I just put up two more months’ worth of Golden Oldies onto the sidebar here.
Last November was quite a momentous month for Iraq!
October was a momentous month for our family. My elder daughter got married (and I was pretty busy helping out.)
BUT…. today, further bad news from Najaf. Reuters’ Michael Georgy at 21:38 EST has this:
- U.S. aircraft launched a fresh assault on Shi’ite rebels in the embattled Iraqi city of Najaf early on Sunday after talks on transferring control of the mosque at the centre of a two-week siege ran into trouble.
A U.S. military AC-130 gunship unleashed rapid cannon and howitzer fire on positions held by rebels loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Reuters witness said.
The attack lit the area with white flashes and was followed by a blast. Smoke drifted over the old city near rebel positions, and flashes were seen on the outskirts of the city. Tracer fire and orange flashes went skyward in reply.
Well, I was planning to go to Quaker meeting tomorrow anyway. I always go if I can. It restores a little space of calm, sanity, peacefulness, and loving-kindness in a world which, God knows, needs every ounce it can get of those qualities.
Now, even more reason to go.
Thursday an American Major named Robinson told a CSM reporter “That shrine may not be there much longer.” This morning I heard that the Americans had brought tanks to within 800 metres of the shrine of Imam `Ali. A few minutes ago I heard that the Americans had hit and damaged the wall of the shrine (I am guessing it was not the wall of the shrine, but the wall of the compound – Americans don’t know the difference).
Is it possible that the Americans really are stupid enough not to know the consequences of destroying the fourth holiest site in all of Islam? Do they understand that “that shrine” is not only one of the most important Shi`a holy sites, but is of huge religious and historical significance to ALL Muslims?
`Ali Ibn Abi Talib was the first male convert to Islam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad. He was the Fourth Rightly Guided Caliph. “That shrine” is his burial place. “That shrine”, I repeat, is the fourth most holy site in Islam. It is impossible to overestimate the consequences of destroying it, or even inflicting significant damage on it.
I simply cannot believe that the Americans would be idiotic enough to even consider destroying it, but the one thing I have been consistently wrong about in this Iraq debacle is the idiocy of the Americans.
Whoever prays had better pray very hard and very fast for someone with a brain to take over this insane situation.
In spite of Shirin’s gratuitous slandering of the Americans (idiotic, idiocy, stupid, brainless, unaware of difference between shrine and outer wall, etc.) I am convinced that the Americans will not damage the shrine.
What is even more puzzling than Shirin’s diatribe is why these believers put such a holy and tresured place at risk by fighting from there. In the West it would be the moral equivalent of fighting behinds one’s mother. Somehow playing chicken with the opponent assuming he/she won’t dare hurt a mother. What am I missing?
If the Americans intentionally damage the shrine I will eat my cyber hat and admit I was dead wrong.
David
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