Many of Sadr's fighters are true thugs

"On Wednesday afternoon, a few feet from the Sistani checkpoint, a middle-aged Iraqi man was walking to his small bookstore. Al Mahdi Army fighters have made a point of threatening his life, so it is better to just call him Ali. Ali was tired; there were dark circles under his eyes, which I noticed when he rolled his glass display case toward the sidewalk. He was opening up shop and rolled the display case out on small ingenious rails of his own design. Ali built them so the store could be folded up and put away when business was done. It reminded me how many Najafis had learned in the past few months to retreat from the fighting without leaving town. They had adopted a lower profile, pulled the doors closed and disappeared. Ali, the notable exception, was opening his shop while everyone else was closing theirs. He is living in fear for his life and he is not sleeping well. Things are breaking down.

'The Al Mahdi Army are all barbarians, they are mindless, they can kill anyone and no one will say anything,' Ali explained under shelves full of dusty Islamic volumes. He took me back to the Internet cafe and pulled up a digital snapshot of the newspaper Ansar al Mahdi, and it showed a man in Iraqi clothes who had been hung, the rope still around his neck, the head forced into an unnatural angle. He craned his neck toward the ceiling. The man's body was slumped in a chair. The executed man was holding a large yellow placard that described him as a collaborator. 'They are proud of it, look, they published it themselves,' Ali said in disgust when he brought up the image. He told me that they had probably executed people suspected of spying in the Islamic court a few blocks away. The picture looked authentic; the paper was dated the 28th of April. 'Najaf is dying,' Ali said.

I asked Ali if he was getting threats from the al Mahdi Army. He nodded. It happened all the time. Ali said a Muqtada gunman recently told him, 'We know you are a spy for the Americans. You are worth $10,000 if we kill you.' This threat was one of many they had made against the bookseller. That is their style. The al Mahdi fighters think everyone is a spy who is not part of their organization, and now that people are turning against them there is a certain amount of truth to it. They are suspicious of foreign journalists, but they are far more worried about the people of Najaf. After my conversation with Ali, it was easy to see why. Ali hates the al Mahdi people in a visceral way and walks down Rasul Street with his haunted look without trying to hide from the packs of armed men.


When Ali brought out the cold soft drinks, he came out and said that the al Mahdi Army was receiving new shipments of weapons from outside Najaf -- he thought from Iran. I asked him how he knew about the guns. 'I saw them unpacking crates of rifles near the Sadr office,' Ali told me. 'The roads are open, anyone can bring them in.' I have heard the story about the weapons shipments many times in the last few days, but it's hard to track down the details. A number of observant people are certain that arms are coming in, but they aren't sure where they are coming from. It is also true that there are unfamiliar, new-looking rifles held by some of the checkpoint soldiers. These weapons are much better than the old Kalashnikovs which are everywhere in Najaf. "

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/22/najaf/index1.html

Anyone fighting the illegal occupation is a friend of mine.

had enough sense to lock of criminals. Now these people are fighting their 'liberators.' Ain't karma a bitch?

Uh oh. More bloodshed to come. Film at eleven...

for all involved.

And the CIA and the Special OPs and the "Civilian Contractors" and now the US Military as well.

Bush stink has rubbed off on the whole lot.

Many around the White House are thugs IMHO!

Who can deny it now?

"Many of Bush's private soldiers are THUGS too!"

and his secret PNAC handlers too

God, some you are so lame...

The fact is that Sadr's army is comprised of creeps, thugs, and criminals. They terrorize innocent Iraqis as much, if not more, than the American forces.

Some of Sadr's forces shot at Sistani's house. They aren't fuckin' noble "freedom fighters" - it is possible to question the occupation of Iraq and realize that Sadr is an asshole.

the liberal hawks, like Berman. Salon is perfectly capable of publishing neocon agitprop.

"neocon agitprop" - if anything it leans left...

This article is just straight up reporting.

Because they tar-and-feathered Tories. Al-Sadr and his militia are native Iraqis fighting for the freedom of their people against occupation. Why can't you see that?

I see Sadr as fighting for his own power. If you read up on him you will find that he has questionable motives. His troops recently fired on Sistani's house, to try and intimidate him.

Bush has set up a dynamic that validates extremist power-grabbers like Sadr. Moderate voices get drowned out. Bush and Sadr need eachother, to justify what they are trying to do. They are two sides of the same coin.

not spoken about much is that our undermanning of the operations opened a huge void and massive lawlessness almost from the beginning of our occupation. When one actually heard an Iraqi citizen interviewed (pretty rare given the media handtying) - the comments - from pretty early on - was that on a day to day living scale things were less safe. Not due to soldiers, or those fighting the soldiers - but do to outbursts of utter chaos. This should have been a concern as it underminded support for the occupation.

That remains to be a big problem (with tales of kidnappings escalating, among other crimes).

Now add in the bands of young, undereducated, fundamentalist followers of Sadr - in the same environment - and one has a very violent situation. Think the bands of lawless rebels that were zeroing in on the capital of Haiti on the eve of the US whisking (by force) Aristide out. I have read and heard about these Sadr supporters from multiple sources - and the reports are consistent. These folks are thugs, and they are terrorizing residents.

As I said above - quagmire for all - for our troops, and for the Iraqis. Horrendous.

they hate our freedom, blah blah blah

maybe we should be a little pickier about who our enemies are.

Point being?

Did you expect them to be choirboys?

but I guess not...

instead it's turned around back on American troops...

pretty fuckin' pathologically sad....

slices of life from inside Najaf. I've been reading those columns as well as others. The problem, of course, is that there are no value-free statements anymore. There is no objective slice of life; it is all value, from top to bottom. But then we'd have to say that as much as this is a slice of life, we're missing other "slices of life" that show either the opposite point (that many of Sadr's people are not thugs) or the point I made (that many American soldiers are thugs). So, there is a whole field of values that are missing. But don't pretend that you were only making an "objective point," or "providing a slice-of-life." Exclusion is a mode of falsehood. That's what was being pointed out to you, sir.

This is about what one simple bookseller is going through in Najaf. But I guess the troubles of one innocent Iraqi are of no consequence.

What amazes me is that if I post something like this people see it as a defense of Bush and get all bitchy.

I'm saying that is a narrow world-view.

Since I never said it was not, I suppose I shouldn't respond further.

the Iraqis are caught between a multitude of very violent forces.

n/t

They're attracted to jobs where they get to carry guns and boss people around and beat them up and stuff. Some thugs and their jobs are just perceived as more legitimate than others is all.

innocent civillians

The US has practiced wholesale slaughter in Iraq. Don't be fooled by those who say "If we wanted to practice slaughter, we would have killed many more." This may be true, but it is irrelevant. It takes quite a bit of work, quite a bit of inventiveness, quite a bit of seething hatred to kill as many Iraqis as the US State War Machine has killed in the last year+two months. A lot. And it is all done in the service of humanity. That's what's so jarring about it. A thug is a thug, but sometimes I wonder whether I wouldn't prefer a thug to the clean and righteous murder machine of the US State Apparatus.

Lawyer: Top U.S. Officer Knew of Prison Abuse
Post Exclusive
Lawyer: Top U.S. Officer Knew of Prison Abuse

By Scott Higham, Joe Stephens and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 22, 2004; 7:05 PM


A military lawyer for a soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse case testified that a captain at the Baghdad prison said the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq was present during some "interrogations and/or allegations of the prisoner abuse," according to a recording of a military hearing obtained by The Washington Post.

The lawyer said he was told that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib. The lawyer, Capt. Robert Shuck, also said a sergeant at the prison was prepared to testify that intelligence officers told him the abuse of detainees on the cellblock was "the right thing to do."

Shuck is assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company. During an April 2 hearing that was open to the public, Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity. The military prosecutor questioned Shuck about what Reese would say under oath.

"Are you saying that Captain Reese is going to testify that General Sanchez was there and saw this going on?" asked Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor.

"That's what he told me," Shuck said. "I am an officer of the court, sir, and I would not lie. I have got two children at home. I'm not going to risk my career."


<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48229-2004May22.html

"We intend to seek immunity for a myriad of officers who are unwilling to participate in the search for the truth without protecting themselves," Myers said today.


THE ROTTEN HOUSE OF CARDS IS CRASHING DOWN!

===

<snip>

The documents obtained by The Times included transcripts of sworn statements from military intelligence, the military police, civilian contractors and others who were interviewed by Army investigators last January as they began to look into allegations of abuse.

The statements include several accounts from officers, including Capt. Donald J. Reese of the 372nd Military Police Company, who acknowledged having seen Iraqi prisoners stripped naked while in American detention. Captain Reese, among others, said they had been told that nudity was part of "an interrogation procedure used by M.I." or military intelligence.

One intelligence officer, Specialist Luciana Spencer, said interrogations had been staged "in the showers, stairwell or property room" of the cellblock, as well as in two interrogation centers that were formally in control of the Joint Information and Debriefing Center. The officer in charge was Capt. Carolyn A. Wood of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, who other Army officers have said brought to Iraq the aggressive procedures the unit had developed during her previous service in Afghanistan, from July 2002 to January 2003. She served in Afghanistan as the operations officer in charge of the Bagram Collection Point.

<snip>

At least two noncommissioned officers, Sgts. Michael J. Smith and Santos A. Cardona, said they had used unmuzzled military dogs to intimidate prisoners under interrogation. They said they were acting under instructions from Colonel Pappas, the commander of the intelligence brigade.

Both sergeants said Colonel Pappas had assured them that the use of dogs in interrogation was permitted and did not require written authorization or approval from senior officers. The memorandum for the record issued by the interrogation center on Oct. 9 also listed the "presence of working dogs" as "approved" on the basis of authorization from the interrogation officer in charge.

Colonel Pappas has declined requests for interviews, but other Army officials have said the use of dogs in interrogations could have been approved only by General Sanchez, as outlined in a policy he issued on Oct. 10. An unclassified Dec. 12 situation update sent by Colonel Pappas's unit describes interrogation techniques permitted for use in Iraq, including "sleep management, sensory deprivation, isolation longer than 30 days, dogs," as among the "harsh approaches" that could be introduced only with prior approval from General Sanchez.

<snip>

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4940
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/politics/22ABUS.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040522/ZNYT03/405220441