al-Sadr - exercising freedom? Terrorist?

[jdavionic]

Al-Sadr recently organized a protest against the US troops in Iraq. Granted he was not present for the demonstrations, but his words carry a lot of weight in Iraq.

Here's one article on the subject:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264860,00.html

So what should we do about this guy? Ignore him? Hunt him down & arrest him? Kill him?

His whereabouts are currently unknown. He's believed to be hiding in Iran. If so, it limits the options.

IMO, we ought to entice him back into Iraq and kill him. Why? He has essentially declared war on the US troops, calling the US the archenemy of Iraq and stating that his militia should redouble their efforts to battle & defeat the US. He's also encouraged the Iraqi police and Army to join the fight.

I would have no issues with the guy if he were to limit his actions to criticisms only and peaceful demonstrations. He is right to be upset that people are murdered in the streets every day and that certain areas of the country are in turmoil. He is also right to assert that Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people. But he's not that genuine. He wants power in that country. He wants the Shiites to control it. He is a significant part of the problem with the murders in some of the hotbeds in that country. He cites unity; yet he is divisive and is doing everything possible to destabilize the current government there for his own personal gain. If he were true to his desire to help the country (all people Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds,...) then I'd say more power to him. But this guy is trouble and has been trouble from day 1. I say enough is enough. One between the eyes is all that he has earned.

[gsh341]

People like Muqtada al-Sadr are what's wrong with Iraq, not the solution. He wields enormous power because he's a cleric and because his father, who was a widely respected cleric, was murdered by Saddam. Whatever he says to do, will happen, because he makes it a religious matter and the average Iraqi has little except his religion.

Al-Sadr is just as bad as Saddam, if not worse. The problem is that killing him will make him a martyr and will inflame the people against the US. Even if he gets killed and we have nothing to do with it, we will get blamed. The only effective way to get rid of this guy is to catch him doing something bad that will destroy his credibility and make him an outcast among the people.

The odds of that happening are slim to none, so I bet we'll have him around for a long time.

[FrankRizzoXD40]

The reason he has ratched up his rhetoric is because of Bush and maliki's new Iraq plan. The new plan called for coalition troops to be allowed into Sadr-city, which the Iraqi PM used to ban.

Sadr supported Maliki's rise to power and Sadr's followers hold about 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament. In exchange, Maliki banned coalition troops form Sadr city and would not let our forces engage him or the mahdi army.

With the new Bush/Maliki plan, the ROE were completely changed, which allowed US forces to go after the mahdi army. The Iraqi-PM Maliki was protecting Sadr up until the new bush plan. There are several articles where Maliki has made it very clear that Sadr and the Mahdi army's actions will no longer be tolerated. Shortly after the new plan was announced and maliki announced that he would no longer protect Sadr, sadr fled to Iran.

gsh341 is right when he says that sadr is the problem. He used to be allowed to do whatever he wanted without fear of being pursued by the US troops. Now he is back on his heels because of the new bush plan. Our troops have been going door to door in sadr city for a few weeks now. Sadr has been dealt a blow and is now trying to ratchet up the rhetoric in order to rally his troops/followers.

gsh341 is also right when he says that we will have to find him doing something bad in order to discredit him. With his recent announcments encouraging violence on the US troops, he has become even more dangerous. In his recent annoucements, he has also DISCOURAGED violence on innocent Iraqis. This will help him because now he won't be viewed as a terrorists. He will be viewed as a freedom fighter who is trying to expell the occupation.

Since he is encouraging attacks on our forces and has long been one of the biggest obstacles in stablizing the country, I think we should give him an ultimatum: leave Iraq and stop encouraging violence or die.

I don't care how much power he weilds. We should exterminate him. We should have done this shortly after the invasion and then we would have had 3 years for the country to calm down and deal with his death. We need to kill all of the terrorists and thugs and get the hell out of there. Sadr is just waiting for the US troops to leave so that he can make an attempt to either overthrow the government, or gain control of it by expanding on the 30 parliament seats that he already controls.

Frank

[vikz]

if he is one of the terrorist then i would say hunt him down ,i'm sure one of our special forces sniper would like to put a bullet right bet. his eyes..just my 2 cents

[jdavionic]

WRT the martyr concerns, I'm not sure that he will be a long-term martyr. The same concerns were expressed about Saddam; but I don't think they've materialized. However, Saddam was not a cleric.

It's a Catch-22 situation...but I think he is more harmful alive then dead.

[Broadside]

It seems to me that we the people here in the USA have a very short term memory. Once you leave our great land most people have the memory of an elephant. If we do catch & remove we need to replace with a better substitue or someone else will step in. Sounds like something we did with Saddam comes to mind.

[Old School]

What they need are pictures of him dancing nude with another man while eating a pork chop. Such photos are not welcome in that part of the world.

BTW, anyone know how to use photo shop? If so, the Pentagon may need your help...

[Broadside]

Trying not to visualize......this OS but you need to add drugs and booze to complete it.

[deepdiver]

I'm not usually a proponent of assassination, however, in his case, I think we should have taken him out 3 years ago.

[jdavionic]

Originally Posted by Old School

What they need are pictures of him dancing nude with another man while eating a pork chop. Such photos are not welcome in that part of the world.

BTW, anyone know how to use photo shop? If so, the Pentagon may need your help...

I'll have to work on that one. I'm pretty sure I can impose his picture on a short school bus or at a Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party