Muqtada al-Sadr calls for protests on April 9.

The Movement for the National Liberation of Iraq from Foreign Occupation is upon us, and if Muqtada al-Sadr gets his way, he will be leading it. At least that's what he hopes. Muqtada al-Sadr issued a call for Iraqis to protest the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with an anti-American protest by way of a statement read out loud by a senior member of his movement on Friday in Sadr City. The protest is to take place in Najaf on April 9.

It would appear al-Sadr has been listening to the United States Congress and is simply going along with their lead.

One source opined, "I assume that thought will be given how to respond to legions of young Iraqis , parading down Sadr City, dressed in black, ... BUT unarmed, with mothers and sisters in tow. One may hope there not be a shot heard, lest it become the volley heard around the provinces. This is nothing but the free-will exercise of a free people"

According to Al-Jazeera, al-Sadr said, "Fly Iraqi flags atop homes, apartment buildings and government departments to show the sovereignty and independence of Iraq," ... "[Show] that you reject the presence of American flags and those of other nations occupying our beloved Iraq..."

His statement was reported by Al-Jazeera to have been read to worshipers during Friday prayers at a mosque in Kufa, a holy Shia city south of Baghdad and the first by al-Sadr since March 14, when he called on his supporters to resist US forces in Iraq through peaceful means.

Sadr's forces have been staying quiet, not causing problems or brandishing their weapons. The hope is that this protest will remain peaceful. We all know how easy it is for a group to be set off by some small offense. The fact that women and children will be in this group, reportedly, will hopefully be a sign that it is intended to be peaceful.

"I renew my call for the occupier (the United States) to leave our land," said the statement. "The departure of the occupier will mean stability for Iraq, victory for Islam and peace and defeat for terrorism and infidels," CNN news reported Friday.

He pointed out the poverty, instability, violence and lack of essential services such as electricity and water in his nation since the U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003.

"Iraq has endured difficult years because of this oppressive occupation that claims it removed the destroyer (Saddam Hussein) to bring the ghost of a fake democracy," Sadr said, according to reports in Australia's Herald-Sun newspaper Friday. (source)

There were 16 Iraqis Killed in US Air Strike on Sadr City Friday. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki called for restraint, urging Iraqis not to allow themselves to be divided by "evil doers". Al-Sadr is supporting the Petraeus security plan:

"There is no alternative from the Baghdad security plan except anarchy. We in the Sadr bloc will continue to support the plan until we have security and order," the head of the bloc in parliament, Nassar Al-Rubaie, told Reuters. As thousands of Iraqi and US troops have clamped down in Baghdad, the epicentre of the sectarian violence, and stepped up efforts to crush Al-Qaeda, the Sunni Islamist group has replied by unleashing what Petraeus called "sensational events". (source)

However, the Washington Times has different take on the situation.

Shi'ite militiamen, who melted away from Baghdad when U.S. and Iraqi troops began their security crackdown seven weeks ago, are rolling back into the city with fresh Iranian training, Iraqi and other officials said. It is not clear whether the radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in control of the newly trained group...

U.S. forces are concerned that, despite Shi'ite leaders' assurances that they have pulled their fighters off the streets, uncooperative militias will return and seek to destabilize efforts to secure the city. Videotapes and other evidence of Iranian propaganda have been found on people recently detained in Sadr City, said a member of one of the multiple Iraqi and U.S. security forces trying to return security to Baghdad.

Retired Ambassador of Pakistan to Iraq Karamtullah Khan Ghori , in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-speaking daily, writes in his opinion the security problems in Iraq are caused by the "inability to grasp the basics of the Iraqi tribal culture" a " ... centuries-old tradition of Arab tribes that they would only obey and honour a chief who was firm and resolute, and not a wobbly and bumbling gambol as Nuri Al Maliki is, or Iyad Alawi was."

Moqtada Al Sadr holds the key to the Sadr City, the teeming hub of Shia rejuvenation in the heart of Baghdad. ... He’s not only holding his peace but also holding his young, firebrand legions of Jaish Al Mehdi (JAM) in check, ... By lying low in the face of the current military ‘surge’ he’s not only conserving his strength but also keeping his options wide open.

Digging into just who al-Sadr is, and his relationship to the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani:

Moqtada al-Sadr is the fourth son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999, along with two of his sons, by agents presumed to be working for Saddam Hussein, thus becoming one of the major symbols of Shi'a resistance to Saddam Hussein's former regime. However, al-Sadr's heterodoxical theology, his inherited position as Shi'a theological royalty, and his highly militant paramilitary force, the Mahdi Army, all put him in opposition to Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani's softly-softly approach.

As Rahimi writes in his analysis for The Jamestown Foundation:

"Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Sadrist movement, mainly dominated by Moqtada al-Sadr, has emerged as one of the most populist and grassroots currents in the post-Baathist era. Yet the militant movement has also posed the most serious threat to clerical orthodoxy and its conservative and quietist tradition, best embodied by Ayatollah al-Sistani."

At first, al-Sadr made little effort to build bridges with al-Sistani ... (More)

We will be watching al-Sadr's protest and praying it is peaceful. Will Sadr show up for the protest? Wait and see.
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Comments

[Debbie]

AC, I left you a message at your place. I don't think Sadr is in Iran, but I'm not sure.

[Albrecht Gero Muth]

The following statement is attributable to Mr. Albrecht Gero Muth, former special adviser to U.S. Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, in Iraq, now advising the Hoyatoleslam Moqtadir al-Sadar.

“Villa Zarathustra”

Sadr City, BAGHDAD, Republic of Iraq

Palm Sunday 2007

LET FREEDOM RING

Thank you, Debbie Hamilton, for a balanced perspective on Iraq’s Freedom Struggle this spring and the emerging Nonviolent Movement for the National Liberation of Iraq from internal oppression and external occupation. Yet, again, as an independent thinker Debbie has filled an important void, left by the mainstream media who, as pointed out by Senator McCain in Baghdad earlier this date, fail to see the slice for the cake, the bakery for the cake.

And thank you, America’s silent majority, for your willingness to take a new look at Iraq’s freedom struggle. As a nation, born out of the strife to shed the chains of foreign tyranny, America must always stand, shoulder to shoulder with those who seek freedom.

By nonviolent means.

In that, not unlike Americans, Iraqis shall, on 9 April 2007, a day of national awakening, follow the clarion call of the drum major for peace and justice: the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in whose symbolic shadow we stand, as we advance his vision for a Beloved Community. As whatever affects any of us directly, affects all of us, indirectly.

The Iraqi Freedom Struggle, this spring, may well be likened to the heroic struggle of the Poles a quarter century, ago. A far-sighted President Reagan supported that struggle, then, just as I believe a far-sighted President Bush (43) will support this struggle, now. Now is not the time to go wobbly on roll-back, on rolling back the forces of oppression: the Wahabis, the Hashemites, the al-Jabars. Now is the time to relegate the revanche to the ash heap of history.

There are those who, yet again, want to sacrifice principle at the high altar of what is perceived the expedient: stability versus instability.

To them I say: Remember East Berlin. Remember Belgrade. Remember Talinn, Riga and Vilnius. Remember Kiev.

Each time, Bush (41) opted to side with the foreign policy establishment.

Didn’t know how to respond to the East German freedom struggle.

Didn’t know how to react to the Yugoslav freedom struggle.

Didn’t know how to react to the Baltic freedom struggle.

Didn’t know how to react to the Ukrainian freedom struggle.

Each time, being overtaken by the will of a free people.

They say, Bush (43) is not his father.

To them, I say, I’m glad, he is not.

The man, who encourages Iraq’s Shia to rise against Saddam’s tyranny, only to sacrifice them to the regime’s butchery? Because America’s Wahabi ally in the First Gulf War, the dying man of the ME, would not have condoned the U.S. push into Iraq, proper?

Is it surprising, then, that neither the name of the United States, nor that of Bush, pere, generate the most pleasant of rings in an Iraqi Shia ear?

And, yet, there are those who hold that Iraq’s Shia have to prove themselves to the Americans? Them I would like to remind of the constructive role played by JAM over the month gone by.

When I declared, in my Senate Foreign Relations Committee statement of 1 February 2007, that JAM would cooperate with the PM’s security plan for Baghdad and that Sadr City was an open City, many had reservations.

JAM delivered.

With the surge commencing on 14 February 2007, (American calendar) as I affirmed that Sadr City was an open city, many continued to have reservations.

Yet, again, JAM delivered.

As did JAM deliver, when first joint Iraqi-U.S. patrols entered Sadr City, on 4 March 2007.

Unopposed!

As did JAM deliver, yet again, when, despite near daily assaults by Sunni insurgents on Shia faithful during the run-up to Arbaeen (10 March 2007) and in its immediate aftermath, JAM continued to stand down.

As does JAM deliver as, since 4 March 2007, Iraqi and U.S. military and security personnel have begun, in force, to move into Sadr City.

As shall JAM deliver on the safety, security and well-being of U.S. military personnel being deployed to the streets of Sadr City throughout the promising bloom this spring.

Is it surprising, then, that Sadrists have doubts about the motives of those who feel entitled to question the integrity of the Hoyatoleslam’s intent?

Is it surprising then, that Sadrists have doubts about those in whose untested hands they are asked to deposit the safety and security of their people, their mothers, their children?

Is it surprising, then, that Sadrists have doubts about the motives of those who continue to work against Shia unity and empowerment?

Sadrists have been admonished by the Bush Administration to show consistency in their action. And so, guided by clearity in action, ambiguity in the spoken word, they shall.

Yet, I like to believe that good-faith imposes a reciprocal commitment on both sides for constructive action. Sadrists, too, shall look for consistency in action to be taken.

I like to believe that the real President Bush (43) will, as yet, stand-up, stiffen his spine, align the United States with the progressive forces for freedom and steer along Iraq’s road to victory.

A victory for the United States Army.

A victory for the Army of Iraq.

A victory for the good people of the United States.

Above all, a victory for the good people of Iraq.

Together, WE SHALL OVERCOME.

Last month, a grateful nation observed the living legacy of Dr. King. Nowhere, “the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air” notwithstanding, is the drum major’s clarion call to work toward the Beloved Community more audible than in Iraq. And so I take inspiration from the words, with which, on 16 January 2007, the Rev. Fr. Daniel Coughlin, Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives, opened the afternoon proceedings:

”At this hour of uncertainty, Lord, fashion leaders whose actions spring from the inherent counsel of Dr. King's living legacy. In charting the course for the national stability of Iraq let Dr. King's dream of little black children walking hand-in-hand with little white children come true for little Shia, Sunni, Kurdish, Christian and Jewish children. From the southern plains around Basra to the northern plateaus at Ninneveh, someday soon let them sing: "Free at last. Thank God Almighty. We are free at last."

And so, the Iraq’s struggle continues. A day at a time. Together, we stand.

LET FREEDOM RING

[A.C. McCloud]

I question the timing here. Isn't al-Sadr still hiding in Iran? And if he was in Iran, wonder what he knows about the IRGC's capture of the British hostages? Seems to be a synergy thing.

[Debbie]

I know James. It is pitiful and a sign that we truly are in a battle between civilization and barbarism. They use women and children. They have also said if they cannot reclaim all lands for Muslims by any other means, they will do it by numbers, by having more children than Westerners do.

[James Biga]

Debbie,

here's a cruel statement. The women give birth to future jihadists which makes them culpable for continuing this war. And as Momo has bragged, the children (thousands of them) have been recruited as suicide bombers.

[Debbie]

James and Rastaman, you missed the key sentence here, Sadr made sure to let everyone know that WOMEN AND CHILDREN would be mixed in with this Mahdi Army. If the coalition hurt one of those women and children, all bets would be off.

[Rastaman]

We have our own little fatwa out on Al Sadr, for being behind the deaths of a lot of our people as well as Sunni Iraqis. He's had his horde of terrorists stay quiet ever since we told the Iraq President we were going to get Al Sadr in spite of the Pres. protests.

I agree with the previous comment that having all these people in one place at one time presents a golden opportunity. I care less if they march unarmed. They're combatants and a string of flechette bombs could turn this war around.

Rastaman
www.islamanazi.com

[James Biga]

So if all the bad guys decide to hold a protest this puts them all in the same place at the same time. Has the military thought of how this is a good thing?