.

 

Really Peisi?
.. just more spinning by MOSSAD. And you talk about suicide rates without hardly mentioning suicide bombing. Translate the suicide rates per 100,000 and even your country (Israel) will look awful. 
Why don't you go to the US? Oh wait, you would be picked up and grilled. Other countries would just exterminate you with extreme prejudice, as some other organizations would. 

.. best worry about your own arse staying alive amigo!


-Terry

.

Cryptomaniac, I look forward to your reply once it is available, but though I am typically loath to post from AP of the MSM, on the issue I consider quite likely the most serious one facing the ultimate future of Iraq, you might find this one of interest.  al Sadr, with his call for a six month cease fire, IMHO, has been the basis for the lowering of deaths of both troops and the "liberated" of late, but I strongly suspect this is not going to last.  I am curious if you see this as problematic in the future of any realistic possibility of a stable Iraq?

Iraq's Maverick Cleric Hits the Books
December 13, 2007 5:13 PM EST

BAGHDAD - The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia movement has quietly resumed seminary studies toward attaining the title of ayatollah - a goal that could make firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army an even more formidable power broker in Iraq.

Al-Sadr's objectives - described to The Associated Press by close aides - are part of increasingly bitter Shiite-on-Shiite battles for control of Iraq's southern oil fields, the lucrative pilgrim trade to Shiite holy cities and the nation's strategic Persian Gulf outlet.

The endgame among Iraq's majority Shiites also means long-term influence over Iraqi political and financial affairs as the Pentagon and its allies look to scale down their military presence in the coming year.

Al-Sadr's backers remain main players in the showdowns across the region, where fears of even more bloodshed are rising following Wednesday's triple car bombing in one of the area's main urban hubs. At least 25 people were killed and scores wounded.

But al-Sadr - who was last seen publicly in May - is also confronting the most serious challenges to his influence, which includes sway over a bloc in parliament and a militia force that numbers as many as 60,000 by some estimates.

Becoming an ayatollah - one of the highest Shiite clerical positions - would give the 33-year-old al-Sadr an important new voice and aura.

It also would give him fresh clout to challenge his top rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which looks to Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as its highest religious authority and has its own armed wing, the Badr Brigade, which have been largely absorbed into Iraqi security forces.

Al-Sadr often stresses his Iraqi and Arab roots and rejects suggestions that he is beholden to Persian Iran, the world's Shiite heavyweight and the benefactor of many Shiite politicians.

As an ayatollah, his views and fatwas, or religious edicts, would resonate with even more authority as the battles heat up for sway over Iraq's Shiite heartland.

Comparisons are often drawn between al-Sadr's strategy - a mix of militia strength, well-tuned street politics and social outreach - and the hallmarks of Hezbollah, which has been influenced by Lebanon's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, as well Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's 1979 Islam Revolution.

"If ... Muqtada becomes a religious authority, the entire movement will grow stronger," said one of the aides who described al-Sadr's seminary studies to the AP.

The al-Sadr associates - three in all - spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to share the information with the media. Their accounts, made in separate interviews, were in broad agreement.

Al-Sadr currently has the relatively low title of hojat al-Islam, which leaves his supporters no choice but to seek religious guidance from top establishment clerics - many of whom al-Sadr sees as out of touch with common Iraqis and accuses of acquiescing to Washington's demands.

The aides said al-Sadr was currently on a path to achieve ayatollah rank possibly by 2010 or earlier. His studies were under the supervision of senior clerics in the Shiite holy city of Najaf - where al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought grinding urban battles with U.S. forces in 2004.

In 2000, al-Sadr enrolled in "outside research" - roughly the equivalent of a doctoral program. Afghan-born Grand Ayatollah Ahmed Issaq al-Fayadh, one of Najaf's four top clerics, supervised him when he joined, but al-Sadr's attendance has been spotty since 2003.

Successful candidates qualify for ayatollah upon completion of the rigorous Islamic studies. But it's also necessary to have a family pedigree in Islamic scholarship and a following among seminary students and laymen.

Al-Sadr should have no problem. His father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, is the namesake for the teeming Shiite district in Baghdad known as Sadr City - called Saddam City before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Saddam Hussein's agents killed al-Sadr's father and two brothers in 1999.

Significantly, the aides said, the main focus of al-Sadr's studies has been the Shiite doctrine known in Arabic as "wilayet al-faqeeh," which supports the right of clerical rule. The concept was adopted Iran's Khomeini, but carries little support among Iraq's Shiite religious hierarchy.

Al-Sadr has not been seen in public since May but is believed to travel frequently between Iran and Najaf. His whereabouts are never revealed by his aides and he rarely gives media interviews.

Al-Sadr also is seeking to give the Mahdi Army a more religious bloodline, the aides said.

Some militiamen are taking seminary lessons for three hours a day, five days a week in private homes and out-of-the-way mosques to escape the detection of the U.S. military.

The aides said only those who pass seminary exams will remain in the militia, which has been splintered by defections from factions favoring closer ties with Iran and opposing an order in August to put down weapons for six months.

The move was seen as an attempt by al-Sadr to reclaim control of the militia and weed out mutineers. It has been credited for a noticeable reduction in violence, but appears to have emboldened the U.S. military to step up a crackdown against Mahdi leaders.

The cleric's absence from the public eye has raised some questions about his control of the movement, although his aides said he has been in regular contact with key lieutenants. His loyalists hold 30 of parliament's 275 seats, the largest share by a single party.

"The movement's strength and cohesion don't revolve around al-Sadr alone," said Saad al-Hadeithi, a political science lecture at Baghdad university. "Al-Sadr is leading a movement that's largely held together by the historical legacy of the family."

It's also fueled by the intense rivalry with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who also carries a bloody family narrative.

The group's founder, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was assassinated in August 2003 in a bombing blamed on Sunni militants.

The younger al-Hakim holds the same hojat al-Islam rank as al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr pulled out his ministers from the Shiite-dominated government in April and later pulled out from the umbrella Shiite alliance in parliament.

Tensions in southern Iraq have risen sharply in recent weeks as the United States and Britain prepare to scale down their presence, leaving behind a potentially dangerous power vacuum.

Next week, Britain plans to hand over control of Basra province, the most important in the south. The Pentagon has diverted much of its attention to battles in central and northern Iraq against Sunni extremists, including al-Qaida in Iraq.

In his latest statement, however, al-Sadr counseled his followers to be patient in the face of "predicament" and commended them on their adherence to his order to stand down. But the aides said al-Sadr's own patience may be running thin and a showdown with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council may be imminent.

"If this continues for much longer, the Sadrist movement will strike back," warned one of the aides. "This could have grave consequences for everyone."

Cryptomaniac, please excuse my interruption of your little trip down 9-11 lane, but I'm just curious if you read anything other than daily White House talking points for young Republicans? 

NOTE: I need to learn to use quotes on this site, but you said this and I'll just add quotation marks around your question and answer to it.


"Would we really see the same amount of suicide attacks if the Middle East were largely competitive with the West?  I don't think we would.  And if we did, then there is but one culprit left - Islam. "

And having made such comments, particularly since you appear to have such little understanding about the basis for some who choose suicide, perhaps you might take the time to explain why these very "Western" people might choose to take that route to eternity?  Could it be that suicide has nothing to do with any specific culture or religious conviction, but just is a choice made more related to
exigent circumstances. Perhaps as some suggest, a permanent solution to a
temporary problem on an individual basis, but on a societal one when there is
little hope and the choice is made to become a societal "savior" by killing others in the process to attempt to draw national or international attention to the societal conditions? 

Are these who are committing suicide doing so because there was a lack of
"Western" competitiveness?  It does seem to relate to a possible lack of "optimism."

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans
Tom Baldwin in Washington

More American military veterans have been committing suicide than US soldiers have been dying in Iraq, it was claimed yesterday.

At least 6,256 US veterans took their lives in 2005, at an average of 17 a day, according to figures broadcast last night. Former servicemen are more than twice as likely than the rest of the population to commit suicide.

Such statistics compare to the total of 3,863 American military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 - an average of 2.4 a day, according to the website ICasualties.org.

The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a “mental health epidemic” – often linked to post-traumatic stress.

CBS News claimed that the figures represented the first attempt to conduct a nationwide count of veteran suicides. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The suicide rate among Americans as a whole was 8.9 per 100,000, but the level among veterans was at least 18.7. That figure rose to a minimum of 22.9 among veterans aged 20 to 24 – almost four times the nonveteran average for people of the same age.

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged,” said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as suggesting that the military was covering up the scale of the problem. “Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total,” Mike Bowman said. “They don’t want the true numbers of casualties to really be known.”

Mr Bowman’s son, Tim, was an army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road. “His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn’t there anymore,” said his mother, Kim Bowman. Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim committed suicide.

A separate study published last week shows that US military veterans make up one in four homeless people in America, even though they represent just 11 per cent of the general adult population, and younger soldiers are already trickling into shelters and soup kitchens after completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless, at least 1,500 ex-servicemen from the present wars have already been identified.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people on any given night were veterans.

Daniel Akaka, the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said: “For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed.”

The plight of US veterans is a matter of acute sensitivity for the Bush Administration which has set great store by standing up for – and support from – US troops. This year General Kevin Kiley, the US Army’s Surgeon General, was among senior military officials dismissed for his role in the mistreatment of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newspaper revelations about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington became a lightning rod for criticism of the war in general. The outpatient clinic was described as squalid and rat-infested; a maze of red tape left many outpatients – often with severe brain injuries – wandering the corridors without help.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2873622.ece

Cryptomaniac, what I've attempted is to politely suggest that you haven't a lot of real world experience and as a result, rather than exposing yourself to it, choose to repeat the indoctrination provided by others, or "talking points" that are regularly used as a form of propaganda to justify the actions of those currently in power in the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, to attempt to convince. 
   
9-11 has been the classic excuse, if you will, for an attack on a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with the attack that took place on a variety of locations on that day, but has been  repetitively used  by the Bush Administration, though in reality it had nothing to do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Isn't that what the topic of this thread is about? Is it not about attempting almost five years since that, IMHO, unwarranted attack attempting to find some optimism in the results?

While this thread has wandered from the original post to the topic of suicide or homicide bombings, unsophisticated weaponry, including the willingness  of some to die for their cause,  used as a method of military tactics, it is not an uncommon one used by the powerless against the powerful going back to the
American Revolution in our history.

Isn't that exactly, what for years in Israel and the Palestinian territories and now in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has been used against the military might of the U.S. and the IDF?   Quite realistically, at the very least, those methods have  caused considerable casualties, both military and civilian in the process in their goal of removing those who occupy, by force, land/territory they believe has been taken by force and occupied against their will and certainly has brought international attention on the circumstances.

Unfortunately, you continue to repeat such statements as the promise of paradise and x number of virgins as a basis for your continued avoidance of both the historical and current basis for the willingness of some to take actions for a cause that perhaps, you and I in our  clearly comfy circumstances, have  little ability what so ever to comprehend.  So as a consequence, you believe such actions border on insanity or are only applicable to Muslim terrorists?   While you continue to tout the ideals of the monopoly culture in the U.S., you appear to be unable to see the real of ours, much less consider the reality of the life circumstances nor values systems of cultures you have no familiarity with.

When you understand the concept of Social Darwinism, which you are apparently well indoctrinated with as well as continue to expound, then perhaps there is a
possibility of some form of rational discussion of the topic of this thread, but at
this point, you want to discuss little more than your personal interpretation of
"liberty" and/or "egalitarianism" which if you were more experienced in the real world you might be willing to examine more closely as it is applicable to most of those who inhabit this blue planet as well as in the U.S. from a different perspective.  Are you actually so naive as to believe that even today, as an American female I have equal opportunity available to me as you, assuming you're male? Or that each child born in the U.S. shares an equal opportunity to
succeed based simply on being born in this country?

Still you attempt to show that there is, at this point, some realistic belief that there is optimism, short of an earlier method suggested in a previous insurgent
war of "bombing them back to the stone age," a serious possibility of showing optimism for an ultimate victory for the aggressors/occupiers or that the real goal in the invasion and occupation was to "spread democracy"  in Iraq?

And BTW, I note you carefully avoided any referrence to the article about those in the U.S., supposedly those who should be more than influenced by both
Western culture and well indoctrinated in the value of competiveness, who appear to be committing suicide in rather large numbers as a result of their exposure to the occupation of killing. Many more BTW than those who are doing so in insurrections against occupation.  One, I feel more than sure you have no concept of either, the action nor the resulting response.

In conclusion, I don't bother to come to a forum to join a high school level debating society. Do you? 

.

Peisi,

You forget that perhaps MOSSAD propagated 9/11. Of course you will deny this, but I know who the real perpetuators are, and they are being hunted down and killed as we write. Remember that. 
.. it is in a folder you have no access to, so don't bother asking questions of your superiors unless you want solitary confinement for the rest of your life (at the best).

BTW, Athena sends her regards! 


-Terry

.

A new article of interest about Iraq , Najaf and the Iranian connection. Iran is actually being helpful for a change!


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/world/middleeast/16najaf.html?th&emc=th



-Terry

.

I just thought i'd bring up this topic again.

Originally posted November 12, 2007

This is a key time not only in US history, but world history. The US is finally beginning its draw down of military forces in the country after the surge and soon enough we will see whether the surge did in fact work in helping to stabilize the country. Perhaps i'm wrong here, but it seems like the surge has been effective so far. I only have limited knowledge from what I read, but troops deaths are down, civilian deaths are down, and Al Qaeda is steadily losing its remaining forces in the region and we aren't even the ones attacking them.

Over the weekend for example, Sunni forces carried out an attack on Al Qaeda fighters and asked the US military to stay out of the fight.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0135731D-D628-4A85-887B-32ABAB700DBF.htm

Furthermore, looking back at this war, the US has achieved many objectives which were what caused it to invade and stay in the country to begin with such as:

1) Saddam Hussein, a potential threat to the world, was eliminated.

2) Iraq does not have WMD's

and

3) Al Qaeda is being removed from the country.

Now I know that Iran, a bitter rival to the US, has much influence in the region, but one has to wonder how long that relationship will last considering the Iraqi's do not want to be a puppet of a foreign country.

So with that said, it's time to start being optimistic about Iraq. All that is left which needs to be accomplished in order for the US to save its world image and history to not look back on Iraq as an utter failure is:

1) The elimination of Al Qaeda as any force in the country

and

2) Iraq to be stabilized into a country which does not go into civil war.

Objective 1 I think can be achieved, but objective 2 we will have to just wait and see. This is a very trying time for the US and Iraqi people, but I am optimistic that Iraq will not be looked at as an utter failure for US forces. What do you all think?

Afghanistan on the other hand....what a mess that country is.

Who here is optimistic now? And who here wants to say I was wrong?