How Sadr and the US helped each other kill Iraqis ...

Truth About Iraqis

I have read with utter disgust some of the reports on so-called anti-war websites which have pronounced that Muqtada Sadr is the true face of Iraqi resistance (...) Muqtada the face of the resistance who was wanted by the US military but received acclaim and applause when his legions stormed into Parliament in what some may call democratic elections? Muqtada, resistance? When it was his people who burned down mosques with worshippers inside? When it was his people who pulled three girls from their homes and set them on fire? This is the face of your resistance? Muqtada who massacres patriotic and nationalistic Shia tribesmen because Iran told him to do it...

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Al Sadr's plan is working.

Born at the Crest of the Empire

(NYTimes) Al Sadr's plan is working. He pulled his people off the street, and now the US is fighting the Sunnis for him. General Caldwell’s comments — combined with praise for the cooperation of Shiite officials and negotiators for the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr — seemed to suggest that the military was returning to its former strategy of concentrating on Sunni extremists. That would represent a change from American officials’ comments in the past few months that identified Shiite militias as Iraq’s largest threat. Reading this story about the reduction in certain types of violence in Baghdad (mostly the type that Sadr's people were carrying out,) I find myself wondering just how sustainable this "lull" is...

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