Iraqi Cleric Predicts More Attacks on U.S.

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040510/ap_on_re_mi_ea/fadlallah_iraq&cid=540&ncid=1473

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A senior Iraqi-born Shiite cleric predicted Monday that terrorist attacks on U.S. interests worldwide would increase because of Muslim anger at the American abuse of Iraqi prisoners.



Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said, however, that most Islamic anger is aimed at the Bush administration and not the American people. He criticized attacks on innocent civilians, including the Sept. 11 al-Qaida strikes.


Fadlallah said Bush's apology for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was "inaccurate" because the president blamed a few individual soldiers, and not military commanders and other U.S. leaders. The cleric called for the resignations of Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.


"The people who carried out these acts were acting on the basis of orders and under the supervision of intelligence" agencies and interrogators, said Fadlallah, one-time spiritual guide of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Stop the presses, REALLY?

This is a given

[billybob537]

2. I'm not psychic

but I could figured that out, DUH!!!

[Richardo]

3. But....but....we're SAFER, dammit!

My government tells me so!

[Just Me]

4. Is that a stretch? Uh,...nope,...except for the ignorant, I suppose. n/t

[PaDUer]

5. If they want THEM,

let them have THEM! No questions asked!

[Aidoneus]

6. Sayyid Fadlallah has much experience to base this on

in addition to his knowledge and wisdom. Both from the resistance campaign in Lebanon against the Zionists, and his own dealings with the US--for example the latter using a giant car bomb in a densely populated area trying to kill him, instead carrying out a massacre.

Then again, Captain Obvious would also point it out--but he doesn't want to risk being demoted.

[Aidoneus]

7. a recent piece of interest on Sayyid Fadlallah

Al-Sayed Mohamed Hussein Fadlullah:
The voice of the Ayatollah
Detecting the common threads
By Omayma Abdel-Latif

--snip--

Fadlullah defends Al-Sadr's movement, saying that it did not adopt violent means but rather carried out its protests in a peaceful manner. Fadlullah put the brunt of the blame on the occupation forces that pushed Al-Sadr into a corner, forcing him to resort to violence. Due to provocative measures such as the closure of Al-Hawza newspaper and the arrest of some Al-Sadr followers under the pretext that they had murdered a rival cleric a year ago, Al-Sadr was forced into a showdown he did not want, said Fadlullah.

Although Al-Sadr represents sections of the Iraqi Shia, Fadlullah insists that his movement should be seen as part of a larger Islamist national movement in Iraq. The common thread, he said, which runs through Najaf, Falluja, Al-Sadr City and Al-Adhamiya, is that there is a national mood against the occupation. "One cannot describe this mood as Sunni in Al-Adhamyia and Shia in Najaf, it is all part of a national movement and I believe this is a sign that Iraqi nationalism is on the rise," he said.

Fadlullah was not surprised by Al-Sadr's pro- Palestine rhetoric because it is inevitable that "any Islamist movement" would lend support to the Intifada in Palestine and the resistance in southern Lebanon since "these are the only two rays of hope in the darkness which engulfs the whole Arab world".

Does he think that the confrontation between US occupying forces and Al-Sadr followers would open the way for a long-awaited fatwa (edict), inciting Shia to rise up against the US occupation?

There were certain circumstances, he answered, which led those who might issue the fatwa to believe that violent confrontation was neither realistic or helpful. "People were torn between their rejection of a ruthless regime and the US occupation."

But there need not be a fatwa for people to rise up against the occupation, Fadlullah said. The occupation, he continued, has in fact prepared the ground and created the conditions for the people to rise against it without having to issue any religious fatwas.

He also does not believe that any sectarian- based power sharing would be "a realistic one". The Iraqi Shia, he pointed out, are not a monolithic group. There are secularist Shia and the Islamist Shia, just as there are secularist Sunnis and Islamist Sunnis. Ballots, he said, should be the final arbiter, not sectarian loyalties. "People vote according to which political party they belong to and not according to which sect they are from. The occupation tries to institutionalise sectarianism in Iraq although it talks about establishing democracy. But the US knows only one kind of democracy -- the democracy which serves its interests and not the interests of the people."

Arab rulers, Fadlullah explained, do not seem to have learned the Iraqi lesson. "They are still reeling from the terror unleashed on them by US plans for reform. They are in a state of confusion because they have relied heavily on the US as their patron and protector but the US is a pragmatic country that puts its interests above anything else. The relationship it maintains with these regimes is a utilitarian one. Saddam brought horrors upon his people and was a pawn in the American game to hit liberation movements and wreak havoc in the region so that America could lay its hands on the Gulf and its oil resources. He served a purpose and his job was done."

--snip--

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/689/profile.htm