Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Amir Taheri makes the case: a defeat for the enemy in the combat zone, a victory in the American media. Well worth reading. Here. Hat tip Rush.
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Radio Netherlands is covering a developing story that a sermon in a mosque in the Netherlands may have inspired the murder of Dutch filmaker Theo van Gogh. A recording of the sermon exists. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.
I am a Christian pastor and have been leading prayers in church for 30 years. We pray for the conversion of our enemies, and for God to frustrate the plans of our enemies. I have never heard a Christian prayer like the excerpt from this Muslim sermon. And I have listened to a lot of sermons and services in person, over radio, and some on television.
In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.
I am a Christian pastor and have been leading prayers in church for 30 years. We pray for the conversion of our enemies, and for God to frustrate the plans of our enemies. I have never heard a Christian prayer like the excerpt from this Muslim sermon. And I have listened to a lot of sermons and services in person, over radio, and some on television.
31/10: Pension Funds and Terrorism
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
What is your state, and your pension fund, doing in the War against Islamic Supremacists? From Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., in the Jewish World Review.
Under Treasurer Steelman's leadership, the Missouri Investment Trust (MIT) has become the first public pension fund in the nation to divest from its portfolio the stocks of companies doing business with state-sponsors of terror like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan. She has thereby ensured that the fund's beneficiaries are not unwittingly having their retirement savings invested in ways that are strategically counterproductive, morally reprehensible and even ill-advised from a financial point of view. (A study done for Ms. Steelman proved that the MIT would have performed better last year had it been terror-free than it was investing in companies partnering with our enemies.) She has also helped empower American investors to privatize the war for the Free World.
Under Treasurer Steelman's leadership, the Missouri Investment Trust (MIT) has become the first public pension fund in the nation to divest from its portfolio the stocks of companies doing business with state-sponsors of terror like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan. She has thereby ensured that the fund's beneficiaries are not unwittingly having their retirement savings invested in ways that are strategically counterproductive, morally reprehensible and even ill-advised from a financial point of view. (A study done for Ms. Steelman proved that the MIT would have performed better last year had it been terror-free than it was investing in companies partnering with our enemies.) She has also helped empower American investors to privatize the war for the Free World.
28/10: On the European Front
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Absolute multiculturalism in Britain questioned by unlikely figures. From TCS Daily. Here Hat tip Instapundit.
In the last few days in Britain, three events have caused what was already a small crack in the paper-thin edifice of "multiculturalism" in Britain to widen to a noticeable fissure.
Muslims revolting in France. From Worldtribune. Here. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."
The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.
The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.
. . . .
France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.
Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.
Paging Charles Martel and Richard the Lion-Hearted.
In the last few days in Britain, three events have caused what was already a small crack in the paper-thin edifice of "multiculturalism" in Britain to widen to a noticeable fissure.
Muslims revolting in France. From Worldtribune. Here. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."
The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.
The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.
. . . .
France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.
Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.
Paging Charles Martel and Richard the Lion-Hearted.
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Wizbang today has this post on changing Iraq strategy. I think it well worth reading. A portion below, read the whole thing.
As I understand it, there are three levels of planning in the military: objectives, strategies, and tactics. Objectives describe what we wish to do. Strategies describe how we will do that. And tactics are what we will do.
In Iraq, as I think it goes, the objective was to remove the Baathist government from power, help the Iraqi people establish a new, freer government, and work to make sure that new government was not the threat to its neighbors and vital US interests that Saddam had been.
The strategy was to invade Iraq, defeat and disband the military, and then establish a new civil and military structure that could maintain its own security without threatening others'.
The tactics involve careful use of airpower and ground power against select locales, groups, and individuals; establishment of civilian institutions and governing bodies; national elections; and rebuilding of key elements of Iraq's infrastructure.
There is an old saying that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, and it is true. It is true in a way that almost never translates into non-military matters, because only in actual warfare is there a real enemy determined to foil your plans, to the point of being more than willing to destroy, kill, or die in the attempt.
As I understand it, there are three levels of planning in the military: objectives, strategies, and tactics. Objectives describe what we wish to do. Strategies describe how we will do that. And tactics are what we will do.
In Iraq, as I think it goes, the objective was to remove the Baathist government from power, help the Iraqi people establish a new, freer government, and work to make sure that new government was not the threat to its neighbors and vital US interests that Saddam had been.
The strategy was to invade Iraq, defeat and disband the military, and then establish a new civil and military structure that could maintain its own security without threatening others'.
The tactics involve careful use of airpower and ground power against select locales, groups, and individuals; establishment of civilian institutions and governing bodies; national elections; and rebuilding of key elements of Iraq's infrastructure.
There is an old saying that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, and it is true. It is true in a way that almost never translates into non-military matters, because only in actual warfare is there a real enemy determined to foil your plans, to the point of being more than willing to destroy, kill, or die in the attempt.
24/10: Islamic Civilization?
Great essay, as usual, by Victor Davis Hansen here. Hat tip Instapundit.
It is difficult in history to find any civilization that asks as much of others as does the contemporary Middle East—and yet so little of itself. If I were to sum up the collective mentality of the current Arab Middle East—predicated almost entirely on the patriarchal sense of lost “honor” and the rational calculation to murder appeasing liberals and appease murdering authoritarians— it would run something like the following: Read the whole thing.
It is difficult in history to find any civilization that asks as much of others as does the contemporary Middle East—and yet so little of itself. If I were to sum up the collective mentality of the current Arab Middle East—predicated almost entirely on the patriarchal sense of lost “honor” and the rational calculation to murder appeasing liberals and appease murdering authoritarians— it would run something like the following: Read the whole thing.
18/10: Darfur
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
More evidence that the government of Sudan is behind the genocide in Darfur. From BBC via the Khaleej Times.
LONDON - The Sudanese government is supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, which the United States accuses of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Citing an interview with a man identified only as ‘Ali’, a former member of the militia who admitted to killing innocent villagers in Darfur, the BBC said that Sudanese soldiers trained Janjaweed militiamen, and that the country’s air force bombed a village before the militia went in to kill villagers.
‘Ali’ served in the militia for two years, and is currently seeking asylum in Britain. The BBC consulted other Darfuri exiles in Britain and presented the interview to a psychologist who studied his interview, all of whom believed him.
‘The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained, they will give us guns and ammunition. We will be split into two groups -- one on horses, one on camels,’ the man told the broadcaster’s evening current affairs programme.
Asked how he knew the men training him were from the government, ‘Ali’ said: ‘They were wearing the uniforms of the military.’
When asked to name the members of the government who were ordering his forces, the man said that one ‘very well known and regular visitor’ was Sudan’s interior minister -- Abdul Rahim Hussein.
Article here. Hat tip Jihadwatch. My earlier post.
Thoughts below.
LONDON - The Sudanese government is supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, which the United States accuses of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Citing an interview with a man identified only as ‘Ali’, a former member of the militia who admitted to killing innocent villagers in Darfur, the BBC said that Sudanese soldiers trained Janjaweed militiamen, and that the country’s air force bombed a village before the militia went in to kill villagers.
‘Ali’ served in the militia for two years, and is currently seeking asylum in Britain. The BBC consulted other Darfuri exiles in Britain and presented the interview to a psychologist who studied his interview, all of whom believed him.
‘The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained, they will give us guns and ammunition. We will be split into two groups -- one on horses, one on camels,’ the man told the broadcaster’s evening current affairs programme.
Asked how he knew the men training him were from the government, ‘Ali’ said: ‘They were wearing the uniforms of the military.’
When asked to name the members of the government who were ordering his forces, the man said that one ‘very well known and regular visitor’ was Sudan’s interior minister -- Abdul Rahim Hussein.
Article here. Hat tip Jihadwatch. My earlier post.
Thoughts below.
From an OpEd in the New York Times.
FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
Read entire OpEd. Hat tip LGF.
FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
Read entire OpEd. Hat tip LGF.
95 things that anger Muslims here
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Upcoming on Public Television:
Welcome to the world of "Maquilapolis," a border city where it
takes an hour of drudgework inside a poisonous factory to earn
enough to buy a jug of potable water. Where it takes about two hours
to earn a gallon of milk. Where factory workers find bathroom breaks are
few, toxins are many, and the pressure -- and intimidation -- are always
on. It's a place where poverty is so deep that workers are expected to be
grateful for the high-end $11 a day they might earn, to give up hope of
ever earning more or of ever seeking better working conditions. This
daily $11 does not buy them the protection and aid of their local and
national governments. In "Maquilapolis," undertaxed and under-regulated
factories operated by multinational corporations -- usually through local
middlemen -- pollute residential neighborhoods with seeming impunity.
Yet even $11 a day can prove too high a labor cost for today's international
manufacturer. The searing new feature documentary "Maquilapolis: City of
Factories" may take its name and stories from the maquiladoras, the
multinational assembly plants that sprang up south of the U.S.-Mexican
border in the mid-1960s and multiplied rapidly in the 1990s as a result of
1994's North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.) But the new global
company town that "Maquilapolis" portrays is also movable. Less than 10
years after NAFTA, the maquiladoras of Mexico were already closing down
as corporations began to depart for even cheaper labor in Asia, leaving
behind decrepit factory sites, slag heaps of toxic material and endemic
unemployment.
"Maquilapolis" is a powerful and unique film that brought American and
Mexican-American filmmakers together with Tijuana factory workers and
community organizers to tell the story of globalization through the eyes
and voices of the workers themselves -- overwhelmingly women -- who
have borne the costs but reaped few of the benefits. The workers did not
just testify on camera, they became an integral part of creating their stories
on film. Two women in particular, Carmen Durán and Lourdes Luján, armed
with cameras for video diaries, chronicle their struggles. The result is not
only an informative and disturbing film, but also an evocative and poetic one.
Watch a trailer and check local PBS station listings at:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/maquilapolis
"Maquilapolis: City of Factories" Airs Tuesday, October 10 at 10 PM
TIP: Days and times for P.O.V. broadcasts vary, so be
sure to check local listings for airdates and times for your
PBS station on the P.O.V. website.
Hat tip El Obispo. For an earlier post on topic here.
Welcome to the world of "Maquilapolis," a border city where it
takes an hour of drudgework inside a poisonous factory to earn
enough to buy a jug of potable water. Where it takes about two hours
to earn a gallon of milk. Where factory workers find bathroom breaks are
few, toxins are many, and the pressure -- and intimidation -- are always
on. It's a place where poverty is so deep that workers are expected to be
grateful for the high-end $11 a day they might earn, to give up hope of
ever earning more or of ever seeking better working conditions. This
daily $11 does not buy them the protection and aid of their local and
national governments. In "Maquilapolis," undertaxed and under-regulated
factories operated by multinational corporations -- usually through local
middlemen -- pollute residential neighborhoods with seeming impunity.
Yet even $11 a day can prove too high a labor cost for today's international
manufacturer. The searing new feature documentary "Maquilapolis: City of
Factories" may take its name and stories from the maquiladoras, the
multinational assembly plants that sprang up south of the U.S.-Mexican
border in the mid-1960s and multiplied rapidly in the 1990s as a result of
1994's North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.) But the new global
company town that "Maquilapolis" portrays is also movable. Less than 10
years after NAFTA, the maquiladoras of Mexico were already closing down
as corporations began to depart for even cheaper labor in Asia, leaving
behind decrepit factory sites, slag heaps of toxic material and endemic
unemployment.
"Maquilapolis" is a powerful and unique film that brought American and
Mexican-American filmmakers together with Tijuana factory workers and
community organizers to tell the story of globalization through the eyes
and voices of the workers themselves -- overwhelmingly women -- who
have borne the costs but reaped few of the benefits. The workers did not
just testify on camera, they became an integral part of creating their stories
on film. Two women in particular, Carmen Durán and Lourdes Luján, armed
with cameras for video diaries, chronicle their struggles. The result is not
only an informative and disturbing film, but also an evocative and poetic one.
Watch a trailer and check local PBS station listings at:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/maquilapolis
"Maquilapolis: City of Factories" Airs Tuesday, October 10 at 10 PM
TIP: Days and times for P.O.V. broadcasts vary, so be
sure to check local listings for airdates and times for your
PBS station on the P.O.V. website.
Hat tip El Obispo. For an earlier post on topic here.
05/10: French Intifada?
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
From Telegraph. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union
By David Rennie, Europe Correspondent
(Filed: 05/10/2006)
Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.
Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy was warned of an 'intifada'
As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.
It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.
And later in the article, after refering to politicians and others advocating economic and criminal enterprise explanations
However, not all officers on the ground accept that essentially secular interpretation. Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.
He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
(read more)
Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union
By David Rennie, Europe Correspondent
(Filed: 05/10/2006)
Radical Muslims in France's housing estates are waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.
Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy was warned of an 'intifada'
As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.
It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.
And later in the article, after refering to politicians and others advocating economic and criminal enterprise explanations
However, not all officers on the ground accept that essentially secular interpretation. Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.
He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."
(read more)
04/10: Defender of the West
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Since 9/11 Tony Blair has been Aaron to George Bush's Moses. Mr. Blair has been "spot on" in his eloquent defense of Western values, and of our military response to militant Islam. (If I were to have a son now I might give him the middle name of Blair.) British domestic policy concerns me, but my hat is off to the Prime Minister. With his retirement drawing nearer, who will fill the role of Aaron now?
John Howard, prime minister of Australia looks good to me. Here is his official website. The Australian has a report on his recent speech blasting Aussie leftists. Transcript here. I especially like these bits.
It’s important on an occasion like this [anniversary of the founding of a conservative magazine] we remember not just the big ideological struggles but also the individuals who took up the cause of cultural freedom and the defence of liberal democracy against its enemies.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, it became all too easy to pretend that the outcome of the Cold War was an inevitable result of large-scale, impersonal forces that ultimately left totalitarianism exhausted and democratic capitalism triumphant. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was a struggle fought by individuals on behalf of the individual spirit.
And Quadrant holds an honoured place in Australian history for the stance it took for democratic freedom and a pluralist society and in opposition to collectivist ideologies that so many saw as the inevitable wave of the future.
It’s worth recalling just a few of the philo-communism that was once quite common in Australia in the 1950’s and 60’s. For example, Manning Clark’s book Meeting Soviet Man where he likened the ideals of Vladimir Lenin to those of Jesus Christ. John Burton, the former head of the External Affairs Department, arguing that Mao’s China provided a model for the ‘transformation’ of Australia. All those who did not simply oppose Australia’s commitment in Vietnam, but who actively supported the other side and fed the delusion that Ho Chi Minh was some sort of Jeffersonian Democrat intent on spreading liberty in Asia.
To quote George Orwell: ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool’. There is a view that the pro-communist left in Australia in decades past was no more than a bunch of naïve idealists, rather than what they were – ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests.
more below
John Howard, prime minister of Australia looks good to me. Here is his official website. The Australian has a report on his recent speech blasting Aussie leftists. Transcript here. I especially like these bits.
It’s important on an occasion like this [anniversary of the founding of a conservative magazine] we remember not just the big ideological struggles but also the individuals who took up the cause of cultural freedom and the defence of liberal democracy against its enemies.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, it became all too easy to pretend that the outcome of the Cold War was an inevitable result of large-scale, impersonal forces that ultimately left totalitarianism exhausted and democratic capitalism triumphant. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was a struggle fought by individuals on behalf of the individual spirit.
And Quadrant holds an honoured place in Australian history for the stance it took for democratic freedom and a pluralist society and in opposition to collectivist ideologies that so many saw as the inevitable wave of the future.
It’s worth recalling just a few of the philo-communism that was once quite common in Australia in the 1950’s and 60’s. For example, Manning Clark’s book Meeting Soviet Man where he likened the ideals of Vladimir Lenin to those of Jesus Christ. John Burton, the former head of the External Affairs Department, arguing that Mao’s China provided a model for the ‘transformation’ of Australia. All those who did not simply oppose Australia’s commitment in Vietnam, but who actively supported the other side and fed the delusion that Ho Chi Minh was some sort of Jeffersonian Democrat intent on spreading liberty in Asia.
To quote George Orwell: ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool’. There is a view that the pro-communist left in Australia in decades past was no more than a bunch of naïve idealists, rather than what they were – ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests.
more below
03/10: Messianic Politics
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
I've written before on the apocalyptic and messianic character of Shia Islam. It has become well-known that Iran's current president sees himself and Iran as a part of the divine plan to end this stage of the world and usher in the age of the Mahdi. Now, news from the Timesonline that in Iraq, Shiites are being told that U.S. actions are a desperate attempt to prevent the Mahdi's return.
Hojatoleslam al-Sadr claims that his militia is preparing for the day when the Mahdi, the last direct descendent of the revered Shia figure Ali, reappears. Shia believe that the Mahdi, who disappeared in 868, will bring justice to Earth.
At a prayer service in the central Iraqi city of Kufa on September 15, the cleric told a crowd of thousands that the Americans were collecting a dossier on the Mahdi to prevent his return. “Did you ever ask yourself about why all of this, the bloodshed and the prisons? Why are the brothers fighting each other for a political game planned by the Americans? This all happened because they (the Americans) are waiting for the Mahdi. This planning started ten years ago. They have a big file for Imam Mahdi and they just need his picture to complete it.”
Hojatoleslam al-Sadr and his advisers are convinced that the Americans want to destroy Islam and stop the Mahdi. “The Americans are trying to hijack Islamic movements. They think that these are serving the Mahdi’s interests. Whatever they did in Afghanistan and Iraq are all attempts to hijack the Mahdi’s return.”
Hat tip Jihadwatch.
Hojatoleslam al-Sadr claims that his militia is preparing for the day when the Mahdi, the last direct descendent of the revered Shia figure Ali, reappears. Shia believe that the Mahdi, who disappeared in 868, will bring justice to Earth.
At a prayer service in the central Iraqi city of Kufa on September 15, the cleric told a crowd of thousands that the Americans were collecting a dossier on the Mahdi to prevent his return. “Did you ever ask yourself about why all of this, the bloodshed and the prisons? Why are the brothers fighting each other for a political game planned by the Americans? This all happened because they (the Americans) are waiting for the Mahdi. This planning started ten years ago. They have a big file for Imam Mahdi and they just need his picture to complete it.”
Hojatoleslam al-Sadr and his advisers are convinced that the Americans want to destroy Islam and stop the Mahdi. “The Americans are trying to hijack Islamic movements. They think that these are serving the Mahdi’s interests. Whatever they did in Afghanistan and Iraq are all attempts to hijack the Mahdi’s return.”
Hat tip Jihadwatch.
Sidebar
