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2008-12-07 Iraq

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-12-07 02:19|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-12-07 02:38|| 2008-12-07 02:38|| Front Page Top

#2 It's time for Sadr to get his teeth fixed and to look for a new job. This one is about over.

Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-12-07 10:19|| 2008-12-07 10:19|| Front Page Top

#3 Atari Boy was an outgrowth of US passivity and Iraqi chaos.

He actually lost most of his military cred long ago, when his guys were routed from Najaf and Karbala (2004). That was the first of a perfect record of no wins in every confrontation with the US.

His influence grew mostly due to US inactivity during the barbarous Sunni terror offensive of 2005-2006. Iraqi Shi'a who loathed him and his ilk for all of the conventional reasons (they were seen as underclass thugs and gangsters, and tools of Iran's IRGC), in their desperation, came to support him, if only briefly (I saw this with my own eyes).

Once we re-seized the initiative, the JAM's days were numbered (that is, as anything more than a drug or oil smuggling gangster outfit). Then we finally adopted a delicious, almost Israeli-bold strategy of publicly praising the cease-fire (which was a surrender, like the "stand-off" in the south in '04) while continuing to pick his organization apart, esp. his most Iranian-linked elements, at our leisure. Recall how MNF-I consistently referred to "rogue" or "break-away" elements as the targets of our ops?

Naturally the whole time the "press" talked of him and his outfit in terms that were utterly delusional (hopeful?). Nice to know many of us saw it clearly from the start. Still an inexcusable outrage that we allowed him to become more than a rabble-rouser through our passivity during the "lost years," which of course also put the entire enterprise in peril.

Posted by Verlaine 2008-12-07 12:42|| 2008-12-07 12:42|| Front Page Top

#4 Maybe Slate can give Muqtada a column like they have done for former Gov Spitzer.

Posted by mhw 2008-12-07 18:16|| 2008-12-07 18:16|| Front Page Top

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