granted, that those that often interact at FR on issues, tend to remember the over all position of those I interact with.
I see nothing out of whack with anything said amongst this thread group. We are all appreciative to a high degree why the fat boy must be taken out along with his key administrative and militaristic side kicks.
Likewise we all appreciate why it is imperative for Hakim and his Badr Brigade to also be disbanded.

I do think we should be careful as how we throw around the phrase often used by the POTUS, stay the course.
It obviously means different things to different people here and outside FR.
And it would be unfair not to emphasize the phrase has had to accommodate things that came to past, that require adjusted thinking to some degree.
Current Iraqi politics due to the process allowed to develop in how the government was to be formed and guided by a constitution, have thrown all types of barriers in the way of obtaining the original solution.
And obviously we can write scores of sentences to delineate why the original plan for a united secular government is now so much the harder to achieve, due to the likes of Sadr, Hakim, their parliamentary system, their voting rules, etc..
So many often convoluted and twisted scenarios have surfaced due to their very cultural/religious/tribal means of living.
It is clear they cannot change their basic believe systems in such a short period of time. Most probably never will.

However I believe we all would state along the same lines that stay the course means in essence, a total disbandment of all Iraqi militias, the continued training and refinement of the Iraqi military (airforce,army,navy,special commandos), as well as a by province police force that meets the needs of all Iraqi within those provinces under a given governor.
And obviously the continued interacting between the Iraqi forces and Coalition forces to bring down the many groups participating in the ongoing insurgency. Now I leave so much untouched don't I?
But that does not mean I differ in the over all game plan we would all like to see happen in due course.
What royally fizzes off so many here, often people that have loved ones serving in Iraq as I write, is what you all in slightly different writing styles make note of.

Not a soul at FR, wants to hear about even one more American fighting man/women being WIA or KIA.
Let us earnestly hope the proposed doubling of the defense budget for 2007 in effect indicates the US has plans on sending in whatever number/size/mix of division of Army and Marines to put a terrible hurting on all those in Iraq that appose this IG and the idea of a secular unity government, on a time frame that does not exceed this POTUS watch.

It is high time that the now immortalized words Marine General Mattis used some three years back..."we will wear silk gloves, and no better friend or worse enemy shall come into play, on a grand scale.
If the above does not start happening soon, then all jmc1969 and I have said is we are loosing our spirit to want to support the methodologies being used in Iraq to turn it around. The IG HAS NO EXCUSE AT THIS POINT. Jaafari and his associates where dumped. Maliki was brought on board to reverse the then obvious trends being shown by the Shia to play their own game.
I see next to nothing of importance being done by Maliki in regards to disbanding all the militias. If this is a frigen little game they play. Then call it for what it is, and take appropriate measures and FULLY DISCLOSED CONSEQUENCES they will have to endure. If they are playing typical A Rab games and theatactrics with us, then that has to stop. Yes it is their country, but our troops are there for a specific purpose. And clearly the IG is not honoring it's side of the bargain. Assuming there actually has been a solid established agreement between the US/Coalition representative governments and the IG as to just what their goal is to be/desired.
Time for Maliki to get the hell off his ass and show he can be brutal with these militias.
This crap Maliki says in effect ...we will not tolerate them, then do nothing of significance, or demand US troops withdraw from the capital's neighborhoods (checkpoints) because it is causing TRAFFIC JAMS is BULL SHIT.

[Steel Wolf]

The whole point of this thread is you pitching a fit and withdrawing your support from the war because you, in your infinite wisdom, think the Mahdi Army should be taken down by US forces, now, before they ethnic cleanse the Sunnis and wipe out the Badr Brigades.

I often disagree with jmc, especially on Sunni/Shia relations, but he's entirely right on this point. While I find the thought of the Iraqi Sunnis driven to ruin both comforting and cathartic, it is certainly not in our interest to allow the Madhi Army to do so.

Letting al-Sadr take over Iraq entirely, in order to set up a theocratic satellite state of Iran, with AQI as the leader of the Sunni resistance, and America forced to withdraw under fire, is a merger of worst case scenarios. We'd have been a lot better off leaving Saddam in power if this is how it's going to end.

What benefit would the U.S. derive from, as you say, allowing the Madhi Army to ethnically cleanse the Sunnis and wipe out the Badr brigades?

[jmc1969]

I understand why some see the Madhi Army as potentally more friend then enemy because they like us are fighting Sunni insurgents.

But, that is about the only place our interests coincide. If the Madhi Army is left to its own divices long term it will produce Hezbollah on steroids in the heart of the Middle East. We have a limited amount of time to keep that from happening.

[Steel Wolf]

I understand why some see the Madhi Army as potentally more friend then enemy because they like us are fighting Sunni insurgents.

As much as I dislike the WWII comparisons, here's one that's particularly apt.

Imagine the Sunnis and Shia are the Germans and Russians. Even though we were fighting Germany, would it have been in our interest to withdraw from Europe after landing at Normandy, and let Stalin wipe out the Nazis for us, all the way to France? Al-Sadr is no more our friend than Uncle Joe was, common enemy or not.

If that's their reasoning for supporting the Madhi Army, then they need their heads examined.

[Marine_Uncle]

"If the Madhi Army is left to its own divices long term it will produce Hezbollah on steroids in the heart of the Middle East. We have a limited amount of time to keep that from happening."
Precisly the point. They are really no short/mid/long term solution other then the few Sunni/al-Qaeda/Saddmist goons they may kill that wonder into their neighborhoods.
They have no business at this point playing traffic cop, nor local militia. Iraq needs no militias. It needs a solid unified army and police force under guidance of the federal government and prospective provinces governments.

[freeangel]

It would sure be nice if someone took this pos out yesterday.

[Marine_Uncle]

I would be careful to fall into that analogy. Remember General's Patton and MacArthur's time proven warnings.
Russia having taken over all of Europe would have also taken over Britain in due time, then spread their iron wall further into the oil rich mid east etc.. We would have had a hell of a time fighting them. FDR and his cronies where fools for the most part in how they treated uncle Joe. At least Churchhill realized from the onset the commies had a world plan to take over everyone eventually.

[Marine_Uncle]

Whoops! Forget my follow up comments. I failed to properly read your comment to jmc1969. Obviously what I wrote simply echo your analogy.

[melancholy]

Many of us echoed the concerns about Sadr for at least a couple of years already.

Nobody is listening to the obvious.

We can't win a war that's not persecuted "militarily"; it's run politicaly with a heavy dose of PC. It's destroyed by the MSM and their RAT allies.

NOW, can you say Viet Nam? A war that was "lost" in Washington and never on the battlefield.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

What benefit would the U.S. derive from, as you say, allowing the Madhi Army to ethnically cleanse the Sunnis and wipe out the Badr brigades?

I didn't say that.

I said:

you, in your infinite wisdom, think the Mahdi Army should be taken down by US forces, now, before they ethnic cleanse the Sunnis and wipe out the Badr Brigades.

Al Qaeda In Iraq, Saddam's bully boys, and all the other bad guys in Anbar would be greatly inconvenienced if they had to take time out from planting IEDs and lobbing mortars to run for their lives from Shiite death squads. And that's a bad thing?

"Allowing" the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades to kill each other off supposes that they need our permission. They don't. How much American effort should go in to preventing two enemies from killing each other?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I don't support Mookie or Iran, but I do support the idea that Iraq is a sovereign nation and the US Army and Marine Corps supports that idea, too, which is why Mookie is not going to be taken out by Americans.

You do believe in democracy, don't you?

[Scarchin]

This would be a good time for the Dems to show how tough they are and finally call for someone to blow the turban off that whackjob's head...with a bazooka!

[Nancee]

"...A war that was 'lost' in Washington and never on the battlefield."

History would be a great teacher if the left-liberals would stop playing politics and allow us to win the war we're fighting now...one of the wars they have set us up to lose by virtue of their PC and politics!! The more I see, read, and hear, the angrier I become with these fools! They are the ones costing us American lives...like one of their mascots, Cindy Sheehan...carping all of the time about that which she and her hard left friends have brought upon us with their never-ending criticism of the manner in which the most recent war is being fought....at least some of the blood will forever remain on their hands!!

Nancee

[melancholy]

the left-liberals would stop playing politics and allow us to win the war we're fighting now.......at least some of the blood will forever remain on their hands!!

Unfortunately, they wash their hands off it with a good brand of soap; the MSM. They "dry" their hands through the ultra-liberal teaching community in public schools and colleges. Nailing the twisted truth through the ultra-liberal historians follows this. Now they are "known to be" the clean, compassionate peaceniks” a la Cindy Sheehan and the 60s crowd.

Example: who had the Viet Nam blood on his hands? The twisted answer is: Nixon!.... He gets no credit for ending the war with no reference or even mention that it was started by JFK and expanded by LBJ!

Et voila, that's what's being taught to our kids as "history."

[Nancee]

Indeed! But wasn't it Lady MacBeth who, try as she might, just couldn't get that bright red sticky stuff off her hands? She went mad, didn't she with the results of her deeds?

I know, I know...these Democrats appear to be able to ignore that substance and keep rolling over the facts and doing further dirty deeds.

I know, the wrong people get the credit for all the reasons you have articulated....nevertheless...there are enough of us around to make it clear that history has been and continues to be revised. I'm quite sure that many people wish I would shut up and go away, but as long as there is breath in me, I will make every effort to educate when and where the opportunities present themselves; they are vast and numerous, these opportunities.

Nancee

[melancholy]

I will make every effort to educate when and where the opportunities present themselves;

God Bless you, Nancee.

[savedbygrace]

Our military needs to introduce Sadr to his 72 virgins.

[Nancee]

Thank you, I trust He will continue to. And He will bless you, too. You have your own area of expertise and I KNOW He uses you to educate too; you and that wonderful sense of humor He blessed you with. Furthermore, He will continue to educate through you as long as you remain as generous and honorable as you are.

We're all in this together. If we stick together...the Democrats will not be able to defeat us in the long run. I am nothing, if not determined!! :-)

Nancee

[Sacajaweau]

The light in the refrigerator is on....and the door is closed. There's something living in there!!