Re: …‘unkown Americans’ are provoking a civil war in Iraq
Sistani calls for dismantling militias
BAGHDAD: Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called Thursday for Iraq’s next government to dismantle the deadly militias that have pushed the country to the brink of civil war.
Sistani, perhaps the country’s most influential figure, told prime minister designate Nuri al-Maliki in a meeting at his Najaf residence that militias must be disarmed and that weapons should be in the hands of the government alone.
In the last year, the septuagenarian cleric has watched Shia militias take up arms against the country’s Sunni minority in defiance of his repeated warnings against seeking revenge for rebel attacks.
“Weapons must be in the hands of government security forces that should not be tied to political parties but to the nation,” Sistani was quoted as saying in a statement released after his meeting with Maliki.
Re: ...'unkown Americans' are provoking a civil war in Iraq
Feel free to give examples of Sir Syed and Jinnah, the epitomes of peaceful struggle for the South Asian Muslims. Shouldn't upset nobody including Mamooli.
See! Afghanis had no Sistani and look how the 7 groups of Muj did the Mujra in Kabul. Their militias destroyed every possible thing. Even those things that survived Ruskie invasion / occupation.
Dismantling of militias in Iraq is equally important. However I don't know if Maulvi Sahib Sistani is powerful enough to control even Sadar like Shias (let alone Sunni militias).
Re: ...'unkown Americans' are provoking a civil war in Iraq
sigh.. you're making me do it..
Knighthoods aren't sold on e-bay.. They're bestowed upon the khas al khas who're loyal to the crown and go further than others in aiding and abetting it. Syed Ahmed Khan was no exception, and he's in the company of one Sultan Muhammad Shah (Agha Khan for awaam) who once said:
*"If they will only give me the opportunity, I will shed my last drop of blood for the British Empire".
*Shah say zayada shah kay vafaadar sub kay sub.. (Edit: oh btw, let's not lump Jinnah together with the likes of Syed Ahmed and Sultan Muhammad please.. remember the odd one out refused the title :)
But worry not, with this recent order, we may have a Sir Sistani pretty soon.
Re: ...'unkown Americans' are provoking a civil war in Iraq
Fisk is such a huge pile of crap.
He has this jounalistic gimmic. He tries to convince the reader that if not for him, the truth would not get out. Then he uses this gimmic shamelessly to sell papers and make himself look more important.
Consider the phrase," a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers". Now Fisk does not tell you who this is. He implies that this source is an intelligence official, but he never really says it. And of course Fisk is the only one exposing this plot by "unknown Americans".
What Fisk does not tell you is that blaming the "hidden hand" is an integral part of Arab (and Guppie) culture. You can make yourself appear clever by making up the most far fetched explaination and elaborate plots, which undoubtedly boils down to the all powerful Zionists or Americans. Don't you see the conspiracy now? In essence Fisk has written a column with no facts, no named sources, just a jumble of unrelated stories that without Fisks' ability to weave a tall tale would mean nothing. What Fisk always does is give the Muslim reader (and his circulation numbers are huge among Muslims in the UK) what they want to read, a nice juicy story, bent the way they want it bent.
Fisk is a huge steaming pile of crap as a journalist.
Re: ...'unkown Americans' are provoking a civil war in Iraq
wish u read more than a course textbook and you'd learn something for a change..
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And this is from someone who lives off of the West’s dole outs for so many generations! Sigh
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dole? I kinda get why u're so fixated with it.. Some of us work for a living.. try it .. get off your fat lazy Social Security/Disability fraud collecting Paper Marriage/Illegal Immigrant ass and do an honest day's work for a living.
Re: ...'unkown Americans' are provoking a civil war in Iraq
** 100,000 mercenaries, the forgotten "Surge**
**By Barry Lando
01/10/07 ****--- - W**hat is striking about the current debate in Washington - whether to "surge" troops to Iraq and increase the size of the U.S. Army - is that roughly 100,000 bodies are missing from the equation: The number of American forces in Iraq is not 140,000, but more like 240,000.
What makes up the difference is the huge army of mercenaries - known these days as "private contractors." After the U.S. Army itself, they are easily the second-largest military force in the country. Yet no one seems sure of how many there are since they answer to no single authority. Indeed, the U.S. Central Command has only recently started taking a census of these battlefield civilians in an attempt to get a handle on the issue...
The private contractors are Americans, South Africans, Brits, Iraqis and a hodgepodge of other nationalities. Many of them are veterans of the U.S. or other armed forces and intelligence services, who are now deployed in Iraq (and Afghanistan and other countries) to perform duties normally carried out by the U.S. Army, but at salaries two or three times greater than those of American soldiers.
They work as interrogators and interpreters in American prisons; body guards for top U.S. and Iraqi officials; trainers for the Iraqi army and police; and engi-neers constructing huge new U.S. bases. They are often on the front lines. In fact, 650 of them have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion
Their salaries, are, in the end, paid directly by the U.S. government - or tacked on as huge additional "security charges" to the bills of private American or other contractors. Yet the Central Command still doesn't have a complete list of who they are or what they are up to. The final figure could be much higher than 100,000.
The U.S. Congress, under Republican control until now, knows even less.
Yet these private contractors man their own helicopters and Humvees and look and act just like American troops.
"It takes a great deal of vigilance on the part of the military commander to en-sure contractor compliance," William L. Nash, a retired general, told the Washington Post. "If you're trying to win hearts and minds and the contractor is driving 90 miles per hour through the streets and running over kids, that's not helping the image of the American army. The Iraqis aren't going to distinguish between a contractor and a soldier."
But who, in the end, do these contractors answer to? The U.S. Central Command? Their company boss? Or the official they've been assigned to protect?
A recent case in point: The former Iraqi minister of electricity, who had been imprisoned on corruption charges, managed to escape in broad daylight in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Iraqi officials claim he was spirited away by con-tractors from a private security detail that had been hired when he was minis-ter.
Which raises another question. Who has jurisdiction over these private contrac-tors if they run afoul of the law in Iraq? Also, are they supposed to follow the Geneva Conventions? Or George W. Bush's conventions?
For instance, according to The New York Times, although 20 civilian contractors working in U.S. prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq - including Abu Ghraib - have been charged with mistreating prisoners, none has ever been successfully prosecuted.
Another point, which brings us back to the discussion about increasing Ameri-can troop levels in Iraq: It would seem that the Pentagon could outsource a "surge" by a simple accounting sleight of hand, quietly contracting for another 10,000 or 20,000 mercenaries to do the job, and the Congress and press would be none the wiser.
Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer, is the author of "Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush." He also blogs at Barrylando.com.
