U.S., Israel Stood to Gain from Najaf Bomb -Hizbollah

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030901/wl_nm/iraq_hizbollah_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group told mourners massed in Beirut that the United States and Israel had most to gain from the killing of a top Shi'ite cleric in a car bombing last week in Iraq.

"The Americans do not want a state in Iraq, they want a splintered Iraq and the Israelis want to crush Iraq," Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told about 3,000 Shi'ites gathered in the city's southern suburbs to mourn Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim.

"For more than one reason it is in Israel's interests and part of its plan to kill the leaders that present or even might present a danger to Israel," Nasrallah said.

The cleric stopped short of blaming Israel or its main ally the United States directly for Hakim's killing on Friday in an attack in Najaf, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest cities, which killed more than 80 people.

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[chesley]

1. Why should any one

trust anything Hizbollah has to say the lying, murdering scum???!!!

[smallprint]

2. i don't trust any of the parties involved

the point is to look at their statements and try to figure out what is really going on. does this new statement blaming the us and israel make political sense, or not? i'm not sure myself but i would like to hear someone explain it...

[ixion]

4. right, smallprint

none of the parties involved are to be trusted. Actually, given the context, this person presents an interesting point. I know very little about the circumstannces surrounding this event, but I have to admit that, albeit an over-simplification, that it strikes me as odd that Islamic extremeists would attack other Islamic sects, given the current environment.

[chesley]

6. Why??

They've been killing each other for centuries. Their religious differences are inportant to them.

[ixion]

8. right...

but at the moment they're threatened by the US and Israel. I'm not saying that it was impossible that they would, just that I personally found it odd. If I were in the same position, I'd forget the family fued and worry about the occupying country, again, if the shoe were on the other foot. That is, if another country invaded the US, the pro-choice, anti-abortion people might forget their fight for the time being, in lieu of a greater overall threat. That's all I was saying.

[NickB79]

22. Review history

The Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis banded together in the early 20th century to repel the British colonialists, despite their religious hatred of one another. It seems likely they might do such a thing again given the current situation they are in.

[Kbowe]

18. Makes sense to me.

Not likely that sincere Muslims would kill Muslims at prayers...only those who hold contempt for Islamics would do that (US, Israel).
Who else claims that all Arabs are scum and that ten thousand Arab lives mean less than a single Israeli life?

Also, if a militant Islamic were to kill someone as ranking as the Shiite leader, more than likely they would have blown themselves up at the same time. One thing...those militant Islamics are not afraid to die for their beliefs...but Americans and Israeli would not think of it.
Also, the extremist Islamics would spend more time and energy killing occupiers than blowing up people their own people.

[Character Assassin]

19. Based on those inaccurate generalities, pehaps...

Not likely that sincere Muslims would kill Muslims at prayers...only those who hold contempt for Islamics would do that (US, Israel).

That statement is wildly, comically inaccurate. What ever gave you the idea that that is some sort of likelihood? Trying looking up a little history of, for example, the Iran/Iraq war. Plenty o' muslim on muslim slaughter at prayer time, to name but one example.

Also, if a militant Islamic were to kill someone as ranking as the Shiite leader, more than likely they would have blown themselves up at the same time.

Please support that statement.

One thing...those militant Islamics are not afraid to die for their beliefs...but Americans and Israeli would not think of it.

Ah, utterly unfamiliar with history, I see.

Also, the extremist Islamics would spend more time and energy killing occupiers than blowing up people their own people.

You don't know what you're talking about.

[NNN0LHI]

3. The problem is that it makes no difference what we believe

The problem is what do the Arab people believe? That is my concern.

Don

[Journeyman]

7. Aye, there's the rub. . .

Our piddly thoughts and concerns are nought against the Arab beliefs. BushCo's statements may indeed be the factual truth, but that's no matter -- what may play in Peoria is irrelevant in Najaf.

[TolstoyAndy]

20. I thought you meant Bush and Sharon for a sec

when it comes to lying murdering scum, nobody but nobody has CheneyCo Inc. beat.

Now, this is not a defense of Hizbollah, who are at least murdering scum (by which I only mean I have never caught them in a lie).

But their body count is far less than ours just in Iraq.

And doesn't Israel have something to gain from keeping Iraq so unstable that the US has to stay there forever - that keeps the big boys (us) in the neighborhood just in case our little friend needs to call on us.

Just devil's advocating, that's all - Hizbollah is right up there with SharonCo, CheneyCo, the Sauds, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il, and every Bohemian-Grove-attending Bilderberger on my list of people who are causes of the world's problems.

(Note to Poindexter's minions: violence is not advocated against any of the above persons or organizations)

[PsychoDad]

23. Thats why I don't trust the Bush regime

lying, murdering scum.

[IndianaGreen]

24. Those that believe it, are the ones that count!

Even a man that was interviewed in Najaf by Bob Arnot for MSNBC, said that the bomb was planted by non-Muslims.

Perception is the only thing that counts. Just as Americans believed Saddam was involved in 9/11, despite massive evidence to the contrary, most Muslims will readily blame Israel and the US for their woes, even on those rare occasions in which they are innocent!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. Too damn many folks over there REALLY want to see us out of there...

<snip>
"Oh Americans and Zionists, no matter how much of our leaders' blood you spill you cannot impose on us your tyranny or your projects," he said.
<snip>

I'm thinking things are just going to get progressively worse for quite a while longer. Bush's "war on terrorism" is going to get more Americans killed than trying an oil coup under the guise of protecting America from terror.

[pretzel4gore]

9. chaos

benefits bushwacko.....israel too if one accepts the neocon viewpoint....problem is, no one (or very few) westerners recognize that it's WE who set the global standard for depravity

[smallprint]

10. OK so does somebody want to play devil's advocate here

and explain exactly how the US and/or Israel benefit from the bombing? because that's what's missing here... an explanation

what do they get from the bombing? divisions between shiites? divisions between shiites and sunnis? if the US did it, shouldn't they make it look like someone specific was responsible?

[bemildred]

11. This is self-serving crap.

"Explaining" it is a waste of time.
It's like Bill Gates telling you that the Najaf Bombing
was cause by Linux, don't waste time on it.

[smallprint]

12. ok then who did it and why?

on edit: took out angry crap

just looking for some more substance

[bemildred]

13. You got me.

Many possibilities suggest themselves.
Most are talked about in other threads.
But right now, nobody knows, except the perps
from what I can tell.

It makes no sense at all to me that the US is
behind it, I favor someone that wishes the US to
fail in Iraq, of which there are many I would think.

[RainDog]

14. I think this is part of the rationale

Al-Hakim was in exile in Iran for a long time and returned when Saddam fell.

Al-Hakim was a leader of the Shia sect of Muslims. They are the majority population in Iraq.

Saddam, on the other hand, was from the Sunni minority, but the Brits chose the Sunnis to lead Iraq because they have connections with Saudi Arabia.

So the thinking it seems, is that Al-Hakim, who wanted a muslim state, would be able to win an election when "democracy" came to Iraq. The Shi'ties have other Ayatollahs who are vying for power, however, including a younger one who is much less willing to work with the U.S. than Al-Hakim was (his brother is on the ruling council now.)

The U.S., on the other hand, wants Chalabli to lead a puppet regime...sort of like the Shah in Iran after America deposed their democratically elected leader because Mossedegah wanted to nationalize Iranian oil (and British petroleum and U.S. oil didn't want that...this was the first time we did such a thing, btw..and believe me, people in the middle east know about this, even if Americans don't...although there is a book about this out now which is on the NYTimes best seller list "All the Shah's Men."

The U.S. and Israel are seen as one entity, since we always back Israel, not matter what they do, including the massacres which Ariel Sharon led not too long ago in the past.

[maryallen]

15. Excellent explanation, rain dog ...

Thanks.

[smallprint]

16. so al-hakim was the "leading candidate"

and viewed as possibly a sell-out by shiites...?

so he gets taken out by the more radical shiites...

along with 100+ supporters and bystanders?! who are shiites? i don't think so...

maybe sunnis or outsiders would be willing to kill so many iraqis to get just one man

on edit: thanks for the excellent post, raindog!

[starroute]

17. The problem is that the statement is factually true

If you assume that the various parties involved are behaving more or less rationally, the US and Israel are the only ones who *do* have something to gain from a weak, chaotic, fragmented Iraq.

The Iraqis don't have anything to gain from it -- to conclude that Iraqis did the bombings, you have to believe either that they would rather kill old enemies than fight the Americans, or that the Baathists are pursuing some deep strategy to get the Americans out by destroying their own country. Neither of those makes a whole lot of sense.

The Saudi terrorists who are supposedly flocking to Iraq to fight the infidel wouldn't seem to have much to gain from the bombings either.

The United States and Israel are the only ones who would find it to their advantage to prevent Iraq from forming a representative government, to eliminate charismatic local leaders who speak of unifying the country and restoring self-rule, or to cut off potential intervention by the United Nations.

Israel actually has the most to gain by maintaining a power vacuum in Iraq. The US, which still has some hopes of profiting off Iraqi oil, has rather less to gain -- unless they're planning to fall back on plan B, where Iraq becomes just one more excuse to loot the US treasury for the benefit of Halliburton.

I don't mean to suggest that Israel is actually doing these things -- but they're the only ones who seem likely to benefit from them in the long term, and the Arabs are quite aware of that fact.

[DuctapeFatwa]

21. Hizbollah claims Pope catholic, skeptics are outraged

"That nasty Hizbollah," snarled a chorus of arms merchants, "this is no different from the time they said bears, um, freshen up in the woods."

[MrPrax]

25. Given the trend in the last few years...

The Najaf bombing might have been orchestrated to create a civil war.

If you notice the trend in both Yugoslavia and the Congo, appears to be partition.

In fact that is being bantered about for Saudi Arabia as well...

As far as murdering scum...

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7127339%5E1702,00.html

Palestinian schoolgirl shot dead
From correspondents in Gaza Strip
August 31, 2003

AN eight-year-old Palestinian girl shot dead by Israeli troops in the central Gaza Strip was killed while showing off her new school uniform to friends, the youngster's grieving mother said today.