Sunni Arabs move against the radical Muslim Scholars Assn.
By Ian Bach
November 18, 2007
BAGHDAD – The Iraqi government-sponsored “Sunni religious foundation” Wednesday closed the main office of the Muslim Scholars Association, a group of Sunni clerics suspected of (more like known) ties to insurgents. The Muslim Scholars Association broadcasted to the local areas urging people to wage insurgent attacks on coalition forces, Shia areas, and the Iraqi government. The Sunni’s in the area have worked with local and federal government agencies to facilitate removal of many radical groups like the Muslim Scholars Association, rouge elements of local militias, al Qaeda, ISI hard liners and radicals, and other militant groups that had been the direct cause of insurgent attacks and sectarian violence. Many people had looked at these attacks and called it a civil war. I have been insisting it was more like gang wars. The population of Iraq is mostly secular. Iraq has been a secular nation for I think since around world war one. Almost every family in Iraq whether they are Sunni, Shia, Christian, or other has relatives who are of other religious faiths then their own. It is much like here in America…example my father is Catholic and my mom is Protestant, one of my sisters is married to another religion and I almost married a Mormon.
The Sunni Endowment, which is responsible for managing mosques, sent security forces to the Muslim Scholars Association headquarters in the Umm Qura mosque in west Baghdad to order staff members to leave by noon, according to the group. (Note this area had become very turbulent prior to the Surge. It also was a staging and planning spot for attacks against the Green Zone and attacks on Shia areas.)
"Today, Iraqi army forces came and removed the guards of the Muslim Scholars Assn. from the offices and forced the radio employees to shut down the broadcasting. They handed over the offices with all the possessions to the Sunni Endowment guards," said the group's spokesman, Muthanna Dhari.
Dhari is the son of the group's leader, Harith Dhari, who was sought for questioning last year by the government and left for Jordan. The head of the Sunni Endowment, Ahmed Abdel Ghafour Samarie, had cordial relations with the association until this year. However, the split among Sunnis has spread to the religious arena. "The tribes and tribesmen have risen up," Samarie told Al Hurra television Wednesday night. "Now they realized that Al Qaeda elements had devastated them, killed their men and assaulted their honor.
Ian Bach
Let’s analyze some of this weekend’s Mass Media’s smoke and mirrors.
| Democrats: Bush hinders new Iraq course
AP via Yahoo! News Sat, 17 Nov 2007 1:00 PM PST
A Democratic senator on Saturday accused President Bush and congressional Republicans of hindering his party's attempts to chart a new course in Iraq even though U.S. troops are fighting violence "they cannot possibly resolve." |
Well first I would like to see the Democrats come up with a “new course”. So far the Democrats only “new course” is to cut and run and then let Iraq fall into turmoil and all out internal small wars, which would likely spill over into regional wars and would include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and in that type of environment al Qaeda groups from Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, and many others will have the type of environment that love to exploit and would use to try and take control in hopes of creating a Islamic State that will lead to genocide of Kurds, Christians, Jews, and Yezidi, and many other religious minorities that live in Iraq and in the region. The real “new course” was plotted out by the military years before around 2004-2005 and John McCain fought his fellow Senators and George Bush’s staff to finally wake up and listen to McCain and the Generals who understood what was necessary. Then McCain introduced the “Surge” strategy into the Senate. The Senate approved it and approved our commander General Petraeus. Also the old saying comes to mind “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it” why would we want to stop listening to our Commander in Iraq?? Petraeus gets it and the democrats are only performing politic maneuvering not informed of enlightened decisions.
Second the Article above says “even though U.S. troops are fighting violence they cannot possibly resolve.” Well there is a good joke eh? A few problems in that statement include we are not fighting violence. We are securing areas using local citizens, the Iraqi Army, local government, tribes, Iraqi Police, local religious movements and organizations (when they have sworn off terrorism and agree to work for a unified secure secular Iraq.) We now put in place the methods and tools for the locals to ensure the bad guys stay out and can’t come back. The article also suggests we cannot possibly resolve the violence. Hmm ok then someone explain to me how violence is down and it is going down faster than any of the experts ever could have wished for or imagined…..must faster. Even I have been amazed at the momentum in the Iraqi awakening.
4 comments: