Jan 13 2007
Iranian Weapons Going To Shiite Militia
ABCNews is reporting that Iranian weapons material has been detected by the US Military in Iraq heading to Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Militia:
US military intelligence sources tell ABC News that large shipments of weapons have been smuggled to Iraqi militia over the past five weeks, including dozens of Iranian supplied EFP’s , or Explosive Form Projectiles, highly effective against armored vehicles.
The weapons were sent to Moqtada al Sadr’s Shi’a militia, known as “Mahdi’s Army” who control Sadr City, a slum in northern Baghdad with a population of 2 million.
Well, that is sufficient evidence for me. We know where 80% of the violence is happening and we know what groups are causing it. And it is time to go clean house. I had some talks with some folks who serve in the Military and one who had a brief stay in Iraq and they are just not very optimistic. I get the feeling this is the rumbling from around DC where I live, but clearly the folks on the ground do not have endless optimism. It was confirmed to me that previous rules of engagement were too restrictive and exploited by the insurgents and terrorists to attack and flee to rule-based sanctuaries (like mosques). I was told these impediments have been removed.
So now we have a test for the new strategy. We have a know problem – are we going to act and with force? Will the Iraqi government give us the green light to disband the militia’s. That is the test for me. Those militia’s need to disappear. And do not think the enemies will give up. The smartest move for them is to go quiet and try and wait our support. But Al Qaeda and their ilk have never done the smart thing. Their arrogant brutality always pushes them to stand up and attempt the most horrific acts. Now we can take them out when they stand up. Will we, is the question.
the mahdi army is not exactly “al qaeda and their ilk”, inless you’re defining “ilk” really really broadly
oh, and the u.s. is also arming the mahdi army. most of it’s members are now incorporated into the new iraqi army and thus are receiving uncle sam’s training and arms. does that mean you’re gonna start advocating using force against those dastardly americans?
‘What’s the matter upyournose? Afraid the new plan might work? You are funny! Have good month or two reciting the endless stories of bady ducks, ponies and wedding parties being destroyed. And, do’nt worry we still love ya’ even though we are carrying your water for you!
? how did that follow from my previous comment at all?
all i was pointing out is that:
(1) the mahdi army is not the same as al qaeda, in fact the two are currently on opposite sides of the civil war there (or, if you prefer” sectarian conflict”), and
(2) that the u.s. is effectively arming and training the mahdi army because sadr’s faction is part of the ruling coalition and has been incorporate into the iraqi army. thus, the u.s. is arming the mahdi army just as much (actually probably more given that we have more money to spend) than the iranians are.
that’s it. those are my points. i didn’t discuss whether bush’s “new” plan might work or not.
but if you want to me comment on that, that’s fine with me too. no, i don’t think it will work. largely because it is not a new plan. nothing bush said the other night in his speech hasn’t already been tried before. another 21K soldiers will bring the total to around 155k, fewer than the 160k we had in our last two “surges” (operation together forward and together forward II). both failed, as did prior escalations of the war before that.
bush is unwilling to consider actual new ideas, so instead he’s resorting to rebranding old ones. and based on past experience i expect they will go over just as badly as they have before.
but hey, i could be wrong. and nothing would make me happier than if we do end up with a stable peaceful prosperous iraq.
If true, they’ll make great secondary explosions when the C-130’s come.
It’s also possible that Sadr is “hoping” the thought that he’s been receiving this ordnance “threatens” the USA’s upper eschelon, in uniform, enough; that they hold back on the president’s plans.
On the other hand?
Bush seems adept at pulling rank. Especially when it comes to “rank” on the lapels of those who are consumed with swiveling their way UP the hierarchy at the Pentagon.
How long does it take to clear out a rat’s nest?
Depends, I guess. If you’re talking Baghdad. Or DC.
Some day, this President will be seen as similar to Lincoln. In other words? For about four years worth of time, as long as Lincoln was listening to Halleck. (And, reading the newspaper reports of the “drunken Grant,” believing them to be true), his efforts to win the Civil War was a bloody mess.
On the other hand? BECAUSE of the time spent “in the wilderness,” the outcome was BETTER.
We keep forgetting that consequences add up.
For the likes of LBJ? The journey kicked him back to Texas.
For Nixon? He just made things WORSE!
For Reagan? He had to work AGAINST the GOP TIDES! Did you know that Reagan wasn’t a favorite of the insiders? Well, there was a time Chase Manhattan bankers pretty much ran the decision-machinery that curbed the GOP’s chances of winning anything.
Like father, like son?
Here, again, it will be up to the history books to define the two men, Presidents #41 and #43. But I think the son is doing an outstanding job. PRO-ACTIVE! He’s not waiting around for “advice” from the media at all. And, he’s beaten them at their own game.
Doesn’t get better than that.
As to the arabs, they’re in the messes they are in, because they just don’t spend their wealth properly. If you knew how much the HOUSE of SAUD has wasted on terror, you’d be so amazed at such gross stupidity and negligence, that you’d shrug. And, you’d no longer wonder “why” the President probably won’t be bailing out the tent-dwellers in Saudi Arabia anytime soon.
Well? What about Condi Rice? She’s been in hiding, now, many months. But she’s back at diplomatic-pants-dancing. Which means that according to this President, she’s more than welcome to strut her stuff on stage.
If there were scorecards? The hapless Babs Boxer would be dressed down for being such an idiot in public.
And, you may have noticed, now that one of the Blue Dogs, Webb, actually got to poke his head in for a comment at Rice, as well; that he didn’t even fare a U-Tube clip.
Was there ever “good” media?
You know, I just don’t think so.
I think every time you look at the inner workings of those who are on stage, at any particular time; you get the intrigues. And, this isn’t even “just at the Vatican.” Where the current pope tried to install a commie sympathizer onto the heads of the Polish People. (Did you know the Pope’s excuse? He says he didn’t know that those polished footsteps he heard down the hallway, belonged to a commie-sympathizer?) Well, now he knows.
Lots of stuff doesn’t get corrected until its out in the open.
Maybe, that’s why someone once invented umbrellas? It sort’a helps ya from getting wet when there are big fat raindrops falling outside.
You’d think the world, by now, would have enough umbrellas. So that there’s no need to manufacture new ones. But go figa? There are businesses making new umbrellas for sale each and every day. And, this is true, NOT because winds are known to turn umbrellas inside-out, either.
The news “business” is about the same.
Iran is also supplying Sunni’s.
Upyer
You said;
“but hey, i could be wrong.”
To put it mildly. you are very naive and misguided. Nothing in your post even slightly resembles reality. Enuf said.
Kathie, you’re right and here is a nice informative article about that.
UPYER, you might want to read this, you would actually learn something that is true.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26416
and yet you never seem to be able to identify where specifically i go wrong.
it’s easy to dismiss people out of hand as “naive.” you have to know what you’re talking about to address a specific point
I would say “ilk” would be any group that is attempting to overthrow popularly elected secular governments in order to install a government run by religious leaders. That would include Iran.
The larger issue that the left seems to be missing here is that people like al Qaida and Iran are out ultimately for world domination by Islam. They would overthrow governments and install a religion based government who would install their social values by force. Homosexuals would be executed. A woman who is raped would be stoned for “adultery” if she resists, she is charged for assaulting her attacker. If she kills her attacker she is charged with murder.
There is absolutely no negotiating with these people. They have said that themselves. They intend to take over if it takes centuries.
There is really no other way of dealing with them other to engage them and kill them because they have vowed to engage us and kill us. If we leave Iraq, they will simply kill us anywhere they can.
They would take over Somalia, they have taken over half of Nigeria, the trouble in Darfur is muslims engaged in “ethnic cleansing”. These people are murderers and must be stopped. We have no choice, we can not choose to walk away from Iraq.
Clinton left Somalia and the embassy bombings and the first world trade center bombings were the response. We saved muslims from slaughter by Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo and 9/11 was the response. They don’t care if we save them, they will then just kill us anyway.
You can not apply rational criteria to an irrational situation. These people have stated that their goal is to eventually place the entire world under Islamic government. They areio serus. This is not about politics.
If we don’t handle this problem NOW in this generation, then we are simply handing a larger problem to the next generation that will get more killed then. We have to stop this while it is smaller. Yes, there are going to be casualties but there will be less now than there will be if we ignore it for a few years.
If you want to live under a government that will whip you for not going to church EVERY DAY, then by all means move to Iran or the tribal regions of Pakistan. That is NOT the kind of place I want my children to live in.
This is NOT about US domestic politics, this is about the survival of freely elected governments. These people will kill Democrats or Republicans, no matter to them. They have already killed and wounded thousands of US civilians.
What so angers me is that the Democrats try to make it about domestic politics and would want a Republican President to fail at the expense of getting a LOT more people killed in the future. This is not about Republicans versus Democrats, this is about democracy versus mullocracy.
The Democrats would be the first people these terrorists would kill. When I see Democrats against this war, I don’t see party politics. I see ignorance. I see people who would sell their soul to the devil himself for political power.
The answer of the Democrats is always the same … “run away”. At some point there will be no place to run.
9/11 was planned while we were SAVING muslims in Kosovo. The operation took years of planning and training. Bush was in office only 9 months when it happened. 9/11 was hatched while Clinton was in office after we had LEFT Somalia and SAVED Kosovo and Bosnia.
There is no appeasing those people. They have vowed to kill us as their religious duty.
Identifying where you went wrong is easy, You went wrong at the beginning and never did get right thru the end.
Here’s your beginning “the mahdi army is not exactly “al qaeda and their ilkâ€, inless you’re defining “ilk†really really broadly”
ilk means of like kind. Kindly tell us how the mahdi army terrorists are different from the al qaeda terrorists.
Here’s your ending”most of it’s members are now incorporated into the new iraqi army”
most means’ more than half’ So you are saying more than half the mahdi army is in Iraq army uniforms? Defend that?
I rest my case.
Up yer you said:
it’s easy to dismiss people out of hand as “naive.†you have to know what you’re talking about to address a specific point
That was my point exactly, that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Read that link I posted just above, Then you will know enough about the subject to discuss it rationally.
Well the Iranians are playing both ends against the middle just to cause trouble.
That is why they helped the Sunni blow up the Golden Dome. Remember how long Sistani told the Shia to not fight back, restrain yourselves and yet the sunni terrorists and AlQaida kept attacking them. That made Sadr a player because he said fight back.
So the Iranians fund both to mess up Iraq and screw with us. And the other day when the Americans and the Iraqi had the big fight on Haifa Street with AlQaida, they took several prisoners six of whom were Syrian.
That is what Bush was talking about when he warned Iran and Syria.
What is naive is to somehow equate Iraq to Vietnam. The Vietnamese never attacked the United States or blew up our embassies or declared war on us or published a doctrine of eventual world domination. Al Qaida has done all of those things. Their goal is the elimination of elected secular governments globally, the installation of Sharia law, and re-installation of a Caliph who would be the supreme leader of the world. And they are willing to do it by force of arms and continue for 100 years if that is what it takes.
We don’t get to decide not to fight.
So how are we going to figure this out. Who are the bad guys and who are those who want to hold the country together, who is the unity government? Some Sunni’s what to work with the unity government, some Shea do too, the Iranians want confusion and power, so how do we know who to support? Sadr is not going to get into the fight, so he will survive. Does anyone know the answer?
These are the kind of animals we are fighting:
Suspected Islamic militants have beheaded a Buddhist man and shot dead two others in southern Thailand.
This has nothing to do with any US policy or politics. Buddhism is about the most peaceful religion on the planet.
Kathie,
We are going to have to let the Iraqis themselves sort it out. What was interesting in the past couple of days was an apparent split in the Shiite rhetoric. While the head of SCIRI, the largest of the Shiite parties was saying that ALL of the militias should disarm, an aide of Sadr was saying our additional troops will go home in coffins.
There has also been some work toward the creation of an alliance of political factions that spans all ethnic groups. Sadr has been the major holdout and Sistani has been yapping about needing to keep the Shiites togther as a bloc. If that alliance can capture some of the Shiites, then Sadr is toast.
I think he might already realize this and that could be why he has suddenly put his head down though he does appear to be allowing his lower rankers to keep the rhetoric knob turned up to “11”.
I would not be surprised if someone has not told Sadr that even if the Washington establishment does not support an increase in American troop levels, he will not be around to celebrate.
I would say “ilk†would be any group that is attempting to overthrow popularly elected secular governments in order to install a government run by religious leaders. That would include Iran.
crosspatch,
here’s the thing. iran supports the elected government of iraq. iran established diplomatic relations with the al-maliki government and provides it with foreign aid. that’s because the iraqi government is a pro-iranian shia-dominated government, the first ever in iraqi history.
The larger issue that the left seems to be missing here is that people like al Qaida and Iran are out ultimately for world domination by Islam.
al qaeda yes, iran no. iran gave up exporting its revolution in the late 1980s. these days there main strategy has been to support shia minorities across the muslim world.
as for all qaeda, it is true that they aspire for world domination. but it’s also true that they don’t stand a chance of pulling it off. they couldn’t even get in power in most of the arab world. bin laden is delusional to think that by slamming planes into office buildings the u.s. will suddenly become an islamic theocracy. that is, simply put, crazy. are you saying that you agree with bin laden’s delusion?
They would take over Somalia, they have taken over half of Nigeria, the trouble in Darfur is muslims engaged in “ethnic cleansingâ€. These people are murderers and must be stopped.
you’re taking all different people and lumping them into a single “they.” they’re not all the same, you know. have you ever been to the islamic world? not as a soldier, but just as a visitor? have you ever talked with ordinary muslims about the state of the world as they see it?
when i see people describing the muslim world like you do, in a way that is directly contrary to my first-hand experience, it just strikes me as odd and a bit misinformed.
for example:
If you want to live under a government that will whip you for not going to church EVERY DAY, then by all means move to Iran or the tribal regions of Pakistan.
that’s not an accurate description of iran. you can be secular in iran, even though the government is a theocracy. no one forces anyone to go to religious services there. although i am not a fan of any religious-based government, not all muslim regimes are the same. they are not all the taliban. it’s foolish to pretend that they are.
What so angers me is that the Democrats try to make it about domestic politics and would want a Republican President to fail at the expense of getting a LOT more people killed in the future.
i can’t speak for all democrats, only myself. but i personally do not want W to fail. i want him to succeed against al qaeda. which is why i am so opposed to his iraq policies, because i think they are failing and making the u.s. less safe.
obviously, you are free to disagree with my analysis, but that doesn’t mean i want him to fail. we both want the u.s. to be safe and secure in the world. we just may disagree how to get there. questioning my motives is just a way to avoid a frank discussion over our policy differences.
ilk means of like kind. Kindly tell us how the mahdi army terrorists are different from the al qaeda terrorists.
al qaeda is an international terrorist group that attacks u.s. and other western interests around the world. it’s purpose is to restore the caliphate and extend it’s rule over either (depending on which speeches you read) all lands that have ever been muslim lands or the entire world. al qaeda is sunni and views the shia as infidels.
the mahdi army is a purely iraqi group loyal to moqtada al-sadr. it’s a militia, not a terrorist organization, though it has terrorized iraqi civilians. it’s goals have nothing to do with the u.s. or a caliphate. indeed, the mahdi army currently supports the elected al-maliki government because al-sadr is now part of the ruling coalition. it’s long term goals is not a theocracy, but rather shia domination over the sunnis in iraq.
the caliphate that bin laden wants to impose, by the way, is a sunni concept. in fact, the sunni-shia split happened because the shia rejected the authority of the first caliph just after the death of mohammed. al qaeda and the mahdi army are working towards opposite goals in iraq. al qaeda wants it to be part of the caliphate and the madhi army wants it to be a shia-dominated independent nation.
most means’ more than half’ So you are saying more than half the mahdi army is in Iraq army uniforms? Defend that?
it’s hard to get exact percentages, but there have been a multitude of articles about how the shia brigades of iraq are mostly mahdi and badr militias with new uniforms. a general discussion is here:
I rest my case.
hey enforcement, as a lawyer i should point out that saying “i rest my case” means that you’re done making your points. it made me laugh to see you write that and then immediately follow it with another comment. just a handy tip.
That was my point exactly, that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Read that link I posted just above, Then you will know enough about the subject to discuss it rationally.
you mean that frontpage link?
i did read it. it seemed rather vapid to me. i mean “victory means victory”? it was long on sloganeering and short on actual facts. at least that’s how i saw it. what critical facts was i supposed to get from the article?
You know, I believe nothing from the media.
It’s wall-to-wall “jayson blair” music.
They start with their own theme, and then they fill in the white space.
But it’s hardly likely the truth if you analyzed their statements.
Start with the fact that they’ll slant the news to hurt Bush. And, there’s nothing you have, available, that lets you check these statements out.
IF you think, today, Sadr is UNAWARE that he’s losing power, then up until the moment Saddam’s neck snapped, you’d think he had a shot at using his “get out of jail, free” card.
What is going on in Baghdad? I’ll bet SLOWLY the military is removing the very handicaps “some” of the bench sitters, and swivel-chair shakers put into place.
Perhaps, Sadr is counting on that?
On the other hand? What do you really know?
We heard this summer that the hez-bullies “won.”
Then Michael Totten goes to Southern Lebanon. And, snaps pictures. And, what do you see?
We’re “told” nasrallah got shipments in of all the missiles he shot out at Israel. But if this is true? Where is he stocking them? The towns that used to exist for him. Those that were nasrallah’s own “strong points,” are now, INSIDE THE RING, rubble.
Interesting how pin-point bombing raids work. Because the two towns Michael Totten photographed are pretty much “neatly” destroyed. Houses? Small rocks, now. But the “rim” is still there. In other words? The targets were all inside the rim. So from outside, the media could think these “towns,” (military garrisons). Are still standing.
You’re also told that Israel dropped a million, or more, mines. Except that there are no one-legged french soldiers hopping about. And, Michael Totten goes into the valley on foot. And, comes out standing on two feet. Ya know, I thought only in hollywood do bombs work like that.
Heck, they don’t even need crutches.
While whatever it takes, the Iraqis probably can see BIG DIFFERENCES. Do you know how I know? The “dinars” in their pockets are going up in value.
You don’t get the money supply to increase in value when your country is going down the toilet.
But you can fool lots of Americans with the noises that fill in white-space. Heck, you can even call it “rap” for all I care.