Apr 20 2008
SurrenderMedia Scrapes To Find Defeat Against Mahdi Army
I posted recently on how the Mahdi Army is being whooped across Iraq, from Baghdad to Basra and posts in between (see here and here). Karl over at Protein Wisdom has caught the LA Times grasping for some news of US-Iraq defeat in all this victory, but having to admit to all the victory anyway:
This time, the grand ayatollahs have declined to aid the incendiary cleric.
Three days into the Basra campaign, Grand Ayatollah Najafi issued a fatwa, or religious opinion or edict, that declared the Iraqi government as the only force in the country with the right to bear arms.
His son, Sheik Ali Najafi, left little doubt that the clergy had backed the Iraqi army operations.
“We see this as a positive improvement. . . . The people want the government to control the streets and the law to be enforced. No other groups,†he said, sitting in his study, furnished with cushions, a laptop and a clock bearing his father’s portrait.
I predicted back on April 7th (2008) that Sistani would side with Maliki and pull the rug out from Sadr. Without support and credibility from Sistani Sadr was exposed. Now in open defiance to the Grand Ayatollah Sadr has become an enemy of the Shiia in Iraq. There will be no large scale civil war because the Shiia will not rise up against Sistani. Sadr is completely isolated. His forces either disband or are destroyed. There is no path to victory left for him with Sistani on Maliki’s side.
Update: I neglected to copy this key passage from the article:
Their stance is a gamble. An influential cleric who is knowledgeable about talks between the Sadr movement and the grand ayatollahs described the situation in bleak terms: The government is weak, and Sadr aides now acknowledge privately that they have lost control of members who are receiving support from Iran.
“There are groups in the Mahdi Army who are kidnapping, killing and stealing. They don’t listen to Muqtada. They are openly operating with Iranian interests,” he said.
The cleric asked that his name not be used because he feared assassination. Everywhere, he saw Iran’s influence. “In the beginning, it was Arab countries playing a negative role. Now after Qaeda has fallen, it is Iran. Iran wants to control Iraq, and change the hawza from Najaf to Qom.”
Which is what I suspected – Sadr has lost control and is now just a charade. Iran is running a proxy war according to the Sadrists and Shiites in Iraq. Wonder how the Surrendercrats on the left will try and deny this reporting.
There’s an article out from the UK this morning which proclaims the Basra operation a “total disaster”. At first it just seems outrageous, but it really gets humorous when you start to read through the lines at what’s really being said and *Why* they are acting so upset.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/20/wiraq120.xml
The motivation for all this faux outrage is right there in the first few lines. Gordon Brown had done what all the dems here want to do – shout “victory” while running away and pulling everyone out of Iraq. Now, his government has reversed that decision – but will they ever admit that it was a catastrophically bad decision and that Basra was a mess because they bungled their mission to control it so badly?
Nooooo….
“They said the failure had delayed the British withdrawal by “many months”. ”
But of Course! Our plans and ideas were all brilliant, it’s all the fault of those stupid Iraqi’s that we’ve had to eat crow and get involved again!! But at the same time, it is a nice excuse for Brown to reverse his surrender policy.
Part of the article is a blistering attack on how some Iraqi forces ran away under fire – although putting this together with other reports, it’s clear that the number the British claim they saw is a gross exaggeration; in fact, it looks like they saw those news reports and just copied them to give their complaints some sheen of authenticity. What’s funny, though, is that what the British are so mad about is that *they* are the ones who wanted to run away under fire, but since some Iraqi troops beat them to it, now they can’t. You can see why that annoyed them so terribly.
Here’s what I think is the most unintentionally humorous part of all:
“The Sunday Telegraph has also learnt that British commanders had devised a plan for Gen Mohan. The plan came with the caveat that it should not be started until mid-July because Iraqi troops were not ready. But the officer said that the Iraqi general had ignored the advice.”
Combine this with the previous info that Britain had planned to pull out most of its troops as quickly as possible. It’s obvious that the British plan was “wait…. wait… wait… until we can finish running away while shrieking victory and once we’re gone, do whatever you want, because it will be too late to get us back!!
And the Iraqi General is a “lunatic amateur” for not knowing his place and listening more closely to his betters? The nerve!!!
To top off the hilarity, the article closes with a bald-faced lie. “Basra was handed back to Iraqi control last year after the Army withdrew from its last military base in the city.”
Actually, no… it was *not* handed back to Iraqi control, which is why the current operation was necessary. It was handed to Mahdi Army control while the Brits buggered out because they didn’t have the nerve to do what was required.
And of course, this operation exposed that to the world, which is yet another reason for all the huffing and puffing on display.
What is most interesting to me at this point is who is in place to take Sistani’s place as Grand Ayatollah in Iraq should anything happen to Sistani and what is that person’s relationship with Iran.
I would not put it past the Iranians to get their man in place and then have Sistani killed, the Iranians are that devious, and that evil. It isn’t really about religion at all, it is about their control of a religion. And they will do whatever it takes to make sure they control that religion. The Iraqi Ayatollahs present a greater threat to them than the US military does. They threaten to take away the religious legitimacy of Iran’s theocracy.
WWS, that article is basically a breathless “emergency” article of “we must make the West lose as quickly as possible” that even repeats items that were debunked long ago … like the part of the article that repeats the story about the Iraqis that were supposedly holding up coalition forces for water and ammo … that never happened. But they report it as if it did in that article.
It isn’t really about religion at all, it is about their control of a religion. And they will do whatever it takes to make sure they control that religion.
It’s both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/04/20/p24878#more24878
I get a kick out of warmongers who criticise experts who have been right on the war from the get-go, like William Lind,(also right on al Sadr, by the way)—–but stand by, explicitly or implicitly, these morons and liars who prevaricated us into the war.
AJ,
A little off topic for this post but falls into discussions over the last few days…this is what the left has created…disgusting
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/04/20/grade-schooler-threatens-to-kill-george-w-bush/
The left is mentally deranged. Our own resident troll, Truthtard, is testament to that fact.
He calls anyone who is pro-Iraqi a “war monger”. I am tired of the apologists for Iran. I understand their motivation … it is basically just politically fashionable in their social circles and they just do it to poke the right. But ultimately they are morons. They believe they can encourage Iran now while it serves their interest and then turn off that support when Iran becomes a threat. These are the same kind of people who play with fire and end up burning down entire counties.
The left are a collection of deranged narcissists who think that they can create a reality just by saying so. I say Truthy should just live for a little while in Iran and he might try complaining out loud there about what he doesn’t like. That might be fun to watch.
like William Lind,(also right on al Sadr, by the way)—–but stand by, explicitly or implicitly, these morons and liars who prevaricated us into the war.
Left by truthhard2take on April 20th, 2008
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
The ONLY idiots who take William Lind seriously, are William Lind himself, a “Legend in his own Mind”, and Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Traitor Nutbags, such as …….”TRUTHHALFBAKED”!
Lind was the new Wunderkind in the early 1980’s, especially in the Marine Corps, where he helped popularize Col Boyd’s acronym-du-jour the “OODA loop”, and where made a temporary living pushing the concept of “maneuver warfare”.
I laugh when people like “TRUTHHALFBAKED” tries to portay Lind as some type of military “expert” and a “conservative”!
The clown worked for Gary Hart for Ten years, “nuff” said!
Lind came to talk to a group of us Marine Officers down in Quantico in 1992, after the Gulf War, and was trying to lecture us as if he had been there!
He was so abused by the end of the two hour “lecture”, by myself and others, that he had to basically admit he never served in uniform, had never been fired at by an enemy, and that in essence, he had no basis at all for the many military subject he pontificated on at length!
It was such a bloodbath, that the Director of the Professional Marine Officer’s school who had invited Lind to talk to us, admitted afterwards that Lind would never be invited back, as he had demonstrated that he was essentially clueless.
It was really sad to watch, though necessary to deconstruct the so-called arm-chair expert!
Lind’s bogus time in the sun has passed, deservedly so, and now only Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Traitor Nutbags such as “TRUTHHALFBAKED” consider him to have any credibility.
Oh, by the way “TRUTHHALFBAKED”, the LAST time you were pushing “Lind” on AJ’s reading public, you were utilizing your “CENTERISABUNGHOLE” and “Bootlicker” personas/sockpuppets!
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!
BUSTED!
Sock-puppet Moron! In the past three years I’ve been reading AJ’s Blog, there were only Three “people” who have ever brought up Lind in the haigiographical, paeon to, slobbering-type sychofantasy manner: “THECENTERISABUNGHOLE”; “Bootlicker”, and now “TRUTHHALFBAKED”!
I wonder why…….Hmmmmmmm?
I’m just watching the Pope enter Yankee Stadium, filled to the brim, people of their own free will going to hear a message of PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. It just reminds me once again what a great country we live in. God Bless us!
Used to people who wanted to abandon Iraq said we were just a bunch of imperialists picking on the Iraqis, now more and more they are the ones who show no respect for the Iraqis. They despise the government, ridicule the Iraqi soldiers and could care less about the people themselves.
I think the Brits are a tad shamefaced because if they had just done their part in the first place it might not have been necessary to “retake” Basra.
I think that AJ is invested with one troll disgusing itself as several people. AJ my friend, it is your site, but I would not blame you a bit if you showed the guy or gal the door.
Terrye: Hi, though I cannot tell AJ what to do with his own Blog, I personally, am opposed to Censorship of any kind!
Let the Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Traitor Troll Sockpuppetmaster Nutbag: “THECENTERISABUNGHOLE”/”Bootlicker”/”Ken(ker)”/”Worm”/TRUTHHALFBAKED” as far as I’m concerned.
As you know Terrye, Cream rises to the top!
But, conversely, Sh%t also Floats, in this case, “TRUTHHALFBAKED”.
He, and his Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Traitor Nutbag ilk, truly are the “enenmy within”; we HAVE to know what they’re thinking, and saying, Sun Tzu said it best: “know they enemy”.
The Jihadis are a temporary distraction to us; the real enemy of this country, and the same one, thru several different generations, since the era of Sacco & Vanzetti, are the American-hating Left, that includes “TRUTHHALFBAKED”, and his ilk such as the Sean Penn’s, the John Kerry’s, the Barack Obama’s, the Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandons, the Al Franken’s etc.
They were the Anarchists and Nihilists of the 1900’s, they openly embraced the teaching of Marx and Lenin, and became committed Socialists and Communists, the worshiped at the alters of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che and Minh, in different eras, and under different names such as John Kerry and Jane Fonda and the Rosenbergs, the supported the Nazis and their Anti-Semitism in WWII, and they openly apologized for Stalin and Mao’s massacres of MILLIONS, and wore Che t-shirts and still do! They worked against the United States under the guise of Hillary Clinton supporting the Black Panther movement, and Bill Clinton taking his trips behind the Iron Curtain, that he still won’t authorize the release of the records to, and they manifested themselves in Jimmy Carter and his atempts to work with the Soviet Ambassador to prevent Ronald Reagen being elected President!
And now, they manifest themselves today, in Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi clowns like “TRUTHHALFBAKED” and Bill Maher and Rosie O’Donnell etc.
No Terrye, the only way we can ever defeat their sedition and treason and self-hate and self-loathing, is to openly expose them for exactly what they are, and no one is better at that, than THEMSELVES!
We have to know what they are saying and thinking, because nothing makes Cockroaches scurry faster than a healthy does of sunlight and Pesticide!
Nice catch, Dale – I’ve been suspecting that this was one of bootlicker’s sockpuppets for some time now, but I never could come up with a way to pin that down.
“there were only Three “people†who have ever brought up Lind in the haigiographical, paeon to, slobbering-type sychofantasy manner:”
That’s a great phrase, and it sounds even better when read out loud. Kudos!!!
(and we can add Multiple Personality Disorder to the list of Truthtards “accomplishments”)
Crosspatch, you’re pro-Iraqi? Then you must have advocated bringing the troops home since 2004, the consistent majority Iraqi position since then, shown clearly in a multitude of polls.
Dale is a blowhard who of course has nothing in writing in his actual name, thanks his God he doesn’t, to establish his credentials on the Iraq War.
Like maybe a pre-war prediction of a quagmire? Be the first one I read from an extant (that means yet, still) Iraq warmonger. On the other hand I do have a few repenting apologias from military versions of Congressman Walter Jones, an early war supporter.
I accept the apologies, believing in redemption. Not the immoral blather of imperialists like Dale.
The truth is, Dale was likely a “months-long at most” copy of Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle in his pre-war predictions, like virtually all of his ilk.
Obscure commenters here are jealous that Lind has a very wide audience in e.g. the multi-partisan antiwar.com..all the way to traditional Conservative periodicals like American Conservative.
Tough luck,losers.
Truth:
You do not know what you are talking about. Most Iraqis want American troops to pull back when security is better. They do not want the troops there forever. Who does. Most Iraqis do want Americans to stay and help rebuild the country. They do not want a sudden withdrawal and in case you had not noticed. The vast majority of the casualties in Iraq are not American soldiers. They are Iraqi civilians who are killed by your heroes, those foreign terrorists from places like Iran and Yemen and Jordan and Libya who come into Iraq and kill Iraqis.
There are about 150,000 Americans in Iraq, a country with a population of about 25 million. We have lost about 4,000 people {almost a thousand of those deaths are due to noncombat related causes} in five years. Now if all those Iraqis wanted us out of there right now, I think we would see fewer Iraqis being killed in market places. After all, exactly how does that end our deployment there. In fact it has the opposite effect.
Terrye
Dear, if I say the Iraqi soldier might be a bungler but is excused because he has no incentive to fight under American occupation, I am not actually criticising him, you see?
The truth is truthie Saddam could wiped out half the population and people like you would not have lifted a finger to help the Iraqis, so why pretend you care? You just hate Bush and the US military and think that rooting for a bunch of fascists will help shame them both. That is what matters to you, you little Nazi.