Sadr on the Ropes?
April 8th, 2008 at 09:38am Mark Noonan
Rich Lowry over at NRO’s The Corner received this e mail:
On the political front, Sadr now finds himself completely isolated. Key leaders of his own movement are now urging him to accept the Maliki government’s demands to disband the militia entirely.
Saturday, Iraq’s president and two vice-presidents, along with every other major political group in Iraq (except the Sadrists) joined in the condemnation of Sadr’s militia, and endorsed Prime Minister Maliki’s demand that the militia disarm. Sadr’s militia is now virtually the only militia left in Iraq that still maintains an outlaw posture, the only one that still challenges the authority of the Iraqi Security Forces or the Coalition. (Other major militias have disbanded, transforming into political organizations and joining — or becoming — legitimate security forces, which explains why you never hear about any other militia in the news.)
The joint statement is dramatic and sweeping. Not only does it enshrine major concessions among the various factions in order to secure a united front against Sadr, but the insistence upon the rule of law and respect for central authority shine through in the clearest terms.
The e mail goes on to note that among the provisions of the statement, there is a call for all Iraqis to back the army and official security forces in their battle against the militias. Here is some of that political advancement the left says hasn’t been happening - mostly because the left adheres to an artificial set of political goals, rather than understanding the fluid nature of Iraqi politics and the resultant need to be patient.
If only the critics of the war would understand that it is flesh and blood human beings involved - it isn’t two-dimensional, party-line morality-play props. Real people are doing real things over there - things which our liberals can’t even imagine because they have been safe so long behind the might of others that they’ve forgotten what it really takes to be free and have a civil society (hint: it ain’t “community organizers” and lawyers who make things free and civil). Can’t you see it? Can’t any of you liberals figure out that after decades of tyranny and years of war and terrorism that the Iraqi people - Sunni, Shia and Kurd, just want an end to fighting? That they can see the US won’t budge, that the Iraqi government grows stronger by the day, that each group in the nation will get a fair seat at the table of power? Or are you on the left so wedded to your anti-war narrative that you won’t even look at the facts?
At any rate, I pray for a swift end to the fighting, and that the bravery of the American, Coalition and Iraqi forces are crowned with complete victory - a victory I see unfolding right before my eyes, and which is visible to anyone who cares to face the truth.
Entry Filed under: War on Terror
28 Comments
1. Magnum Serpentine | April 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Today, in a poll the citizens said this about their own assessment of how things are going in Iraq. 85% say It’s a no-win situation for America. Via CNN.
Oh yes, I wonder who sent that E-mail? george maybe??? who knows.
The government exist to do the will of the Citizens. We say get out…. What is so hard about doing our will? The Citizens, who elect the Senators, Congressmen and the President want out of the war. What is so hard about following our wishes???
2. neocon | April 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Yes, let’s get out now before we win this damn thing and make the liberals look really bad.
And could there be a more objective poll than CNN?
3. Joe | April 8th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
neocon, how exactly do you “win” an occupation?
We’ve already “won”. We’ve removed Sadaam. We took over Bahgdad.
We are now occupying the country. Is there really a way to “win” that?
We are being used as a crutch. The Iraqis have no incentive to take the country into their own hands.
4. neocon | April 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
You’re right Joe,
The Iraqi’s don’t want their country back and instead would rather have us their permanently, right?
Weren’t you the one the other day that was telling us what a great victory Sadr had achieved?
You’re going to need new talking points Joe.
5. Joe | April 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I never said anything about Sadr and any kind of victory. If you think otherwise, please prove it. I can tell you I’ve never posted anything about Sadr.
So please don’t put words in my mouth.
I never claimed the Iraqis don’t want their country back. Again, that is you putting words in my mouth. I am saying that the Iraqi Security Forces have no reason to step up when they know that we are there do their work for them.
I’m saying that we are an occupying force. This isn’t a matter of having a base in their country like in S. Korea or Germany. This is an occupation.
We are being used like a crutch.
So proceed to put more words in my mouth if you want. Or you could try to debate some facts.
6. Tractatus | April 8th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
it isn’t two-dimensional, party-line morality-play props
The fact that it came from you, Noonan, means that this statement is so drenched in irony as to be saturated with it. You’ve been pushing a cartoonishly simplistic (and poorly informed) view of the Iraq war since it began, and you show no signs of letting up now.
7. Almiranta | April 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Clearly, no good news is going to be acceptable. The Left has the advantage of being able to make all the rules, define all the terms, and redefine as necessary, so they will always be able to quibble about every single thing.
Combine that with their determination to find misery and failure in absolutely every single thing ever accomplished by a conservative and you have a pretty good picture of life on the Left.
One would think they would be just a tad bit embarrassed that their dedication to misery and failure is so evident, yet they are too addicted to gloating over every self-identified failure and ignoring every sign of progress to worry about how we see them.
Iraq will never be perfect. It can never meet the demands of a rabid Left. They will always be moving the bar that defines success, so they can always wallow in their glee over our “failures”.
Check it out—we are considered to have “won” World War II, yet we still have troops in Germany—and BTW, no one is so STUPID as to call that presence an “occupation”. Who won the Korean Conflict? Do we have troops in South Korea? Are they “occupiers”?
You people are the most bizarre combination of hate-dependence and stupidity I have ever seen.
8. Diane Tomlinson | April 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Joe,
Don’t sweat neocon he has wagered his manhood on a war that was fought for reasons he cannot understand by men and women with whom he can never share more than 45 seconds of heavily guarded conversation in a very public forum. The snake oil that the GOP sells tells you that all critters are beloved creations of a benevolent Creator when the Truth is there are sheep and there are wolves and the wolves eat and sleep and drink and mate better than the sheep do and with gusto. The sheep however had better be happy with this or that little happiness will be taken away in the form of going to Hell after a short and brutal life.
The other side sells a different brand of snake oil that tastes the same it says life is short and brutal and we’ll give you handouts to keep you from rebelling any more than you rabble normally do. To these folks there is no Afterlife just this one and there’s afinite amount of stuff and the best stuff is locked in a place where you and your kind will never be allowed and it is virtually impossible based on the odds for you to get your kids to that room unless you offer one of them up for adoption to a barren member of the elites.
Noonan and I both know this but he plays his Roman Church based conservative end alot more serious than I do my Secular Humanist end.
9. Diana Powe | April 8th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Wow! Rich Lowry, War Cheerleader First-Class, got an email from someone saying all is going well! Why didn’t someone say so a long time ago? I’m convinced.
You can almost hear the pleading in Mark’s voice as he asks someone to believe him about the Glorious Victory ™ that he sees “unfolding right before [his] eyes. Of course, pointing out the fact that the Bush Administration’s own self-imposed benchmarks from last year have not been met is just an absurd desire to adhere to some stupid and risible “artificial set of political goals”. That would be an inconvenient reminder that every justification for the invasion of Iraq except for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power (which happened five years ago) has turned out to be false or the product of self-aggrandizing hubris.
No, we must see the shining victory that Mark sees to distract all of us from the fact that, yet again, a national poll shows that Americans have long ago turned against our presence in Iraq. The Gallup organization asked the defining question recently (emphasis added):
The public response? Overall, Americans favor setting a timetable and sticking to it by a wide margin (60% to 35%). Among independent voters the margin is even larger (61% - 32%).
When asked if the “U.S. make a mistake in sending troops to Iraq” the margins are similar. Overall, Americans agree that we made a mistake (59% - 39%) with independents again exceeding those numbers (63% - 34%). However, that’s just a bunch of stupid Americans expressing their opinions and means nothing to the stalwarts who see Victory ™ over and over and over again.
10. Joe | April 8th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Ranty:
Check it out—we are considered to have “won” World War II, yet we still have troops in Germany—and BTW, no one is so STUPID as to call that presence an “occupation”. Who won the Korean Conflict? Do we have troops in South Korea? Are they “occupiers”?
Gee… I didn’t know we were still fighting insurgents in Germany and S. Korea. That damn MSM should be reporting those things!
I think I already said this occupation of Iraq is a different beast altogether than the bases in Germany and S. Korea.
If you want this to be like Germany and S. Korea, then get our guys off the front-lines and bring a whole lot of them home. Those in Germany and S. Korea are not fighting in those countries.
By the way… when you have some serious “good news”, be sure to let us know.
Just be sure it is more than one soldier helping some 10 yr old Iraqi kid find his soccer ball. I’m sure there are tons of feel-good stories like that and we all applaud those and should be proud of those.
But please… we all await serious good news. Not neocon’s opinion that all is peachy in Iraq when all else points to the opposite.
11. Joe | April 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Diana Powe,
Don’t you know that no polls tell the “real” truth…….. unless it shows McCain beating Obama. Then it is all fine and dandy.
12. Diana Powe | April 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Joe,
Yes, I know. The same public reactions, over and over again, are just a “snapshot” (as Mark has styled them) and no Resolute and Churchillian Warrior Leader would ever pay attention to what the unwashed rabble thinks. They’re just stupid cows to be led by their Serious-Minded betters.
13. Dennis | April 8th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
“If only the critics of the war would understand that it is flesh and blood human beings involved…”
Yeah. The damned thing is, Mark, we liberals understood that from the start. All you saw was some utopian vision of people showering American troops with flowers and sweets, after which a liberal democracy would bloom in Iraq and cheap oil would flow for years. For you, warfare is bathed in glorious light; it is seen through a gauzy heroic filter that makes America capable of no wrong.
A much different reality actually happened. No sooner did we disable Saddam than the US took over the violence. While our military was dropping bombs, blowing away families at checkpoints and kicking in doors in the middle of the night to strip-search and brutalize often innocent people, unknown other people were looting Saddam’s munitions dumps and hauling away tons of high explosives that our military foolishly left unguarded.
Take off your utopian glasses, Mark. Mr. Bush’s war dissolved Iraq’s military, dismantled the civic infrastructure, left the borders open to violent outsiders, armed an insurgency with high explosives, has killed probably close to a million people now and made refugees of millions more.
This war has made millions of new enemies for the US and brought our own economy close to a precipice; now Mr. Bush and all his sycophants like you want the treasury of the United States to continue to fix and pay for this monumental screw-up indefinitely. At the current rate of $411 million per day (that’s nearly half a billion, folks) it’s a pretty dear fix you’re looking at.
It isn’t just a question of winning or losing, Mark. There is also the matter of accountability. Who pays? This isn’t a military dictatorship yet. If the American people - particularly those of us who saw this war as folly from the start - decide we no longer can afford to pay for it, I have a better idea.
How about you and every other person who supported this damned war pay for it yourselves from here on? You hate socialism, so why should this war be socialized on the backs of the working poor? Your share will be proportional to the enthusiasm with which you have beat the drum for it. You’re so gosh-darned enthusiastic about the progress over there I’m sure you will have no objection to that.
14. anotherjs | April 8th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Isnt it amazing how Bush, single handedly, destroyed the fine military and civil infrastructure in Iraq, deposed a legit government, lied to the CIA, FBI, SS, Congress, the Senate, the GAO, the American People, the MSM, and made enemies of the entire world while getting it done?
Its amazing how congress, filled with the brightest and the most corrupt in America, survived Bush. As it is, he has torn the Military assunder, dismantaled our defenses against the great evil conservatives, forced the economy into recession, forced housing prices through the roof, and manipulated the Capitalist Banks to screw homebuyers with an ingenious scheme that made every realtor and mortgage broker slaves to the appraisal industry.
Bush is brilliant. He did it all in 7 years, and nobody can prove it. He puts Einstein to shame!!
15. js | April 8th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
oh yes, I absolutely agree, 100%, you are right anotherjs
16. Diana Powe | April 8th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Hey, you whiners! Didn’t you hear? Iraq will never be perfect, so shut up! Just because it was the Bush Administration that set up the “bar that defines success” and now ignores it means nothing.
Also, Iraq is just like World War II and the Korean Conflict. After all, they both started when one country invaded a country or countries that had not attacked them. Yup, just the same.
17. Arctic Fox | April 8th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
@14:
It’s called “Executive privilege” and he invokes it whenever he possibly can.
Your statement shouldn’t read “Nobody CAN prove it” it should read “Nobody HAS YET proved it IN A COURT OF LAW” - and there’s a reason for that; Bush invokes “executive privilege” to avoid being hauled over the coals.
So like many other things Right Wingers come up with, what you’ve said isn’t the entire truth, and cannot be used to justify your argument.
18. neocon | April 8th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I love war threads. It’s hysterical to watch the liberals rabid reaction to anything “Iraq”.
Very pavlovian.
19. Diana Powe | April 8th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Just like the Pavlovian reaction of the overwhelming majority of Americans who think we made a mistake in invading Iraq and who also think we should set a timetable for withdrawal and stick to it no matter what the situation in Iraq is.
20. neocon | April 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Diana,
That’s amazing. I didn’t even hear the bell.
21. Christian Wright | April 8th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
What planet are you guys on?
Sadr kicked Maliki’s ass.
The only reason why the liars can claim the surge is working is because of Sadr’s ceasefire, and the only reason Sadr agreed to a ceasefire is because Iran stepped in as a peacekeeper.
You boys must be high.
22. Mark Noonan | April 9th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Dennis,
Your position is contemptible and unworthy of any further response.
23. Mark Noonan | April 9th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Diane,
Don’t lump me in with your foolish despair - I believe thusly:
My belief in that is absolute - not an iota of it do I have even the slightest reservation about.
24. Dennis | April 9th, 2008 at 3:09 am
pick one:
a.) c’mon, Mark - flattery will get you nowhere.
b.) you’re so cute when you get mad.
c.) reality bites, doesn’t it?
and the correct answer is…… C !!!
Mark, the theologian and moralist, chooses to gloss over the human cost of the Iraq war, while blindly glorifying the utopian ambitions thereof. I would suggest you view my quotes on war from America’s founders over on Matt’s open thread (post 85), and tell us: are Jefferson and Madison contemptible as well?
25. Dennis | April 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Mark, you choose the fevered dreams of neoconservative utopians over the principles of America’s founders, and the very Constitution itself.
And you profess absolute belief in the creed of the Roman Catholic institution, yet spurn the teachings of Jesus Christ, from whose name that creed derives its only claim to legitimacy.
What can anyone make of that but confusion?
26. Dennis | April 9th, 2008 at 3:52 am
Oh, and by the way, Mark, since al-Sadr is the topic of the thread, don’t miss this:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Iraq’s top Shiite religious leaders have told anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr not to disband his Mehdi Army, an al-Sadr spokesman said Monday amid fresh fighting in the militia’s Baghdad strongholds.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded Sunday that the cleric disband his militia, which waged two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, or see his supporters barred from public office.
But al-Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi said al-Sadr has consulted with Iraq’s Shiite clerical leadership “and they refused that.” He did not provide details of the talks.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/07/iraq.sadr/index.html
And make no mistake, I get no pleasure from bad news coming out of Iraq. It is a tragedy all of us deplore, except some of us saw the general shape of this coming a long time ago. It is why we would have preferred our leaders to follow the ideals of our nation’s founders, than the foolhardy notions of a dry drunk trying to outdo his daddy’s war.
And yes, contemptible or not, I would certainly favor you and your neoconservative buddies shouldering the cost of this war you believe is so noble and glorious, rather than hanging it on the backs of working Americans for generations to come.
27. searp | April 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Sadr is the single most popular political figure in the country. That isn’t saying much - I bet no political figure would get more than about 25% of the vote - but Sadr doesn’t live in the IZ.
Iraq is Lebanon with 22 million people. Used to be 25 million, but a lot have left or died. The militias will not be disbanded in our lifetime:
– Peshmergas: never. The Peshmerga have been around for at least 50 years and will be around for at least another 50.
– Badr: well, they are now being sheep-dipped and are the new Iraqi Army, but they are sectarian. Consider the Iraqi Army to be another militia.
– JAM: absolutely no reason for Sadr to disband them, and not sure that he could. Disaffected groups like the Marsh Arabs and the sans culottes of the Shia slums provide a ready pool of manpower.
– Sunni: 5%, based on Petraeus’ testimony, of the IA is Sunni. 20,000 of 400,000. The Awakening Council’s 90,000 tribal levies form the nucleus of a powerful Sunni militia.
Yup, looks like Lebanon to me. Good luck with that.
28. Tractatus | April 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am
c.) reality bites, doesn’t it?
Also:
d.) Noonan’s upset that he got his ass handed to him in this thread and so wants to pretend he won, then take his ball and go home.
Why can’t you just accept Noonan’s beliefs as unquestionable truth, Dennis? Why do you always have to come in and argue based on facts and reality instead of wishful thinking and desired outcome? It’s not fair to him!