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RESCUED MAN’S RESCUE PLAN
A fascinating piece by former hostage Douglas Wood:
When I was rescued from terrorists in Baghdad by Iraqi forces, I thought this was proof positive that US policy in Iraq was working.
US and coalition forces were training the “new Iraqi army” and empowering them to take control of their own destiny.
My captors were caught by Iraqis and tried in an Iraqi court in the room next to where Saddam Hussein was also being tried. They were found guilty and are now serving life terms in jail.
But things changed when Nuri al-Maliki was elected Prime Minister of Iraq with the decisive support of terrorist turned politician, Muqtada al-Sadr.
Read on for Wood’s suggested remedy. His final line:
If it would help to stabilise the situation in Iraq, I would have no problem if my former captors were also forgiven.
Wood is obviously a very forgiving man; his piece appears in the Age, the same paper that previously condemned him as insensitive, a graceless, undignified, blustering buffoon, and unreliable.
I was wishing back when he ‘occupied’ Najaf that we’d allowed him to keep his vow to die rather than leave. Wonder if there’s ever a sniper opportunity?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 03 at 06:30 PM • permalinkInsensitive, a graceless, undignified, blustering buffoon, and unreliable. Damn, it’s like someone’s reading my annual neocon job performance evaluation verbatem. As McEnroe said to me, harsh but fair.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 03 at 06:40 PM • permalinkDouglas Wood, sorry for ordeal. Happy you are out and alive, but I don’t think anyone will have to worry about Iraq, soon.
WASHINGTON — Iraq war protesters broke up a press conference by House Democrats on Wednesday with chants to bring American troops home from Iraq.
——————-
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is set to become the first female House speaker in congressional history. She and other top House Democratic leaders met with Sheehan and her supporters in private meetings on Wednesday.
————-
“We didn’t put you in power to work with the people that have been murdering hundreds of thousands of people since they have been in power,” Sheehan said. “We put you in power to be opposition to them finally and we’re the ones who put them in power.” (Cindy is a MENSA member, ain’t she)
————-
“The president has got about a six-month window here and if he doesn’t figure this out, how to get us out or start to get us out in six months, then you’ll actually see a vote to cut off funds,” said Martin Frost, former Texas Democratic representative and a FOX News contributor.This is totally O/T, but can someone put into context the fact that there is now a 15-yard penalty in the NFL for “Taunting”?
I was watching ESPN last weekend. My jaw hit the floor when a Redskins defender drew a flag after denying a Giants receiver a completion in the end-zone.
When I saw the flag I thought “No way was that pass interference, and anyway, why so late after the play?”.
The stripey guy pressed his mike button and I heard “Taunting, 15 Yards, Number 36, Defense, First Down”.
Is this the thin end of the wedge? Is America doomed?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 03 at 07:47 PM • permalinkBut for Wood’s final sentence - If it would help to stabilise the situation in Iraq, I would have no problem if my former captors were also forgiven I would venture that The Age would not have run his article at all. I’ll bet they never apologised to him for all the nasty stuff they wrote about him when he said he rather liked Howard.
We must remember that every paragraph, every sentence, every word of any story mustperfectly fit The Age’s biases and prejudices. Every single word. If the bias or the slant or the general thrust of a story is not a perfect fit, then The Age will not run it. As long as the reader understands this, then sometimes some of their features are almost readable.
Comb the pages of the paper over whatever period you like and you will find their bias shows out in every piece. No exceptions.
In the same issue, Christopher Bantick asks “So what do we tell our children?”.
Simple. Tell them they’re adopted.
Posted by Mr Hackenbacker on 2007 01 03 at 08:20 PM • permalinkIn regards to al-Sadr The Thug, this is an interesting read.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 03 at 08:35 PM • permalink(the post at #9 was submitted to this thread in error, and the poster would like to apologise for its presence amidst comments of significance on a topic of great weight and profound importance)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 03 at 08:54 PM • permalinkIt is all very well to insult Mookie, and most such are understated. But he has a lot of power, and until you comprehend what the basis of that power is you are simply braying.
Ali al-Sistani is a Grand Ayatolla, one of five in the world. He is a known authority on Islam and a man commanding a great deal of personal respect for his intelligence and integrity.
Muqtada al-Sadr is so stupid that after being brought up in the household, and under the tutelage, of possibly the most-respected Iraqi religious man of the last half-century, he failed the test to become an imam (the lowest grade of the Shi’ia “priesthood”) and has no religious credentials whatever. He is a thug. Nevertheless he commands a substantial following, to the point that al-Sistani has to defer to him on some things.
What forces raised Muqtada al-Sadr to his present position? Until you can answer that question, you are likely to make the situation worse rather than better with any action you take (or advise). At the present moment, anything which harms, diminishes, or thwarts Mookie will have negative consequences. When you can define why that is you may have useful input.
Regards,
RicActually, MF, I was waiting for a reply, as there is an obvious reference to current events in Iraq, viz:
“Taunting, 15 Yards, Number 36, Defense,
First DownLong Drop”.Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2007 01 03 at 09:40 PM • permalink#12 Thanks for tha tlink, Mr H. I can’t believe such woebegone twaddle.
Welcome your child to the real world. Explain that while you disagree with a drugrunner’s hanging, the death of a MASS MURDERING tyrant is a completely different kettle of fish.
I don’t know how old Christopher Bantick’s son is, but if he was aware of how the world really operates rather than wrapped in the cotton wool of feelgood pc, then perhaps we wouldn’t need to read this bleating.
And worse than this, I have moonbat outlaws who subscribe to the Aged and swallow it religiously. No doubt if we’re ever discussing Saddam and his “tragic” demise, this piece of self-serving dreck will get brandished about.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 03 at 09:59 PM • permalink#18 re: Your last paragraph, opening question.
If I were to essay an answer, say, for argument’s sake, “Iranian”, what would your response be?
Your statement “When you can define why that is you may have useful input” implies that you have more to share with us.
The author of this article is convinced the correct and only course of action is clear.
I’d be interested in your opinion.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 03 at 10:26 PM • permalinkMaybe I am a terrible Dad but I explained Sadams death to my 5 year old daughter as “Saddam is one of the worst baddies in the world who killed a lot of people and was very nasty to a lot of people. The Goodies caught him, they then proved he did the bad things and now they killed him”
As far as I am concerned I reinforced and reassured to my daughter that the good guys win in the end and there are serious consequences to bad actions.
When American soldiers come on the TV screen in the Nailgun household they are explained as being from America and unashamedly described as the Goodies.Posted by the nailgun on 2007 01 03 at 10:41 PM • permalinkmy post at #23 was in response to #12 and #20 if not immediateloy obvious.
Posted by the nailgun on 2007 01 03 at 10:44 PM • permalinkSpeaking of the Age, did anyone see the letter to the editor last week concerning a pig owning vegetarian crowing about her environmentally friendly christmas?
Actually, yeah.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 03 at 10:44 PM • permalinkThe ‘realists’, so eager to schmooze the killers and kleptocrats of the ME think it was a mistake to sack Baathists and unseat a mafia which terrorised a whole nation for decades. Perhaps it was wiser to leave Tojo and Goering in office to ensure ‘stability’.
Sunnis have a place in Iraqi politics and the Shi’ites were being restrained by Sistani, that is , until the mosque at Samara was blown up. With the help of their Sunni jihadist friends, Saddam’s mafia wrecked what promised to be a bright future for Iraq. (The gnashing of teeth over a few taunts thrown at this monster before his death is comic.)
Woods thinks Maliki, a legitimately appointed PM of a democratically elected government, should go and would have no objection to a pardon for those who kidnapped and abused him. His piece would never have appeared in ‘The Age’ had it not displayed such obvious signs of the Stockholm Syndrome that that paper and large parts of the political left is so happy to succumb to.
The raising of militias is noxious but when Coalition forces cannot maintain security, what is to be done? The ‘cut and run’ merchants don’t seem to realise that the course of events in Iraq will have global repercussions. We are all Iraqis now.
The Coalition must start to get serious about counterinsurgency. Like Hezbollah, goons will win if they are seen to offer a brighter future to people than the legitimate authorities. Military expertise is only one part part of that. Bush had a foot out the door in Iraq from the word ‘go’ and Rumsfeld’s sacking is a recognition that that option has not worked.
Time to realise what is really at stake in Iraq and the ME.
#24 - Nic, mate, you missed a whole thread on that pig.
But I have this gem to add:
“Belgian judicial archives hold a judgement from 1533, handing down a death sentence to a pig belonging to a local kuulkapper (cabbage -cutter, or grower of Brussels sprouts), which had killed and eaten a child. In keeping with the harsh justice meted out to animals at that date, the murderous pig was drawn and quartered alive.”
Saddam should think himself lucky.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 03 at 11:27 PM • permalink#25 nailgun, my 4.5 yar old loves watchign Spiderman and Dodgeball. I just make sure that I watch with her and explain about how being bad means horrid things happen to you, and it’s not nice to throw shifters at people because it hurts.
It seems to be working. Ask me again in 15 years.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 03 at 11:55 PM • permalinkWouldn’t be the first time we’ve gotten rid of the Third Reich, only to be confronted with the German Democratic Republic.
Solving these things take time. Perhaps the next election, or the one after that.
But as the occupying power, we need to do more than just protest at the Iranian-backed terror, we need to do something about it.
The problem in Iraq is trying to implement tranzi ideology and turn a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional dictatorship into a rule of law democracy. Aint never happened in history and it won’t happen in Iraq.
Let the Iraqis figure out where the ethnic religous borders are, then go from there. It will happen away, so why get in the way.
#9 MentalFloss:
Is this the thin end of the wedge? Is America doomed?
In some regards, possibly. Mostly I think it is a bit of “too little, much much much too late” attempt to bring some semblance of actual professionalism and decent conduct on the field of play.
Many of the players now are nothing more than loudmouthed pimadonnas that have gotten way with murder since high school.
It’s all about being a shit eater any more and almost nothing about playing the game.
Speaking about pigs re. something a little more OT, but not completely:
http://tinyurl.com/yfxrbuP.S. And I wasn’t talking to you.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 04 at 01:13 AM • permalinkmr woods displayed remarkable strength of character and level-headedness during his captivity
if a quick chorus of kumbaya will spare the man the malice and attention of the leftard press who can blame him?
just so long as he doesnt turn into another malcolm fraser
Posted by eeniemeenie on 2007 01 04 at 01:33 AM • permalink#18 Ric - you may well be right. But isn’t that precisely the same argument advanced by some against summary justice being handed out to Saddam? (“It’ll upset some factions, only make matters worse..” etc).
It wasn’t till the video of Saddam’s hanging (for which someone has now been arrested for goodness sake) and heard his executioners chanting “Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada” that I realised just how deeply his pernicious influence had penetrated.
Sure, hanging Mocktarder might provoke some more trouble. But it’d also bring justice to another terrorist who so richly deserves it. And send a message to those who’d consider stepping into his shoes.
Just like Saddam’s stretching did.
#22 MentalFloss, your first question: My answer would be, you have identified a result, not a cause.
I read about halfway down the article you linked. I’m familiar with the ideas presented there, although generally in fewer words. (I’m also familiar with people who think that because those arguing in that vein often abbreviate, they ignore nuance. It’s a lie, as a rule.) I think it’s a valid argument, but I sincerely hope it isn’t correct, because if it is we’re doomed.
It is popular to dismiss Curtis LeMay and “Bomber” Harris as thoughtless warmongers. Whether or not that’s true, the bombing of Dresden and Tokyo had a profound effect upon American military thinkers, and the best summary of that effect would be “never again.” There may be people who were not affected by the suffering of the people of those cities, but not nearly as many as is sometimes supposed.
Since then the United States has spent untold billions, and modified its procedures and organization in fundamental ways, to try to find another way. The consensus was and is that the bombing campaigns of WWII, and other, less exemplary but nonetheless equivalent, actions, occurred because the technology and tactics were insufficient—that they were necessary and therefore justifiable, but other methods should be sought in future. “Smart bombs” are one of the most obvious outgrowths of that line of thinking, but there are others much more subtle; consider the “After Action Report.”
We literally could not fight a World War II over again. We don’t have the horses. If anyone uses the phrase “carpet bombing” to characterize an action of the U.S. military, you can be sure that person is either ignorant or lying. We don’t have the airplanes or the bombs necessary for “carpet bombing,” and haven’t since at least 1973. More important, we don’t have the mindset. It is simply not a tactic that’s included in the standard set taught to planners.
Furthermore, opposition to Islamic fundamentalism is fundamentally (!) different from opposition to, e.g., Japan. Islamics are trying to overthrow Governments so that they may attain power (which is what confuses the pseudoLeft, whose brains are so fried by decades of doctrine shifts that all they have left is simplistic definitions: revolutionaries==good guys.) Smashing the Governments doesn’t damage their power base, and it is possible to rationally argue that it increases it. Japan was a State operated under the same sort of set of rules. If the followers of the Bushido-cult and Emperor-idolators had been out of power, attempting to gain power, the situation would be more parallel—and the argument for an overwhelming response would be much weaker.
So the target is different, and the weapons available are different. Mr. Lewis may be right. If he is, my advice is to invest in a burkha factory and grow a beard.
Regards,
RicRic - whilst I take your point that smart bombs have evolved because they are more humane my understanding is they are also militarily better. ie 1 smart bomb from 1 plane required to hit target accurately whereas it might have required a thousand to be sure of the same thing 50 to 60 years ago. This means in firepower terms the US is more powerful than before, it is occupations which are manpower intensive and therefore much harder.
Posted by the nailgun on 2007 01 04 at 02:21 AM • permalinkPerhaps it was wiser to leave Tojo and Goering in office to ensure ‘stability’.
One word. Hirohito.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 01 04 at 03:04 AM • permalink#12 In the same issue, Christopher Bantick asks “So what do we tell our children?”.
Obviously Bantick is such a PC woose that he doesn’t read Grimms’ Fairy Tales to his children. I sure did and by age six my two were well aware the good live happily every after and the bad suffer and die in agony.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 01 04 at 03:08 AM • permalinkWith the greatest respect, Ric, I don’t see in your reponse any opinion or comment which addresses the points I raised.
To your question “What forces raised Muqtada al-Sadr to his present position?” , I posited “Iranian” as an answer.
This is a “result”?
The question does not admit of an answer cast in terms of “cause” or “effect” (result)—but rather, an instrumentality—which I, rightly or wrongly, identified as “Iranian”.
Secondly, I read into your statement “When you can define why that is you may have useful input” that you have more to share with us—that you might know the “why” that follows on your statement that “anything which harms, diminishes, or thwarts Mookie will have negative consequences.” I know I have been exceedingly dull of late, but still I read nothing which in any way supports this premise.
Finally, if you had read Mr. Lewis’ article in its entirety, I doubt references to LeMay and Bomber Harris would have been forthcoming in your response.
In sum, I am no more enlightened by your response to my post (thank you, by the way) than I was when I first posed my questions.
Still, an interesting—if tantalizingly incomplete—summation of your position on the current situation in Iraq.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 04 at 03:17 AM • permalinkRic,
I sympathise.
This whole cause-effect smokescreen stuff that ‘certain people’ deploy is the latest weapon against logical discussion.
It’s hard to fight against…see Fukuyama’s attempt here
What he recommended was actually going after some of the symptoms, and one of the most famous articles he wrote, and one that I envy as a social scientist, because it actually had a real beneficial effect on real people, was a piece in The Atlantic in 1982 called ‘Broken Windows’, in which he suggested that if New York wanted to deal with its crime problem, it should start by getting the graffiti off of its subway cars and paying attention to these little symbols of social order, because that was how you restored a normative sense of order in the city as a whole. And I think that New York did that, and that was actually the beginning of its recovery from that very depressed period in the 1970s.
My unravelling of this particularly nasty mode of argument is found <a href =“http://invig.livejournal.com/tag/anti-people”> here</a> - enjoy!
Posted by the-invigilator on 2007 01 04 at 03:31 AM • permalinkTim, see M.J. Trotten’s recent interview with Quais Abdul Raazzaq.
And there you have it. After an hour of “wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean,” we’d finally built his plainly stated belief that the current Iraqi government is run by Shiite parties backed by foreign influences, which have no interest in stopping the violence. Is this merely the perspective of a Sunni who is nostalgic for Saddam’s rule? I’m not sure, because to some extent we know that revenge killings are happening; we know that Americans arrested Iranian agents and were forced to release them by the current Iraqi government, we know that Iranian-trained Sadrist splinter groups are behind many of the murders and that the government has failed to reign them in; we know that Maliki halted a cordon of Sadr City during the search for a missing serviceman.
I certainly don’t endorse many of Razzaq’s conclusions, especially given his relentless and sometimes contradictory negative argumentation and visceral distrust of American personnel, but he’s not exactly out in left field in his concern. And even supposing he is wrong on some things - perhaps the extent to which the government is co-opted by Shia militias - the fact remains that if the perception of government-sanctioned sectarian violence is popular among the Sunni, and perhaps even among the moderate Shia (some of whom sat in the room with us during our discussion), it will be difficult to form a peaceful Republic under a blanket of mistrust.
Putting on your Editorial Hat, the Tele could do worse than bunging a few bucks his way for pieces like this.
A couple of points:
1. Yes, the Afrikaaners are probably pissed off too, that their minority government is gone and that it kept order much better than the “blecks”. Anyone complaining on their behalf here?
2. Any mention of Curtis LeMay and Bomber Harris better also pay at least lip service to the excruciating bombing of Coventry and London if the commenter wants to retain a pretence of even-handedness.I heard this joke the other day ...
A guy walks into a pub and see’s George Bush and Tony Blair in the corner. Wow, he thinks, and walks up to them, “Hi, Guys - what’s happening ?”. Tony replies “We are just discusing World War III”.
“What does that imply ?” ask the guy.
“100 million dead arabs, plus a dead bicycle repair man” says Tony.
“Hey, what did the repair man ever do ?” says the guy.
“See, I told you nobody cares about the arabs” says George W.
As somebody else said, Abu Ghraib was frat initiation night without the beer. The koran in the toilet was ... bullshit. Gitmo is three hots and a cot for people who deserved to be shot. Now we have the tears and ullulation over the very justified demolition of Saddam. Who cares who said what? Armoureddinnerjacket says worse things every second week. “Muqtada” three times? Is that it? You ruined our country? True, as it turned out.
Well personally blogstrop, I would have been happier if the guards had been shouting “Iraq” rather than “Muqtada”. One suspects their loyalties are a little misplaced, particularly foreboding if as the guards responsible for the carrying out the most significant sentence issued to date by the new Iraqi government, they would have been most trusted and handpicked.
#50
Exactly.
I cannot fathom why such things gain traction. Actually, I can. Television news (in particular) is light entertainment. Good pictures will always run. There is no time for ethics or reason or counter-balance in an 87 second story when you have good pictures to provoke a visceral response. Which is why it is so easy to become a propagandist for the unspeakable.
Oh and re: #8 The Persians were once hated throughout the Arab lands and yet have become every thing they accuse the “Elders of Zion” of being.O/T But the UN springs into action doing what it does so well. Expect to see years of this story being played over and over every time the UN is mentioned from now on. Our impartial press being what it is.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1821329.htmYet more kiddy fidling in Africa.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 04 at 08:18 AM • permalinkFFS, the BBC is going on and on and on about the pics of the Saddam dismissal. In response, the Iraq security advisor is basically saying - get some perspective, you pompous arseholes. And good on he. It’s not all Pimms and Lemonade on the front lawn after the Polo at the moment.
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 01 04 at 08:37 AM • permalink#44, I have to agree with you.
I’ve read the Iraqi bloggers for years and followed their dismay as Mookie, “the retarded teenager,” rose to infamy. There was a power vacuum and he with Iranian help exploited it. Anyone who knows about Arab warlord war know that the key man is everything, so with his lineage and crude bellicosity, Mookie became Iran’s chosen.
Yes, for a while his people will be angry at his killing or capture, but there will be no coherent uprising. IMO, of course, as a WOC (Woefully Overinformed Civilian).
From my limited perspective, here’s where I see us falling on our arses.
We’ve lost the ability to wage war. We now indulge in police actions. Police actions, by definition, are permanent fixtures with no resolution for so long as there are people needing policing.
Wars are more brutal and have much shorter durations since the objective of a war is to defeat a people and break their will and end their ability to remain as an enemy.
The precision weaponry is in line with the police action. It does also have a use in war fighting but without the addition of hugely destructive actions, the total reliance on limited destructiveness defines police actions.
To win a war, an enemy must be defeated. An enemy is everyone aligned with or geographically associated with the belligerents. War is not waged only against those who happen to be holding a weapon and behaving aggressively at the exact moment of engagement. War is waged to punish the entire population of a people, civil and military, until that entire population is sufficiently broken in spirit and ability to be or support or even allow belligerence from their own toward our own so as to be motivated to commit to any changes necessary to make the punishment stop.
All who ally with an enemy are also enemy and rightfully subject to the same destructive actions. That is a law and tradition of waging war. Not so with police actions. Police actions are limited to engaging only those persons actively engaging in hostilities at the moment of confrontation. Belligerents are allowed to choose their time, their place and their method of confrontation and the forces committed to police action are only allowed to react to that confrontation with such rules as common to police.
Police actions do not end. They can only serve to create a stability that will remain only so long as the police forces remain in action.
#57
Grimmy, it’s the will, not the ability which has been lost. As far back as Germany, 1945 U.S. forces were cautioned against unnecessary property damage, because the political focus changed from winning the war, to after the war. What was pragmatism then has become fetish now, to the point where the lives of enemy non-combatants seem to have more value than our own soldiers. My question is: Why should enemy civilians be spared? Its their war too.#59, lotocoti:
It is much more than will. It is trust that has been lost. The US military has no faith in the ability of the general citizenry to be able to stand up to enemy sponsored propagandists and knee-jerk anti-ists.
It has been common practice for the last couple decades to develop conflict management plans with the knowledge that the American public is easily as dangerous and hostile as any foreign enemy that can be confronted.
This has been exasperated by a full two decades of officers and commanders screened and sorted according to sensitivity issues, sometimes even above leadership skill and command ability.
The third issue from my perspective is our need to isolate ourselves in moral high ground positions.
By demanding that we keep to strict and inflexible “high ground” positions we give the enemy full and uncontested control of the low ground.
In a real sense, this causes us to become locked into issue positions that allow the enemy to reduce us one hard point at a time and defeat us in detail.
We are now fighting an enemy that operates very much according to medieval war-fighting standards where rape, pillage and slaughter are considered part of a soldiers pay and is often more of the motivator to joining the fight than any ideology. Yet, we insist on keeping ourselves according to a strict modernist approach.
We continually, with little evidence to support the position, conduct ourselves as if this enemy or the population that supports it can be swayed by methods stemming from a desire to be generous and kind. This whole “hearts and minds” mantra comes from that. There are persons and cultures where such motivations have value, with others they do not. We have been unable to differentiate.
We deny reality when we refuse to acknowledge that there are those cultures where kindness is considered weakness and only fear and the ability to instill fear are worthy of respect.
But, none of that means anything for so long as we allow open and aggressive betrayals by our own citizenry during a time of war. If we can not grow enough spine to finally bring this issue the attention it demands, nothing else matters. No degree of hard war-fighting or redesign of methodology in fighting foreign wars will mean anything more than squat if we keep allowing the rot to spread within our home front.
I registered and first posted here about a week after you did, grimmy.
How come yer ‘a gittin smarter and I’m ‘a gittin dumber?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 05 at 12:32 AM • permalinkCrystalline, pellucid, comprehensible, unambiguous, perspicuous, ratiocinative—stop me before I reach for my thesaurus—is how I characterise the style ofyour writing, grimmy.
The substance, however, is disquieting, foreboding, ominous and unpropitious.
Laocoön, Cassandra—heed their fate.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 01 05 at 12:58 AM • permalinkFurther to #8 above, see reports of Iran’s support for Sunni insurgents at http://counterterrorismblog.org/
Given that they’re also supporting the shite brigades, it seems they have learned that playing both sides is a sure recipe for chaos.
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Keep everyone happy, Hang Muckturd al-Sadr.