Why Casey Sheehan was killed

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH25Ak04.html

Aug 25, 2005

Why Casey Sheehan was killed

By Aaron Glantz

DENVER - Despite camping out next to George W Bush's Texas ranch for two weeks, Cindy Sheehan has been unable to get a meeting with the president for an explanation of why her 24-year-old son had to die in action. So, here is some of the story from one who was there.

Like Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, I was in Baghdad's Sadr City on April 4, 2004. I was there as an unembedded journalist (not attached to a military unit). Unlike Casey Sheehan, I came out alive.

I had traveled to Sadr City to cover the Bush administration's attack on the movement of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It didn't matter that the cleric had millions of followers or that he was the scion of an important political family with a history of standing up to tyranny. (His father was killed by Saddam Hussein's regime for fomenting revolution in 1999. His uncle, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was killed for leading an insurrection against Saddam's Ba'ath rule in 1980.)

It didn't matter that Sadr's forces were providing food aid to the poor or organizing traffic patrol and garbage duty in an atmosphere with no basic services. The problem for Bush and his Iraq administrator, L Paul Bremer, was that Sadr was against the US occupation. So he had to be dealt with. First his newspaper was closed. (See The Shi'ite voice that will be heard, Asia Times Online, April 8, 2004)Then his top advisor was arrested. Then Bremer announced an unnamed judge was demanding that Sadr be arrested on charges of murder. "He's effectively attempting to establish his authority in place of the legitimate Iraqi government," Bremer told reporters. "We will not tolerate that."

[Why Syzygy]

1. "legitimate Ira*qi government"

Now there's an oxymoron.

What ever happened to Muqtada al-Sadr?

[mnhtnbb]

2. al-Sadr is a player in the Constitution writing process

see CNN report and scroll down.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/05/iraq.main/index.html