THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg and have also visited Iraq. US special forces teams are already inside Syria attempting to kill foreign jihadists. In Iraq, "there are just some hearts and minds you can't win". The new counter-insurgency unit is called Task Force 121. "This is basically an assassination programme"

"It is bonkers. We're already being compared to Sharon and we've confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams." Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin is one of the planners. He told a congregation that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army".

There is no extra-national supply-and-support network behind the insurgents, [really? none at all? Not one man and his donkey walked from Afghanistan, picking up arms and encouragement in Iran? No help from Syria, Saudi Arabia or Yemen? How about support from Arab communities in the US? or the UK?] and their position is becoming ever more critically impared day-by-day. [Do you know this or is there an element of wishful thinking here?] Bin Laden's announcement that he is transfering manpower and money from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Iraq...[negates the statement you made above that there is no supply and support network.]

Show me where I said you lied, Gel, and/or show me where I've lied. I know it bugs hell out of you that I consistently counter argue the anti-war, anti-US, anti-Bush spin to which you are so committed. I simply tell it like it is, not how it ought to be or how I would like it to be. I deal in objective facts and documented news, not feel-good opinions ant populist rantings. Its a matter of perspective, of realism, and of pragmatism.


750,000 in Trafalgar Square ... on a weekday. Doesn't that break the record set a few weeks ago ... by about 700 percent? I'm sure Bush is embarrassed by the relatively poor turnout he managed to get.

Your denialist shtick was transparently, tragically thin in Neville Chamberlin's day. Fortunately, some have learned that lesson, and have the will, strength, and resolve to prevent the recurrence of such blind misapprehension.

Timber I wonder where you get your information sometimes, and often I cant follow your logic. You just wrote

There is no extra-national supply-and-support network behind the insurgents, [really? none at all? Not one man and his donkey walked from Afghanistan, picking up arms and encouragement in Iran? No help from Syria, Saudi Arabia or Yemen? How about support from Arab communities in the US? or the UK?]

[/i]and their position is becoming ever more critically impared day-by-day. [Do you know this or is there an element of wishful thinking here?]

Bin Laden's announcement that he is transfering manpower and money from Afghanistan and elsewhere to Iraq...[negates the statement you made above that there is no supply and support network.]

Your's are the cowardly lies of innuendo much in the fashion of your leader. Me, I would never say, as some might, that you eat **** and bark at the moon as that knowledge is beyond my grasp.

Gelisgesti wrote:

Your's are the cowardly lies of innuendo much in the fashion of your leader. Me, I would never say, as some might, that you eat **** and bark at the moon as that knowledge is beyond my grasp.

I don't see that factual reportage is "lies and innuendo", whether is supported my position or not. I would submit that the "lies and innuendo" come from the anti-US opinion mongers. That of course, is my perception, my opinion. You are welcome to hold and espouse any other opinion you wish, whether or not that opinion is supported with opininion as opposed to fact and evidence. You don't like what's going on. I don't either. We dislike it differently, though. I see it as an unpleasant, nasty, complicated, arduous task of regretable necessity. You see it as a violation of your pollyanna denialist ideals. I would never resort, as some do in absence of substantive argument, to invective and vulgarisms; those are the hallmark of bankrupt philosophy.[/i]

Posted on Tue, Dec. 09, 2003
Low-profile cleric is a powerful Iraqi voice
Quietly speaking for the Shiite majority, a grand ayatollah holds virtual veto power over U.S. plans.
By Maureen Fan
INQUIRER FOREIGN STAFF
CHIP SOMODEVILLA / Detroit Free Press
Images of Ali Mohammed al-Sistani are elusive despite his power.

NAJAF, Iraq - One of the most important men in Iraq is virtually invisible and nearly silent.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Mohammed al-Sistani, 73, almost scuttled U.S. plans to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis by next July without making a single public appearance.

He keeps a low profile in this holiest of cities for Shiite Muslims, yet he has built up the largest group of religious followers in Iraq, and with that comes access to financial contributions. That has made him easily the most influential cleric in the country, and perhaps the most powerful man in Iraq, able with a few words to counter the presence of a U.S. military occupation.

While Sistani does not oppose the U.S. occupation, he has stood up at key moments to speak for the interests of 15 million Shiites, who were brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein's regime and who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Late last month, Sistani made public his objections to the American plan for local leaders to select delegates to a transitional government by July, throwing the future of the plan in doubt.

Sistani insisted on direct elections instead, as he did in a religious edict he issued in June that declared "fundamentally unacceptable" any effort to write a constitution without directly electing its drafters.

Sistani's opinions are likely to influence how Iraq will be governed after the U.S.-led coalition gives up control. He has warned that the constitution must be consistent with Islamic law. And Sistani's agents have insisted that Iraq's judges be drawn from the Hawza, the religious council of scholars he helps preside over.

With the civilian coalition insisting it will be out of business by July 1, at stake is who decides what happens in Iraq. Few people will bet against Sistani.

Most members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council want to forge ahead with the American plan, despite Sistani's objections.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite on the Governing Council, expressed confidence that Sistani would not interfere with the council's decisions. But, Hakim was careful to add, Sistani "has a lot of followers and he is highly respected, so we have to take into account what he says."

'National pride'

"In the long term, power lies with Sistani and not with the coalition," said Joost Hiltermann, director of the Amman, Jordan, office for the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan conflict-resolution group. "When a person like Sistani speaks out in public, as he very rarely does, for a person like him to have to back down would be a tremendous loss of face."

"It's a matter of national pride for Iraqis that the political process not be imposed by outsiders or the U.S. generally," Hiltermann added.

How a man who is almost never seen in public can have so much sway is no mystery in Najaf, where the photographs of other clerics dominate alley walls and street columns but where nearly everyone follows Sistani.

Like other Shiite clerics, Sistani spent most of the 1990s under house arrest. As other clerics died or were assassinated, many of their followers turned to Sistani.

"We support him very strongly," said Adnan Khalil Ibrahim, 42, a retired high school chemistry teacher. "He's our spiritual leader. We will sacrifice our souls under his feet."

"He's known for his integrity, and he is very modest," said Na'aman al Mayahi, 28, a first-year student at Sadr Religious University. "He doesn't want his picture on the street."

'Quietest'

Put simply, Iraqi Shiites - oppressed for most of the last century by the Sunni minority - trust Sistani.

Born in Mashad, Iran, Sistani has lived in Najaf since his early 20s, developing a reputation as a moderate, practicing the "quietist" rather than the activist branch of Islam and advocating a separation of politics and religion.

He was criticized by some for being too passive about the American invasion. Since then, Sistani has declined to meet L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq. He and other clerics also have condemned the lack of security since the ouster of Hussein.

"He speaks on behalf of all Iraqis," said Adil Abdul Eelah, 25, director of Najaf's Islamic Cultural office, which publishes leaflets and holds seminars on Islamic culture. "Whatever Sistani says, it is like an order to us. We must obey."

Sistani is not likely to call for resistance, experts say, but he could remain silent if others were to call for demonstrations or urge Iraqis not to participate in the political process for a new government.

"To rise up will be possible only in one case," said Ali Rubaie, secretary to another of Najaf's grand ayatollahs, Mohammed Ishaq al-Fayadh. "That is if Islam is threatened."

In the meantime, Rubaie said, there is room for compromise.

"Well, Sistani didn't say these elections should be in summer," Rubaie said. "He was concerned that no one be suspicious about a new provisional government."

Rubaie said he heard that the students of Sistani recommended electing a local governing council in each area. Those councils could then elect members to serve in a new provisional government in Baghdad.

"That kind of election Sistani will agree with," Rubaie said.

A senior coalition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would only say that "a lot of details need to be worked out. I think the concerns and comments of Sistani and others can be accommodated within that."

Sistani has remained secluded, largely because of security concerns. Supporters of Moqtadr al-Sadr, an outspoken young cleric, have been blamed for the fatal stabbing of another cleric - Abdel Majid al-Khoei, the son of Sistani's mentor - in Najaf shortly after the war, and for the August car-bomb assassination in Najaf of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Sadr denies any connection. Security guards have blocked off the alley where Sistani's office is located and this week refused to accept written questions or any other communication.

Sistani's aides in Baghdad are accessible, however, and have voiced his views. They complain about Americans corrupting female Iraqi college students and reject the secular democracy of the West.

"We are an Islamic country," said Ali Waadh, Sistani's deputy in Baghdad. "We are grateful to the Americans. They kicked out Saddam Hussein, but now they should leave because as long as they are here, we will have more explosions. And we have the ability to destroy al-Qaeda and the [militant Islamic] Wahhabis on our own."

Sistani was a pupil of Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei, who preached personal piety and was considered one of the greatest Shiite theologians of the last century. Before Khoei died in 1992, he appointed Sistani, then 62, to the prestigious position of leading prayers in the al-Khadra mosque in Najaf.

Clerics rise to power through years of religious scholarship and by building networks of followers, who give a portion of their earnings to their local mosques.

When he was only 31, Sistani was awarded a permit by Khoei, certifying that he had attained the level of ijtihad, or the ability to make legal judgments in matters of religion. That same year he was also awarded a diploma for his skill in the science of ilmerrijal, or prophetic narration.

Sistani is the prime recipient of donations from the London-based Grand Ayatollah Khoei Foundation, which maintains mosques and educates the community about Islam and reported gross expenditures of $2.5 million for the fiscal year ended in 2002, according to the UK Charity Commission.

Despite Sistani's seclusion, his followers say they know exactly what their ayatollah means. His words are printed on posters and whispered by his students and repeated by his agents in mosques, seminaries, barbershops and coffee shops across Iraq.

"We have special relations with people connected closely to Sistani, and in many mosques there are helpers or agents, and through them we know all about his fatwas [religious edicts] and everything he says," said Ibrahim, the high school chemistry teacher.

And for now, like Sistani, they wait.

"I will not fight now, not until all peaceful negotiations are exhausted and our leaders call for jihad, then we will fight," said Ali Mihsin, 34, a real estate agent. "Sistani has given the Americans a period of time, I think about a year, to check their intentions whether they are good or not. We are peaceful, but we are the fiercest enemy to a person or country who will touch our religion or our beliefs."

As simplistic as it sounds, Steve, "The Big Picture" to me is the liberation of humankind from the yokes of tyrany and terrorism. I know others don't see it that way, and I know some who do see it that way do not feel the current US course is a reasonable approach. I'm just not one of them.

We started in Afghanistan, and continued in Iraq where the only terrorist was Saddam against his own people. In the mean time, Afghanistan is still festering with warlords and drugs, where we continue to kill innocent children on the war against the Taliban and al Qaida. Where's Osama, the kingpin of the twin towers attack? What a way to fight a war.