Free Iraq

الدكتور عماد خدوري المحترم

من المؤسف أن يحدث مثل هذا في بلد اول الحضارات , وأن أستهداف المرقد الشريف في سامراء أحزننا كثيرا خاصة ولنا فيه ذكريات , ولكن مايؤلمنا أكثر بأن يستهدف أبناء السنه بشكل مبيت ومخطط له تخطيطا مسبقا من قبل عصابات تقودها الحكومه, رغم أن أبناء السنه هم أول من فقدو أضرحتهم ومقدساتهم في جميع المناطق السنيه على مرأى ومسمع الحكومه الطائفيه التي قادت البلد الى هذا المقتل منذ أكثر من سنتين ولينظر العالم في جميع مناطق المثلث السني كما يسمونه وليرى ماحل بتلك المقدسات. أن حرق المقدسات الدينيه في المناطق المتداخله في العراق هو أستكمال لما حدث ويحدث من قتل على الهويه والمداهمات المستمره ليل نهار لبيوت أبناء السنه لأنهم لايريدون المحتل وأذنابه.ـ

 

American soldiers have been seizing telephones with build-in cameras from Samarra citizens to prevent news from being distributed on the internet
 

Speculation about who bombed things is often wrong.

One can start with the issues that led to the "siege of Sidney street" 100 years ago.

The British has this wrong for many years. We now know that the people concerned (who were killed) were probably Russian revolutionaries who were perpetrating ordinary robberies to get funds to finance revolution in Russia.

Then, closer to Baghdad, one can ask who bombed the synagogue which led to the exodus of the Baghdad Jewish community? (A tragedy in itself because this community was 3000 years old- older continuous community than in Jerusalem). The answer finally came from the memoirs of 2 Jewish intelligence agents: they bombed the synagogue to force the reluctant congregation and the Baghdad
government.

Who killed Robert Kennedy? Not anyone we originally guessed but a Palestinian.

Other examples abound. One could probably think up 20 groups who had some motive.

When people are twisted enough to do such an awful thing, one needs
twisted logic to understand them And there are many twisted paths for every straight one.
 

RW

Who stands to gain from this act?

Juan replied by saying , "Personally, I don't think Badr blew up the shrine of Hasan Askari."

The so called Al-Qaeda, the Baath party and most notable fractions of the Resistance in Iraq condemned the bombing.

That does narrow the field, doesn't it?
 

RW -
Understanding the forces at play is crucial. Are you assuming, like most of the media, that the bombing was simply the outworking of seemingly uncontrollable civil conflict?
 

Kurt Nimmo, Phantom “al-Qaeda” Attacks Saudi Oil Infrastructure: [. . .]
It is no mistake this attack follows directly on the heels of the mosque bombing in Samarra, Iraq, and the Prophet Mohammed cartoon provocation with its emotional and sensational response by outraged Muslims around the world. The idea here is to barrage Americans and Europeans with incessant and scary imagery of crazy and violent Muslims and Arabs and, specifically with the botched Abqaiq oil refinery bombing—keep in mind that we shouldn’t actually expect “al-Qaeda” to bomb an installation so critical to the neoliberal profiteering scheme—threatening the oil umbilical cord. [. . .]

British MP, George Galloway, according to Sasha Lilley (“A New Age of Empire”), in 2002 warned of “a plan for the division of the Middle East is circulating in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic…. In a recent interview, Galloway asserted that ministers and eminent figures in the British government are deliberating the partition of the Middle East, harking back to the colonial map-making in the first quarter of the 20th century that established the modern nation-states of the region. An Anglo-American war against Iraq, he tells me, could be the opening salvo in the break up of the region.”

In fact, a plan to “break up of the region,” including Saudi Arabia has existed for decades, as documented by the late Israeli author Israel Shahak. “The plan operates on two essential premises,” explains Khalil Nakhleh, a member of the Palestinian Ministry of Education. “To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state,” and, as well, the “composition” of natural resources under the ground of states balkanized through engineered ethnic and sectarian strife.
 

[T]he bombing accomplished what . . .neocon contemporaries had in mind all along—destroying Iraqi society and culture and in the process breaking the country into several small, easily manageable pieces to be lorded over by hand-picked crime bosses.
 

Iraqi Religious Leaders Call for Peace
 

The War Department is planning to insert itself into every area of the Internet from blogs to chat rooms, from leftist web sites to editorial commentary. Their rapid response team will be on hair-trigger alert to dispute any tidbit of information that challenges the official storyline.
 

The article below lends further credence to the question of the day: “Who bombed the shrines”

NY Times, February 25, 2006

Sectarian Bloodshed Reveals Strength of Iraq Militias

...”By summer, an American government adviser to the ministry, Mathew Sherman, recalled writing in his notes that "the ministry is quickly being infiltrated by militia and by Badr people."...

...On Friday, the Pentagon released a quarterly assessment report required by Congress that included a warning about the continued sectarian nature of the police forces. "Insurgent infiltration and militia influence remain a concern for the Ministry of the Interior," the report said. "Many serving police officers, particularly in the south, have ties to Shia militias."

The ascent of the militias inside the security forces was quick and quiet. Soon after the Shiite-led government swept into power last spring and Bayan Jabr, a senior Shiite politician, become interior minister, a housecleaning began, in which about 140 high-ranking officials were dismissed and political allies of the Shiites were put in their place, according to several former ministry officials who feared reprisals if they gave their names. In addition, recruitment drives brought hundreds of ordinary Shiites into the security forces, many of whom identified more strongly with their political parties than with the Iraqi state.

By summer, an American government adviser to the ministry, Mathew Sherman, recalled writing in his notes that "the ministry is quickly being infiltrated by militia and by Badr people."

When Mr. Sherman brought up his concerns, Mr. Jabr, a bookish, fluent English speaker, pledged to address them. Mr. Jabr has acknowledged that 2,500 members of the Badr Organization have been added to the payroll, but American and Iraqi officials say the number is far higher.

"There was a lot happening behind the scenes," said Mr. Sherman, who left his job in December. "By the time we put all the pieces together, everything was falling apart."

Even if it wants to do so, the new government will face a serious challenge in extricating the militias from the security forces. In the last two months, a new round of purges has taken place in the ministry, according to Mr. Sherman and three Iraqi officials who still work in the ministry. About 20 senior officials, mostly Sunni Arabs, have lost their jobs, including the Baghdad police chief, who was widely respected among Iraqis and American military officials. The move, the former officials said, was an attempt by Shiite parties to strengthen their grip on the ministry before the new government is assembled.

The militias use their police positions to further the ambitions of their political parties. Mahdi Army fighters — most often found in Baghdad among the city police and a paramilitary force called the Public Order Brigade, as well as in police units in the south — were discovered last fall using police patrol cars to enforce the rulings of so-called Islamist "punishment committees," according to a senior American military official whose forces discovered the practice but was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.”...

...”Last fall, American officials even proposed transferring oversight of the often unruly commando forces from the Interior Ministry to the Defense Ministry, where the American military has direct operational control. Shiite leaders resisted.”
 

[Name the leader]* "absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work," but "practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed to his capricious and despotic character, contrary to his concepts. [Again, name the leader]* acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed his concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his position, was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation."
------------------------
* See article.
 

Iraq Construction Minister: Shrine Bombing Was Specialist Job: To drill into the pillars would have taken at least four hours per pillar.
 

Referring to Dr. Khadduri's question "Who stands to gain from this act?" (February 24, 2006 7:50 PM, above), the following recommended article -
Dahr Jamail, Who Benefits?
 

A Global Infrastructure for Mass Surveillance
 

An Iraqi Tear, Mission Accomplished in Iraq!: Bush could state now that his mission in Iraq had accomplished... He tried his best toward dividing Iraq and the Iraqis supported by those who were back on the board of his tanks… For the first time I am afraid of a civil war.
The unashamed silenced World should admit that what had happened in Iraq last Wednesday would not be happened if the occupation forces were not in Iraq. A holy shrine was exploded and tens of mosques were attacked and burnt..
The golden tomb of the Imam Ali Al-Hadi was a landmark toward the heart, the belief and Samara.
Samara the town that was built near the old city called once (the city that pleases who sees it) became a city that makes every body sad and cries. Samara had been sieged by the American and Iraqi forces for months; no body could enter the city without permission; how those who planted the explosives in the holy shrine managed to stay in it from 5.45pm Tuesday till 7am of the black Wednesday? Many questions those who began killing and burning the mosques should ask themselves; yet the angry people rushed into the streets.
Who will get benefits of a civil war in Iraq?
Kurds are the first; because Barzani said before months that he will announce his independent state as soon as a civil war will begin… the Americans, again to protect the Iraqis!! And the political “leaders” who are becoming wealthiest day after another from the chose in Iraq…
Bush, as usual without feeling any shame, said on the day when tens of mosques were burning and tens were being killed that Iraqis are enjoying the freedom of media and speech!! Who will help us and will tell him SHUT UP MR. LIER..
The Iraqis and the nobles of the world should curse Bush, Blair and every body who are observing the Iraqi bloods without trying to stop it.
I am shouting WAKE UP WORLD again; WAKE UP IRAQIS.
The tears are insisting to make me stop writing… PRAY FOR US.
Why those who are burning the mosques did not curse the American and the (Iraqi) forces when these bloodies bombed Imam Ali holy shrine? Why no body is cursing those who attacked the shrine of Malik Bin Anas in Basra who was one of the earliest followers of our prophet Mohammed (MPUH)… why no body is trying to find the link between the cartoons attacking the prophet and exploding the holy shrine?
 

Bush is to Blame for Destroying Iraq: Like the Sarajevo assassination that precipitated World War I, the attack on the mosque may trigger a war, but it won't be the cause. The cause is far more deep-rooted, embedded in the chaos and bitterness that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and America's deliberate efforts to stress sectarian differences in creating the Iraqi Governing Council and subsequent government institutions.
 

A Monument to George & The Criminal Pack Running Him -
'The cheapest thing in Iraq is a human life': [ . . . ]
At the city’s main mortuary yesterday corpses were piled in the corridors according to the districts where they had been discovered. Periodically a policeman would shout the name of a district to the crowd outside and take families to see if they could find their missing men.

There were no stretchers, sheets or shrouds. The bodies were simply identified, pulled from the piles, dumped into cheap coffins and removed from the building by any available transport. Some were simply tied to the roofs of taxis.

“Don’t cry,” one man told his daughter. “We’ve got to get used to this by now. The cheapest thing in Iraq is a human.”

Finally it was Mr Dulaimi’s turn. He walked slowly into the mortuary with his brother and a nephew, looking down at the long line of corpses. He stopped abruptly. Though he had feared the worst, nothing had prepared him for the sight of his dead son’s face. “Tortured!” he cried as he turned to his weeping cousin. “How can one imagine? They have pulled out his eye and teeth.”
 

Additional excerpts from the Times report: 'The cheapest thing in Iraq is a human life'
posted above by Evelyn @ 4:20pm

“WILL all those from the Sha’ab district come forward?” a policeman shouted from the doorway of the mortuary.”...

...” Sporadically a spasm of rage ran through the crowd and accusations were yelled at the gate of the yard, where a checkpoint of police commandos stared dispassionately at the crowd, blaring Shia “latmia” music through the loudspeakers on their vehicles as if in triumph.”...

...” From Dora in southern Baghdad, to Sha’ab in the city’s north, teams of Shia killers had moved apparently unchallenged through the city, attacking Sunni mosques, rounding up and killing Sunni men, sometimes cheered on by soldiers at Iraqi army checkpoints.

The conduct of those soldiers should give pause to those in Britain and America who believe that the new Iraqi Army will be an impartial force capable of keeping order in the country so that coalition troops can withdraw.

Wednesday night’s murder spree showed them to be partisan at best, complicit at worse.

At dawn yesterday the fate of Baghdad’s missing Sunni males became clear.”…
 

so who does Dr. I mad think did it? I can't tell by reading the blog. the link to the blog on the post was very informative, though. it is very interesting that all those groups denied responsibility. and the observation about the precission of the bombing seems to have some validity. so who done it, Dr. Imad? juan might be wrong but at least he says plainly who he thought it was.