Muqtada Al Sadr is 'evil'. Now you know.
Why? Because he has an illegal militia. What precisely is illegal about the militia is unclear since there are more pro-American clerics and others, including Chalabi, who have militias. Maybe it's because of some illegal acts done by the militia. Either way, here is another snarl in the smooth rhetoric of good vs evil.
Still, I don't understand why some folks (I've been overusing this kind of logic) can't seem to figure out that whether or not Al Sadr is 'evil', that he's no more predisposed to agreeing with UN or 'international' rules than he is to kissing the ass of the IGC.
For some inexplicable reason, we are negotiating with and militarily surrounding Al Sadr. Clearly the IGC isn't powerful enough to arrest him, so he's only 'illegal' to coalition forces. One wonders exactly how much such loose cannons will be allowed to get away with as the transitional government takes control. Moreover, how many American journalists are going to stick around to see how much more of Al Sadr's kind of behavior will be tolerated as US troops stand down? Few, I'd bet.
So Al Sadr, the gangsta cleric, will run around unleashed for an intederminate period. He will continue to recruit militiamen... What really kills me is the logic of this. Here you have Iraqis who have clearly not all been regular army joining up into religious militias complaining that the Americans are shooting them down, and so they fight the coalition troops. They really have no legitimate reason to be combattants. What do they do when the government is theirs? They shut up and obey? No, they'll find another reason to try to get the American Army to leave Iraq. But until the new Iraqi army is built, under the auspices of the same damned IGC and its elected successors, they'll have to remain in the militias.
So the way I see it is that the post IGC government is either going to beat these guys down, with coaltion help, or they're going to give some kind of amnesty to militias currently in conflict with the occupation forces. Impossible.
What's even more incredible is the domestic opposition which says Bush is in a quagmire and more troops are required. Yet at the same time they say this is a battle for hearts and minds. It's a battle for reason and competence, I say, and with the likes of Al Sadr rising to national prominence, the likelihood of that battle going the right way is dubious. But it's not for a lack of trying. The Iraqi people simply refuse to be pacified. So it's attrition all the way forward.
We couldn't just crush them. That wouldn't be nice.
UPDATE: Sadr backs down.
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