Dhari Controversy;
security Guards Killed
Traveling and I am posting via my Treo so no hyperlinks.
14 Bodies found in Baghdad, 2 near Fallujah.
3 more private security guards attacked Friday in south. 5 kidnapped Thursday unaccounted for — WaPo.
[Reuters reports scattered political violence in Iraq on Friday, with 14 bodies found in Baghdad showing signs of torture, and two near Fallujah.
Of the five private security guards kidnapped in the south on Thursday, apparently none has been released or is known to have been killed. The governor of Basra, Muhammad al-Wa’ili of the Fadhila or Virtue Party (Shiite fundamentalist) mistakenly announced that two had been released and one killed. He was confusing that situation with an incident on Friday:
‘ On Friday afternoon, in the incident that Basra’s governor apparently confused with the Crescent kidnapping, a shootout erupted between security contractors and Iraqi police in Zubair. A foreign security contractor was killed and a British contractor was wounded, the British military said in a statement.
Capt. Tane Dunlop, a spokesman for British forces, said British troops conducted a raid on Safwan early Friday morning to root out “individuals suspected of being involved in terrorist acts.” As the troops moved on the group, they were fired upon by gunmen in a building. A firefight followed in which two gunmen were killed.
Zubair is a largely Sunni Arab town in the most Shiite south.]
Al-Zaman says some Iraqi Shiites, such as Ayatollah Baghdadi and Mahmud Hussaini Sarkhi are defending Harith al-Dhari as an Iraqi patriot. The Kurds seem not to have known about or to have approved his arrest warrant. He is a leader of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars. The Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq condemned him. He is accused of inciiting to terrorism.
Bush went to Vietnam and boasted about how we would have won if we had not quit. This was, he said, the lesson for Iraq of the Vietnam War. He managed to be wrong about two wars at once and to anger both his hosts (how churlish!) and the Iraqi public. The American Right never admitted that they lost in Vietnam, thus the Rambo movies and, Melani McAllister argues, the US admiration for Entebbe. Iraq was their chance, they thought, to get it right. Bush had also said insulting things to the Philiippines about how wonderful it was thst we had colonized them (and killed 400,000).
Colonialism is over with. When will they get that through their heads?
And actually we can’t win in Iraq by just staying. Just like when you are sinking in quicksand, staying put is not a virtue.
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