'Sistani, Sadr Followers Agree On Goal, Differ On Means' +another

[Aidoneus]

The last time I brought the subject up, it was very interesting (though the figure that initially made it so disappeared halfway in). I have not posted as much lately, save an occasional, slightly veiled, heretical broadside..

Sistani, Sadr Followers Agree On Goal, Differ On Means
By Nagem Salam, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, May 31 (IslamOnline.net) – The ongoing fighting in the two holy Shiite cities of An-Najaf and Kufa between the
Mahdi army of Muqtada Sadr and the U.S. occupation forces has drawn mixed reactions from the followers of the young Shiite leader and Grand Ayatolla Ali Al-Sistani, though both Shiite camps are on board that the occupiers must leave their country.

Spokespeople representing both Sadr and Al-Sistani in the predominantly Shiite area of Khadamiyah, expressed outrage at the fighting in the holy cities, but differed in what they felt the solution to the crisis was.

Standing outside the Sadr Mosque in Khadamiyah, 17 year-old cigarette vendor Hamad Ali Abdullah is extremely angry about the U.S. forces desecrating the holy cities in southern Iraq.

"We will follow the teachings of Sadr, even if he is captured by the Americans," he said, standing near his small shop which has a poster of the firebrand scholar on one of the walls.

--snip--

Hamad says he speaks for the majority of the followers of Sadr, who are mostly young men.

A generation, he said, who has known nothing but U.S.-led wars and sanctions against their country.

"They support Sadr for his relentless resistance to the occupation".

--snip--

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-05/31/article08.shtml

[Aidoneus]

1. and from the Sistani supporters..

same piece:--

--snip--

On the other Shiite side, Sistani’s followers maintain that the peaceful resistance is the best solution to the current standoff, though they agree with Sadr’s supporters that the U.S. occupation must come to an end, sooner or later.

Two brothers inside a furniture shop in the Khadamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Walid and Ahmad Al-Mufhiah, discussed the consistent statements of their leader, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani regarding the fighting in the south of Iraq.

"Most of his followers are uneasy now, because of the tactics of Sadr," said Walid.

"Why should we fight now when the Ayatollah has asked us not to do so," asked Ahmad.

"But in time, if he calls for us to, every one of us will pick up a weapon against the Americans," he added sternly.

Adel Ibrahim Aziz owns a small jewelry store in the neighborhood, and has complete faith in the decisions of Al-Sistani.

"My friends and I will do whatever he asks us to," he states calmly. "If he says to wait, we wait. But if he says it is time to fight, all of us will fight, of course."

--snip--

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-05/31/article08.shtml

[Disturbed]

2. al Sistani

He is biding his time. I still feel that he will call for an uprising against the Occupation.

[Aidoneus]

4. there's a reason his beard is such a shade of grey

Exactly because he hasn't charged in when the bodies piled up. He reacted in the same way even when Sadr's father, and really his only living peer and rival in Iraq, was martyred. Not much a politician by choice, though the respect his studies have garnered has made him such.

[Aidoneus]

3. MSNBC reproduces the pigpost's dangerous deviation from the Pentagon Line

And also my comments and a few corrections..

Moqtada Sadr seen as voice of poor
Firebrand cleric's message reverberates in Iraqi society


A poster of Moqtada Sadr on a street in Baghdad's Sadr City

<<My note:--the two figures above Muqtada's face are his father, Ayatallah al-Uzma Sayyid Shahid Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr (upper left), and Muqtada's wife's father Imam Shahid Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr (upper right)--one of the most important Muslim figures, counting the recent or distant past.>>

--------------------------

By Daniel Williams

Updated: 12:30 a.m. ET June 03, 2004
--snip--

Branded by the Bush administration as a criminal and a thug who has minimal support among Iraq's Shiite majority, Sadr is viewed very differently from the garbage-carpeted streets of Sadr City. Here, the brash leader of an eight-week-old Shiite revolt is seen as a leading voice of the poor, a patriot fighting foreign occupation and the heir to a tradition of speaking out against injustice and tyranny. His tactics may be foolhardy, his militia might get crushed, but the message he carries reverberates deeply in Iraqi society and will not easily go away, Iraqi observers and common citizens argue.

"I don't like Moqtada personally. Look at what he's done -- gotten a lot of people killed by sending them out against American tanks," Abbas said. "But of course what he says, it's true. What have the Americans brought us? We are worse off than ever. Moqtada wants them out, and who can argue with that?"

<<My note--this man's son is a supporter of Muqtada, though I left that line out to keep down the paragraph number down>>

For nearly a year, Iraqi Shiites largely welcomed the U.S. invasion and tolerated the occupation. But Sadr, his followers and his clandestine militia were an exception. As early as last June, Sadr was denouncing delays in elections and abuses by occupation forces -- protests that more popular mainstream Shiite clerics did not raise until last fall. As Shiites became increasingly disillusioned with U.S. rule in Iraq, Sadr's isolated complaints became mainstream opinion.

<<My note:--The above claim in italics is incorrect.. throughout the whole period there existed a wide base of opposition, though it manifested itself differently due to differing circumstances. For example, immediately after the occupation began to entrench itself, the first protests were by the underground Iraqi branch of the Communist & al-Da'awa parties, now collaborators on the puppet governing council! Sadr himself, while (more or less) consistent in his principled and progressively impatient opposition to the occupation, was not by any means alone. Other students of his father that commanded divergent branches of the Sadrist line, Mohammed al-Yaqubi for example, had early on formed organizations to establish themselves and stand up to the invaders. Not only the Sadrists, but also a wide base of other movements including dissident wings of collaborator parties. That they were treated differently--largely left alone to steadily grow stronger--from, for example, the militant resistance in the center of the occupied country, would explain the different & delayed reactions.>>

--snip--

"This offensive against Sadr has made him bigger than ever before," said Adnan Ali, a top official of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross.

--snip--


Hassan Ali, a porter at a Sadr City market, gave a blank look when asked whether Sadr's lack of eloquence was a drawback. "You mean the way he talks? Who cares? Sadr is the strongest, the bravest. He's for justice," Ali said, then added, "He's Iraqi."

For his loyalists, the fact that Sadr is Iraqi-born is a plus. By contrast, Sistani is Iranian by birth. Sadr plays heavily on patriotism. Among the multitude of Sadr posters in Sadr City is one that shows his bearded face along with his father's on the red, white and black Iraqi flag. The flag also flies over his Sadr City offices. There is no such banner atop Sistani's office in Najaf.

<<My note:--...and I seriously doubt this flag is the silly apparently Zionist-inspired British-made object/"flag" that the puppet council rubberstamped! (...yes, I know it describes the red/white/black there, I just wanted to work that comment in. The flag really did go over like a lead balloon.. how sheltered from reality are the idiots that came up with that that they really thought it would be received differently?)>>

But Sadr City is far from unanimous in its support of Sadr. It is a jumbled neighborhood that has decayed and grown ever more cramped with the influx of Iraqis looking for work in the capital. On the south end of the enclave, where better-off Shiites live, there are posters extolling Sadr's virtues. But deeper into the slum, the posters of Sadr, his fingers thrust aggressively into the air, grow in number. At the northern fringes, hardly a wall does not bear his portrait.

--snip--

Manfi's brother, Ahmed, who was jailed for four years for protesting the assassination of the elder Sadr, said that by going into the streets to battle the Americans, Sadr's followers were trying to wake up Iraqis.

--snip--

full article that is not infested with my additions:-- http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5123780/

[Aidoneus]

5. kick

:kick: