CBS: Shiites Are Getting Impatient

[Cush]

If things don't improve the 15,000 man Shiite army (trained in Iran while exiled) will take charge of securtiy, with or without US approval

ABC:

10 attacks a day and that two employees of the new Council were attacked in broad day light in an assasination attempt.

According to a British report, many attacks aren't being officialy reported (trying to hide the numbers) Some analyst was saying that this shows there is more going on and that you just can't blame Saddam loyalists

[gratuitous]

1. Ruh roh Rorge

Can you imagine the blood bath, not the mention the PR nightmare, should the Shiites mount an attack on U.S. positions? It would almost make the Polish horse calvary against the Nazi Wehrmacht in 1939 look like a fair fight.

Naturally, no video or other reports of the carnage will make it to American shores, but the rest of the world will make a lot of noise, and certainly won't improve the chances, dim though they are, of other countries coming to help out Uncle Tit-in-a-Wringer.

[starroute]

3. I'm not so sure

Have you ever read anything about the Mahdi's uprising in the Sudan in the 1880s?

http://www.workmall.com/wfb2001/sudan/sudan_history_the_mahdiyah_1884_98.html

Even after the Mahdi proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, against the Turkiyah, Khartoum dismissed him as a religious fanatic. The government paid more attention when his religious zeal turned to denunciation of tax collectors. To avoid arrest, the Mahdi and a party of his followers, the Ansar, made a long march to Kurdufan, where he gained a large number of recruits, especially from the Baqqara. . . .

Early in 1882, the Ansar, armed with spears and swords, overwhelmed a 7,000-man Egyptian force not far from Al Ubayyid and seized their rifles and ammunition. The Mahdi followed up this victory by laying siege to Al Ubayyid and starving it into submission after four months. The Ansar, 30,000 men strong, then defeated an 8,000-man Egyptian relief force at Sheikan. . . .

To avoid being drawn into a costly military intervention, the British government ordered an Egyptian withdrawal from Sudan. Gordon, who had received a reappointment as governor general, arranged to supervise the evacuation of Egyptian troops and officials and all foreigners from Sudan. . . .

Increasing British popular support for Gordon eventually forced Prime Minister William Gladstone to mobilize a relief force under the command of Lord Garnet Joseph Wolseley. A "flying column" sent overland from Wadi Halfa across the Bayyudah Desert bogged down at Abu Tulayh (commonly called Abu Klea), where the Hadendowa Beja--the so-called Fuzzy Wuzzies--broke the British line. An advance unit that had gone ahead by river when the column reached Al Matammah arrived at Khartoum on January 28, 1885, to find the town had fallen two days earlier. The Ansar had waited for the Nile flood to recede before attacking the poorly defended river approach to Khartoum in boats, slaughtering the garrison, killing Gordon, and delivering his head to the Mahdi's tent.


Americans may think their military might is overwhelming -- but so did the British in the 1800's.

Now, just for fun, you might try Googling * al-Sadr al-mahdi * and see what you come up with.

[stickdog]

2. The Shi'ite is hitting the fan. (NT)