TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- Current Sunni v Shiite insurgent origins
Current Sunni v Shiite insurgent origins
A little while ago I had some points of contention with DevilDog on when exactly the insurgency was created and why. What is interesting about this question is that many (including DevilDog, I think) pointed towards the bombing of the Shiite mosque last February as the point to which the true insurgency, especially the Shiite militia insurgency supposedly began.
Unfortunately that's not the case, not by a long shot.
There is a bit of historical ignorance being perpetuated about the insurgency on a number of levels, but I think this particular point of origins needs to be clarified a bit more. This following article does that well:
| quote: |
| Administration leaving out important details on Iraq By MARK SEIBEL McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq. President Bush unveiled the new version Jan. 10 during his nationally televised speech announcing his new Iraq policy. "When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation," he said. "We thought that these elections would bring Iraqis together _ and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops. "But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq - particularly in Baghdad - overwhelmed the political gains Iraqis had made. Al Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's election posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. "They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra - in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today." That version of events helps to justify Bush's "New Way Forward" in Iraq, in which U.S. forces will largely target Sunni Muslim insurgents and leave it to Iraq's U.S.-backed Shiite Muslim government to - perhaps - disarm its allies in Shiite militias and death squads. But the president's account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics. It also ignores the role that Iranian-backed Shiite groups had in death squad activities before the Samarra bombing. Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict's root causes. The Bush account also fails to acknowledge that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups stoked the conflict. President Bush met at the White House in November with the head of one of those groups: Abdul-Aziz al Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI's Badr Organization militia is widely reported to have infiltrated Iraq's security forces and to be involved in death squad activities. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recited Bush's history of events Jan. 11 in fending off angry questioning from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., about why Rice had offered optimistic testimony about Iraq during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in October 2005. "The president has talked repeatedly now about the changed circumstances that we faced after the Samarra bombing of February '06, because that bombing did in fact change the character of the conflict in Iraq," Rice said. "Before that, we were fighting al Qaida; before that, we were fighting some insurgents, some Saddamists." She cited the version again in an appearance later that day before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "This is a direct result of al Qaida activity," she said, asking House members not to consider Iraq's sectarian violence as evidence that Iraqis can't live together. |
| quote: |
| Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, used the same version of events in an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," and Vice President Dick Cheney repeated it in an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "One of the things that, in fact, transpired that's changed the circumstances over there was the successful strategy that Zarqawi pursued," Cheney said, referring to the late al Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. " We went up until the spring of '06, the Shia sat back and did not respond to the attacks on them." Much like the administration's prewar claims about Saddam's alleged ties to al Qaida and purported nuclear-weapons program, the claims about the bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra ignore inconvenient facts and highlight questionable but politically useful assumptions. No one disagrees that the February bombing of the shrine was a pivotal moment. In the days after the attack, armed Shiites stormed Sunni mosques and neighborhoods, killing hundreds. Baghdad's Sunni residents responded by arming themselves, and Sunni insurgents set off car bombs in Shiite neighborhoods. By October, the monthly death toll was reaching into the thousands. But the country already had been on a trajectory of rising sectarian violence. U.S. diplomats, reporters and military and intelligence officers began reporting that Shiite death squads were targeting Sunni clerics and former officials of Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime at least 15 months before the Samarra bombing. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell urged a U.S. offensive against radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in 2004. But then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney overruled him. They argued against fighting a two-front war against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militants. The concerns about Shiite militias grew after the Jan. 30, 2005, elections, which brought the Shiite-led government of then-Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari to power. Journalists in Iraq, the CIA station, the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. military all reported throughout 2005 that evidence was mounting that Jaafari's government was incorporating Shiite militias and death squads into the Iraqi army and police. A year before the Samarra bombing, Hannah Allam, writing for what was then Knight Ridder Newspapers, reported that Iraq could be headed toward civil war. The McClatchy Co. purchased Knight Ridder last June. "Shiite Muslim assassins are killing former members of Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni Muslim regime with impunity in a wave of violence that, combined with the ongoing Sunni insurgency, threatens to escalate into civil war," Allam, who was then the news organization's Baghdad bureau chief, wrote on Feb. 27, 2005. "The war between Shiite vigilantes and former Baath Party members is seldom investigated and largely overshadowed by the insurgency." She added, "Iraq's new Shiite leaders have little interest in prosecuting those who kill their former oppressors or their enemies in the insurgency." The story quoted the then-spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Sabah Kadhim: "It's the beginning, and we could go down the slippery slope very quickly. . . . Both sides are sharpening their knives." By the summer, the tortured bodies of kidnapped Sunni clerics had begun turning up regularly on Baghdad's streets, and on Aug. 10, 2005, Knight Ridder correspondent Tom Lasseter wrote: "A militant Shiite Muslim group with close ties to Iran has gained enormous power since Iraq's January elections and now is accused of conducting a terror campaign against Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority that includes kidnappings, threats and murders." Lasseter identified the group as the Badr Organization and reported that Iraq's interior minister was associated with it. On Nov. 15, 2005, U.S. troops raided an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad and found 169 malnourished prisoners, many of whom had been tortured. The vast majority of the victims, if not all of them, were Sunnis. By that December, Badr's involvement in death squads was widely known. "The Iranian-backed militia the Badr Organization has taken over many of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence activities and infiltrated its elite commando units," Lasseter wrote on Dec. 12, 2005, citing U.S. and Iraqi officials. "That's enabled the Shiite Muslim militia to use Interior Ministry vehicles and equipment - much of it bought with American money - to carry out revenge attacks against the minority Sunni Muslims, who persecuted the Shiites under Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein," he added. Beginning in 2002, the administration's case for a pre-emptive war in Iraq was plagued by similar oversights, oversimplifications, misjudgments and misinformation. Unlike the administration's claims about the Samarra bombing, however, much of that information was peddled by Iraqi exiles and defectors and accepted by some eager officials and journalists. The best known of those prewar claims was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program - Bush's primary stated reason for invading Iraq. Administration officials and their allies also claimed that Saddam had trained terrorists to hijack airplanes, that a Saddam emissary had met with lead 9-11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Prague, that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes that could be used only to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from the African country of Niger, that Iraqis would greet American troops as liberators and that Iraqi oil revenues would cover most of the cost of the war. The administration has continued to offer inaccurate information to Congress, the American people and sometimes to itself. The Iraq Study Group, in its December report, concluded, for example, that the U.S. military was systematically underreporting the violence in Iraq in an effort to disguise policy failings. The group recommended that the military change its reporting system. |
| quote: |
| Whether many of the administration's statements about Iraq for nearly five years have been deliberately misleading or honest but gullible mistakes hasn't been determined. The Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to complete an investigation into the issue that was begun but stalled when Republicans controlled the committee. |
| quote: |
| Frustration over the accuracy of administration statements on Iraq boiled over during Rice's testimony at the recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Madam Secretary," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., "I have supported you and the administration on the war, and I cannot continue to support the administration's position. I have not been told the truth over and over again by administration witnesses, and the American people have not been told the truth." http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwas...shington_nation |
Unrelated comment: Opus, check your PMs man 
.
Related post: Well, there's already a thread on this:
tranceaddict Forums > Other > Political Discussion / Debate > Sunni's Vs. Shiite's
Where I posted about particularly this issue. I'm very familiar with the Shia'a Sunni divide, it's history, and origin. No offense, but even though most of you know nothing about the subject, take this for what it's worth, from someone who obviously doesn't fit that description. I from both Shia'a and Sunni decent. And I don't call myself eigther. So I don't have any biases so to speak.
| quote: | ||||
What I find interesting is the fact that all this sectarian violence didn't really start or atleast escalate (and was close to non-existant) before the burial site of Imam Hussein, his family, tribe, and companions was supposedly blown up by some crazy Sunnis according to the mainstream media (after the Iraq invasion began). It makes absolutely no sense for any sect, regardless of how fanatical and insane, to do that. Let me explain why by giving you a brief history of the Shia Sunni divide. When Muhammad was near his dead, he expressed his wish and will of Ali, the first young male converts to Islam, a close campanion, cousin, and son-in-law, to be his successor (Caliph i.e spiritual leader of the Muslim world). Now Umar ibn al-Khattāb, who was a prominent and powerful tribe leader before he converted to Islam (and also an important leitenant), didn't want this. He claimed that Muhammad was too old and ill for his decision (and will), of Ali being his succesor, to be taken seriously. [Backround knowledge: Muhammad's father died six months after his birth and his mother when he was only six years old. He was taken in and looked after by his uncle Abu Talib, the leader of the Hashim clan of the Quraish tribe, the most powerful in Mecca. He started preaching Islam while he was still alive but was left alone becuase of who his Uncle was, a feared and respeceted tribe leader of the most powerful clan of the Quraish tribe. Muhammad and early convert to Islam had to migrate from Mekkah to Medina in the early days of Islam due to ever increasing and severe presecution. It got to the point where torture, muredering new converts to Islam (who were mostly slaves and the poor), and assanination attempts on Muhammad by the pagan tribes of Mekkah became common place. What you have to know to make sense of this is the fact that paganism, tribal conflict (which usually didn't end for generations once started), slavery, burial of new born daughters, the status of women as mere property, theft, murder, and hedonistic excess was common in pre-Islamic Arabia. Mekkah, before Islam, was a center of pagan worship, as it contained the sacred well of Zamzam and a small ancient temple, the Ka'aba. The Ka'aba was filled with pagan idols at that point. All sorts of pagan ritutals, worship, sex orgies, sacrafice, and other pagan activity took place there. A hand full of few power tribes known as Banu Quraish owned the Kabbah, which at that point was a center of paganism. Pagan pilgirims from all over the Arab world came there to worship who payed large sums of money to them to be able to gain access to the Ka'aba. Their wealth, status, and power largely depended on the status quo, which was total paganism. Muhammad's preaching of the belief in one God and Islamic values was a threat to all of it. Muslims were heavily persecuted in early Islamic history and basically had to constantly be on the run from persecution and annihalation in order to practice their religion freely. ...skip a bunch... Later when Islam spread and Muhammad returned to Mekkah, he destroyed all of the idols in the Ka'aba and it became the most holy mosque in Islam, in the direction of which Muslims face when they pray. And it became the center of Muslim pilgramidge. In order to make things a little easier to follow for late and reference, these are some subclans of Banu Quraish:
After Muhammad's death, the differences that had previously lain dormant amongst the Meccan immigrants (the Muhajirun) and the Medinan converts (the Ansar), threatened to break out and split the Ummah (Muslim Nation). This sparked great controversy over who should be Muhammad's successor. Umar apparently lost it (wheater genuine or disingenuos) and became hysterical when Muhammad passed away, delaying the decision making process that would have in most probability ended up with Ali being selected as first Calioh. This (conveniently) lasted until his buddy Abu Bakar (another big shot) returned from some business trip or something. There was a huge controversy over who should become Caliph. Umar apparently lost it when Muhammad died and refused to allow his barial. He became hysterical (wheater genuine or disingenuos), delaying the decision making process that would have in most probability ended up with Ali being selected as first Caliph. This (conveniently) lasted until his buddy Abu Bakar (another big shot before converting to Islam) returned from some business trip or something. The Ansar met in Medina to discuss whom they would support as their new leader. When Abu Bakr was informed of the meeting, he, Umar and a few others rushed to prevent the Ansar from making a "premature decision." During the meeting Umar declared that Abu Bakr should be the new leader, and declared his allegiance to Abu Bakr. After the meeting at Saqifah, the Muslims who were not present had to be informed of the decision taken by the group. Many of them refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr, as did Ali, as they (rightly) believed (in accordance with the Prophet's will) that Ali, was the obvious choice for leader. They became to be known as the Shi'at Ali (the party of Ali) by their enemies. It took six months of threat and pressure to force the refusers to submit to Abu Bakr. Umar roamed the streets of Medina with his warriors to coerce people into submission. Being a hothead, he even threatened to burn down Fatima's house (the Prophet's daughter and Ali's wife) unless Ali came out and submitted to Abu Bakr. Ali refused and requested his privacy to be respected. Umar pushed his way into the house. Fatima, who was heavily pregnant, and trying to prevent Umar from breaking in, was crushed behind the door. She miscarried her unborn son. At one point, there was even a civil war. Eventually Ali reluctantly gave in to prevent Muslims loyal to him and the Prophets will from being persecuted, and to not detroy the unity of the Ummah right after the Prophet passed away, pretty messed up state of affairs. So Abu Bakr became first Caliph, succeeded by Umar as second Caliph, Uthman as third, and finally Ali as forth. But Ali's caliphate only lasted five years, ended with his assasination and then the assaination of his eldest son, Hasan ibn Ali. So basically, this is what lead to the Shiia Sunni divide, although they didn't call themselves Shiia and Sunni at the time. Mu�āwīyah ibn Abī Sufyān, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs, engaged in a civil war against Ali and met with considerable military success, including the seizure of Egypt. He assumed the caliphate after Ali's assassination in 661 and reigned until 680. ...skip some more... His son Yazid succeded him in the line of the Umayyads dynasty of caliphs, who was also fairly tyranical and corrupt. The persecution of Shi'iat al Ali continued. At one point, it became so severe that they were basically being denied water (and it's pretty damn hard to survive in a desert without any). The divide between the two groups was intesified when he was opposed and criticized by the Ali's son, the Prophets grandson, Imam Husayn bin Ali. Yazid responded to criticism with force, killing many of his campanion, family members, and Muslims loyal to him. This started the battle of Karbala (which is in Iraq), where he Imam Husayn was martered, including lots of his friends, followers, and family. Him and his followers were burried there. The terms Shiia and Sunni as sectarian labels came in to use much later. The Shiias believe Ali to be the rightful successor of Muhammad and Yazid to an illegitimate tyrant responsible for murdering Imam Husayn. The Sunnis, on the other hand, are the passive masses submitting to power and accepting status quo. Sunnis condemn the killing of Imam Husayn, being the Prophets grandson and all, but still recoznige Yazid as a legitimate Caliph and make excuses like "he wasn't responsible for it, his generals were." ... Anyways, now that you know all that and understand the nature of the Shiia Sunni divide, which is basically political and not really religious, since Islam as a religion was already complete and fully revealed before Muhammad died, it makes absolutely no sense for any Sunni group or splinter sect, no matter how fanatical and crazy, to go desecrate the burial site of the Prophet's grandson. That's fairly sacreligious for them too. I guess it's analagous to Christians, Jews, or Muslims blowing up Jerusalem; not going to happen, it's a holy site to all of them. So my money on whoever was responsible for it are on the CIA/MI-5/6/other intel agency payroll, if not one of the groups themselves; a false flag opertaion to fuel endless sectarian violence, which is what's taking place rightnow. That gives an excuse to keep troops there and build permanent military bases. And it's not like false flag ops are anything new when it comes to how modern states such as Russia/former Soviet Union, the US etc. and their intelligence agencies. Before the Iraq war, no one cared if you were Shiia or Sunni. But now Shiia and Sunnis are getting shot and blown up at check point by militia men for belonging to the wrong sect, given away by their last name (which makes their tribal origin obvious, and hence if they're Shiia or Sunni). So, I hope that helped shed some light on the issue. But in case some of you don't know what a flase flag op is:
You can read more about those there. But here's just a few examples of false flag ops in recent history: 1953, Opertaion Ajax (CIA coupe in Iran workring in tandem with MI6): Overthrowing the democratically elected Mossadeq via multiple staged terrorist attacks on mosques (bombimg) & gunning down civilians, demonstrations, propaganda, and provocations branding Mossadeq as a communist, including a false flag op which where the home of a prominent Sheiks was bombed. The weirdest propanganda operation included handing out phony bills during while the choas ensued which read "Up with Mossadeq, Up with communism, Down with Allah." This ofcourse happened after Mossadeq attempted nationalized Iran's oil which British pertoleum wanted to monopolize. Then ofcourse we all know who came into power... that's right, the Shah, who was a brutal dictator with his secret police (SAVAK, again thanks to CIA) and torture chambers etc. 1943 - 1983, Operation Gladio, NATO's "stay behing operation" (funded mostly by CIA, a key figure being in Operation Gladio being the CIA founder Allen Dulles): This is really an umbrella name for multiple false flag ops in non just Italy, but around the world, including Western Europe, Latin America, and Asia, which was blamed on the communists during the 'Red Scare.' The target where mostly civilian and public areas, including trains, bubes, schools, school buses etc. A particularly bloody incident was the Bologna Massacre in Italy on August 2nd, 1980 after which some Italian official broke their silence about it. I'm sure many of you already know about he Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 where an American destroyer was attacked. Well, phone conversation tapes between President Lyndon Johnson and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara realeased by LBJ Presidential Library in 2001 reveal how they were openly discussing using it to expand the War in Vietman after which congress authorized the Tonkin Resolution. In 2005 the NSA declassified it's official history on the Gulf of Tonkin incident which revealed how CIA and intelligence agency officers deliberately falsified intel blaming Vietnamese partol boats for attacking the ship when in reality the didn't eventhough they where being fired on by US forces. October 6th, 1976 Cuban Flight 455 (passanger airliner planted with C4): Declassified CIA document reveal that the bombers of the flight were given US visas days before the bombing and were employed by guess who. Luis Posada Carriles, who was involved in the bombing, was a CIA agent. Those are the only ones that come to mind at the moment, but I'm sure you guys can dig up numerous more examples. Anyways, point is, false flag ops are standard procedure so I seriously doubt it wasn't a false flag op, as it makes absolutely no sense for any group, no matter how fanatical and extereme, to decesrate the Prophets grandson's and companions graves and bomb the mosque. No, I obviously can't prove this. Neigther were any of those examples known or proveable until years (more like decades) after when internal documents were declassified. EDIT: One decalssified document that some of you should be familiar with by now, Operation Northwoods discusses in great detail of conducting false flag ops in order to go to was with Cuba. Here's some of the content listed on wikipedia:
Guess why this didn't take place or go through, Kennedy objected and didn't allow it. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by shaolin_Z Unrelated comment: Opus, check your PMs man .Related post: Well, there's already a thread on this: tranceaddict Forums > Other > Political Discussion / Debate > Sunni's Vs. Shiite's Where I posted about particularly this issue. I'm very familiar with the Shia'a Sunni divide, it's history, and origin. No offense, but even though most of you know nothing about the subject, take this for what it's worth, from someone who obviously doesn't fit that description. I from both Shia'a and Sunni decent. And I don't call myself eigther. So I don't have any biases so to speak. You can read more about those there. But here's just a few examples of false flag ops in recent history: |
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.