I love Keith Olberman, but.....

[blitzen]

that shitty little piece they just had on al-Sadr by Andrea Mitchell (aka Mrs. Alan Greenspan) really sucked, and exemplifies what's wrong with our media. Pretending to offer analyis of "what al-Sadr wants," it just spoon-fed some Pentagon propaganda (he wants power, he's an agent of Iran). Nary a mention of the fact that he wants his people to live in freedom from neo-con free-market anti-labor profiteers.

For more pro al-Sadr smack, see my post in "Editorials" (Najaf: "A Terrible Beauty is Born").

[rumguy]

1. He wants more than a neo-con free Iraq

The man is a fundamentalist and he wants power.

He's not a good guy, and our media should not treat him as such.

That being said, the piece you described sounds like shit. If you want good reporting on this issue read John Burns, the NY Times reporter in Iraq, or catch him in an interveiw (he's frequently on Charlie Rose).

[blitzen]

2. "fundamentalism" is an easy slur

as i mentioned in the other post i referred to, Islamism has both atrocious and positive points....before simply denouncing al-Sadr, whom we all know very little about, we should at least consider the other side of the story. hence my link to the pro al-Sadr op-ed (again, see the "Editorials" forum).

[JSJ]

6. proof? n/t

[Protected]

3. FYI, that Andrea Mitchell piece was from the NBC Nightly News

The NBC Nightly News was really bad on Thursday night. There was that piece, an anti-Kerry Not-So-Swift Vets piece, and I think the last half was entirely Olympics stuff.

[blitzen]

4. yeah, it had that recycled look....

but Keith (whom I really do admire) did not have to use it...or could have balanced it with another viewpoint. Oh well, nothing is perfect.

[Placebo]

5. Why Does He Keep Calling the 'Village Voice' Guy, GAY?

he keeps telling him he's straight but olberman keeps calling him gay :shrug:

[blitzen]

7. not sure...i guess i missed that stuff

but i think i know the guy you're talking about

[lapfog_1]

8. We should be careful

The enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend (at least all the time).

We don't really have a good standing to find out what al-Sadr wants,
much less his followers. Does he want power? Probably.
Is his resistance to the provisional government and US forces something
for us here in DU to cheer? I don't think so.

I, personally, don't want to see him assume more power in Iraq.
I would love to see Iraq start down a path of tolerance for others
plus womens rights and other things, not down the path of theocracy
like Iran. Think Turkey... not perfect but better than Iran or
Saudi Arabia.

Am I opposed to the US hegemony pushed by the Neocons? Absolutely.
Partly because I think such concepts are evil... but also because
I don't *want* to be "masters of the universe". But that doesn't
make me want al-Sadr to win. I want our troops out as fast as
possible... but the Neocons are a home grown mess, one that WE,
as Americans, have to deal with.

[blitzen]

9. Not saying I want Sadr to win....

As I mentioned in the post, I'm questioning the whole idea that he wants to be THE power in Iraq...


We can rightly be skeptical of "clerical rule" and "theocracy"....but sometimes these are understandable and useful modes of resistance to global capitalism.

Read Abdelrahman Munif's amazing novel "Cities of Salt" (about the destruction of the Bedouin social fabric in the 1930s after the Americans take over Saudi for its oil). At the end these more or less moderately religious (or not very religious) victims of colonialism rally around a few pious leaders, not for the sake of "theocracy" but as an act of working-class rebellion against profiteers. The parallels with Iraq in 2004 are uncanny.

[jpgray]

10. Attributing pure motivations to any side will get you disappointed quick

It just isn't very realistic.

[blitzen]

11. didn't say anything about purity...

if you read my other post (in the "Editorials" forum, referred to above in the "original message") I mention both the "atrocious" and the "positive" sides of Islamism.

[jpgray]

12. Yes--sorry, I see you already addressed this point several times.

My reading eyes are a bit lazy at this time, I think. :silly:

Welcome to DU, by the way. :toast:

Al-Sadr's goal is certainly to make things hard for the occupiers and their puppets, but I would speculate and say this is also a move to get beyond being an also-ran cleric. Compared to folks like Sistani or his late father, Al-Sadr didn't really have substantial clout in the Shia world. As you can see from the reports, that is changing.