What we don’t know WILL hurt us.

U.S. Seen on Brink of Iraq's Religious “Snakepit” A headline that ignores the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people. If you search the web you will find story after story on the death of Abdul Majid al-Khoei who was brought to the holy city of Najaf by U.S. Special Forces. You will find variation after variation with little agreement on who killed him and why. His exile in the U.S. did not help him and may have been the reason for his death. And then there is the siege of Grand Ayatollah Sistani who was surrounded and told he had 48 hours to leave Iraq. Leading Shi'a circles have blamed a hitherto little known group, the Jama'at as-Sadr as-Thani for the murder and the armed threat against the ayatollahs. WHO?? This group is led by Muqtada as-Sadr, the 22 year-old-son of another revered ayatollah, the late Mohammad Sadiq as-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam's regime in 1999. Aren’t the Shii glad we ousted Saddam? If so, why are they now killing each other and killing a man who hid in the U.S. Siege of Shiite Clerics Over That siege seems to have ended peacefully and we haven’t a clue as to why it ended. It does seem like the siege started with the rumor that Grand Ayatollah Sistani issued a Fatwa urging the country's Shia community not to hinder the U.S. and British invading armies. Apparently backing the U.S./British invasion is a death sentence. All of this points up just how hard the next phase of Iraq’s future will be.
Papa Bush urged the Shii to rise up against Saddam in 1991 then left hundreds of thousands to die when he left them helpless. He backed away because he saw the quagmire of trying sort out the various factions looming ahead. Now that the Shrub (Papa “Bush”, the son is the “Shrub”! Please tell me you’ve already heard that.) anyway, now that the Shrub has attacked and removed the government of a sovereign nation he must try to restore order and help the people put a new government in place. Bringing Abdul Majid al-Khoei to Najef from the U.S. was a feeble and disastrous first step.

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