Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station

[Rose Siding]

By HANNAH ALLAM , McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.

The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday.

With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed.

"This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me: We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety," an unidentified Sadr City resident said as the televised crowd cheered. "We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that's the truth."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16092045.htm

[creeksneakers2]

1. Taking over TV stations

is a normal part of a coup.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

7. You're right

this is a classic sign of a failed state. It lacks the power to prevent a faction from taking over a media outlet.

[saigon68]

11. Broadcasting for 2 hours

I didn't think they had electricity for more than an hour at a time.

I wonder if anyone was watching.

Except the slugs in the Green Zone behind the Moat

LOL

[pinto]

2. And it continues. Another snip from the article:

"We'll obviously try to control them as much as we can, but when they (kill) more than 150 people in bombings, they have the right to speak," said Bassam al Husseini, one of Maliki's top advisers. "What are we going to do? We can't stop this. It's too hot right now."

Sunni politicians vowed to file complaints against the channel for inciting sectarian violence. Ordinary Sunnis were shocked to hear their neighborhoods singled out for attack on the government's station.

"I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what's happening," said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. "I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves."

Al-Husseini, the government adviser, also affirmed that a meeting between al-Maliki and President Bush would continue as scheduled next week in neighboring Jordan, despite the threats of al-Sadr's allies to withdraw from the government if it occurs. The Cabinet met for more than an hour to hash out an agenda for the trip, he said.

"The meeting will take place. That's the plan," al-Husseini said. "We need to straighten things up."


McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Miret el Naggar in Cairo contributed to this report.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16092045.htm

[fairfaxvadem]

3. I think we've finally stepped through the looking glass.

I know we all thought the worst was yet to come, but I confess, these past several days are even beyond my comprehension.

I feel ill. I know that much.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. You damn skippy

We're through it well and truly.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. This is a fucking horror

They're up there on state television calling for retribution attacks on Sunni neighborhoods.

Think about this. I sit in my home right now, typing this. I'm a 33 year old man, with a wife and child. Imagine if I turned on the television and saw a group of people from the next town over calling for attacks on my neighborhood. Fucking imagine that. Imagine it for yourself, your town, your neighborhood, your family. Think on that.

At some point, there will have to be an accounting for all this. There will have to be serious reflection in this country - our country - about what we have done, all of us, yes, to allow this to happen, to foment it, to see it unfold while we trample each other for Playstations and Wiis. There will have to be an accounting for this. It's on our hands, all of this, all of us - even those of us who opposed the war. Yes, us too. There will have to be an accounting.

I was in Lower Manhattan on September 11. I saw it all up close and personal. But goddamit, son, we've gone mad dog behind it, unleashed this horror on the people of Iraq, our rage still not quenched, our capacity for weird vicarious revenge still not sated. Take a look around. Most Americans don't even consider these people human. That's a fact. MOst Americans see the Iraqis that are suffering this horror - their towns, their neighborhoods, their families - as another kind of exotic species, maybe from another planet, maybe in a movie. Not human. But there will have to be an accounting for all this. Oh, yes.

[fairfaxvadem]

6. I think that's why I do feel so ill.

I fear that what we're doing in Iraq is so horribly wrong, that I have to wonder what level of Dante's hell this puts us in. Words like "immoral" don't even cover it. We've really lost our souls on this one.

And the accounting that we have coming isn't going to come with candy and flowers, that's for damn sure.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. Exactly. There is a price to pay and we must pay it

but we don't yet know what that price is. And when the bill collector comes knocking on the door, we will not be able to escape. There will be no extensions, no exemptions, no refuge in bankruptcy. The currency will be morality, and we are already, in the eyes of our creditors, morally bankrupt.

Dante never envisioned the circle of hell to which that notion that once was the US will be consigned to. Dante never imagined the kind of moral depravity to which we have sunk.

In a sense, I think the current administration has actuall gone beyond Hitler and the Nazis. I understand how distasteful that is to some, to compare the booooshies and their minions to the men (and they were almost all men then) who devastated Europe 60-odd years ago. But the methodical slaughter that the Nazis unleashed was at least done on a local level -- they were protecting their fatherland on its own turf -- and they confronted their "enemies" face to face. There were those "ordinary Germans" who knew what was going on and either turned a blind eye and ear or who dissented as cautiously or vigorously as they could, as well as those who eagerly supported the regime. Were there some who did not know about the "camps" and the "Final Solution"? Were there some who claimed innocence only after defeat? Probably.

But we know, too, that there were many who watched their neighbors, even friends, being taken away and who did nothing even though they knew what would happen. The closest we have come is the internment of the Japanese-Americans, and as awful as it was, it was not wholesale execution.

What has happened now in Iraq is vicarious genocide, fomented and subtly encouraged by the U.S. To say that no one saw it coming is to say that no one would have imagined terrorists would hijack airliners and. . . . well, you know that drill. Hitler, Goerring, Eichmann -- they all knew exactly what they were doing and why and they had no qualms. Booosh and cheney and the rest of that disgusting, murderous crew all hide behind false innocence, like some wronged virgin avenging an imaginary honor and hiring someone else to do the dirty work.

Oh, the reckoning will come, and it will come against our protestations of innocence and our pleas for mercy.

The more I think about this nightmare, this quagmire, this holocaust-in-the-making, the more I believe the ONLY hope we have is to get an administration in there -- even if it is an administration-by-proxy formed by the Democrat-led Congress -- that will summarily admit this whole venture was a ghastly horrible mistake and get the fucking hell out. There is nothing good we can do now. We have done everything wrong and nothing right. We have turned a monster loose in that country far worse than Saddam. We have turned them all into Saddams. And ourselves, too.


Tansy Gold, looking out at the predawn darkness and wondering what new hell the day will bring

[ECH1969]

8. al-Sadr will rule Iraq

Bush is a coward. He let a monster like Sadr go after he twice attacked US forces in Iraq and now he wants Maliki to get rid of him.

What an idiot coward.

[swag]

9. "Declaration of civil war against Sunnis."

"I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves."

[bklyncowgirl]

10. Will Maliki even make it back to Iraq after his tete a tete with Shrub?

This sounds like a coup attempt to me. Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have declared war on the Sunnis and Maliki's so called government can't do a damn thing to stop it.

So much for purple fingers.

[saigon68]

12. Those purple fingers

Have been scratching the itching area lately

[rodeodance]

14. 'With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines,'

...........

[Ian David]

15. Who translated this for the mass-media? "Sectarian War"??

Oh, come on.

Are you going to tell me that they didn't say "CIVIL WAR"????

"We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that's the truth."

I would bet money that they said CIVIL WAR!

[Dudley_DUright]

16. Shades of Rwanda

Never say it can't get any worse in Iraq, because it just got a lot worse. :cry:

On edit: Brad DeLong had the same response I did, but he puts it in much starker terms:

As noted here, if you've seen Hotel Rwanda, that opening sentence just made you shudder. Neighborhoods are forming their own militias and digging trenches across entry roads. People are panic-buying ammunition because everybody believes all hell is about to break loose. If al-Maliki goes to Jordan to attend the summit with Bush, his government is likely to fall.

And there we stand in the middle of it all, without the faintest idea what to do.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/11/hotel_iraq.html