A vicious monster rises in Iraq's sectarian war 'the Shia Zarqawi'

[ECH1969]

The self-appointed defender of his Shia kith and kin, his nom de guerre is "The Shield". But to his Sunni foes – and many of his own people – only one name does justice to the savagery with which Abu Deraa wages Iraq's sectarian war. He is, they say, the "Shia Zarqawi".

Less than six months after an American airstrike ended Abu Musab al Zarqawi's campaign of Sunni terror, an equally brutal fanatic has emerged on the other side of the religious divide. Abu Deraa's trademark method of killing is a drill through the skull rather than a sword to the neck, but his work rate is just as prolific as the former al-Qaeda leader's and shows the same diabolical artistry.

In the past year, he and his followers are thought to have murdered thousands of Sunnis, their victims' bodies symbolically dumped in road craters left by al-Qaeda car bombs. "We are proud of leaders like Abu Deraa," said Hassan Allami, 25, a fighter with the Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr's Mehdi army, which Abu Deraa quit earlier this year to form his own faction. "His drills destroy the crazy minds of the Sunnis."

"The whole thing is becoming increasingly localised, with people like Sadr being outflanked by extremists whom he can't control," said Dr Eric Herring, the British author of Iraq in Fragments, a study released last year which charts Iraq's break-up into innumerable competing factions. "It's possible that we may eventually remember Sadr as a moderate."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/12/wirq12.xml

[twilight_sailing]

1. PM orders lawmakers to be loyal to Iraq

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/15995927.htm

[LiberalPartisan]

2. OK - so we screwed the pooch in Iraq

But it's stories like this that make me believe we should just bug out entirely and immediately and let those people kill themselves. They seem intent on doing just that and it's long past the time when we can/could/should do anything more.

[canetoad]

6. Please read this article

Don't blame the victims
By Michael Gawenda
November 13, 200

A day after the result of the US mid-term elections made it clear that Americans had lost faith in George Bush in general and in his handling of the war in Iraq in particular, Bill O'Reilly, the Fox cable news populist, spruiker for all-out war against what he calls "Islamic fascism", stout defender of - and chief fawner over - Bush and his foreign policy, said he was sick and tired of the Iraqi people.

He was sick of hearing about Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds, sick to death of it. How ungrateful could they get, these people, after America had freed them from Saddam Hussein and had spent all that blood and treasure on liberating them?

This was despicable but not surprising. Populist pseudo-defenders of democracy like O'Reilly never did give a damn about the Iraqis and did not really pretend that they did. It was therefore inevitable, once it became clear that America was not "winning" in Iraq, that the O'Reillys of this world would blame the Iraqi people. And wash their hands of any responsibility for what may now befall them when "our boys come home".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/dont-blame-the-victims/2006/11/12/1163266408400.html

[LynnTheDem]

3. THANKS, GEORGE W. bUSH.

This is what GEORGE W. bUSH has caused.

[aquart]

4. Finally, the next Saddam.

Hand him the keys and let's get out of there.

[MrPrax]

5. "It's possible that we may ...

"It's possible that we may eventually remember Sadr as a moderate."

Past tense? Did the kill him yet?

Funny, most of us figure this out three years ago when former Saddam appointed Baathist judges and the US military tried to arrest the guy on trumped up politically motivated charges and have 'remembered' since then, the attempt to make sure his 'moderate' shi'ite faction (the one that actually hates the Iranians) was marginalized in the electoral process, to ensure the success of the SCIRI faction, which loves Iran and Islamic republicanism.

Sadr's brand of Shi'itism is the moderate kind that believes in laicism; one would think that would be of noted by 'nation builders' intent on democracy and freedom.

But that was during Paul Bremer's successful turn as Top Warlord in the good old days...now Iraq is free, no need for moderates!!

[arewenotdemo]

15. Are you referring to L. Paul Bremer III, the Chef?

(and former Kissinger protege)

"Seriously. It's in the Washington Post Food section this morning. A little blue about the ghastly, gory mess you've made occupying a country that never threatened us? Spoil yourself with some Fontainbleau, garnished with pomegranate molasses. Snark fails me. What a town."

Gene Healy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091300404.html

[leftchick]

7. pandora's box anyone?

who could have predicted?


:puke:

[wholetruth00]

8. I just have to wonder if these ghosts are really Shia at all?

I just don't believe these people are killing fellow Iraqis with foreign occupiers on their turf. It makes no sense.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Why not?

Not everyone is a nationalist, who thinks purely of their country (an entity created by westerners anyway) as what they fight for. It's quite possible he'd treat an American he could get hold of in the same way, but he regards Sunnis as his enemy as well - and there are more of them, and he can capture them more easily. Remember, divisions between sects of religions have caused just as much death historically as between entirely separate religions, or between countries.

[Roland99]

9. Well, "Full speed ahead" to "turn the corner" as we "stay the course" and "adapt to win"

[salin]

10. sadism

mixed with self-righteous zeal -- esp when the sadism turns lethal - is dangerous. I can not imagine how horrifying/frightening it must be to just try to survive in Iraq these days.

[sam sarrha]

13. 60%+ unemployment and you cant leave home without fear of murder or abduction, you family CAN NOT

leave home..your kids cant go to school, water is carried, you have to go out for it and wade through rivers and lakes of raw rancid sewage.. no power..

they really do love democracy ssoooooo much... yea baby!!

[sam sarrha]

12. is there a phenomena here about supporting psychotic mass murders as religious leaders??

someone who isn't afraid of losing a grant needs to look into this..

[SKKY]

14. May the Iraqi children forgive us for what we've done.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seemslikeadream]

17. No need to impeach anyone over this

It just wouldn't be nice, no time. must get on with business :sarcasm:

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES

MORE TERRORISTS

MORE DANGER

MORE DEATH

AND REMEMBER...

HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE

IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html WATCH THIS VIDEO

[maddezmom]

18. kick

[ECH1969]

19. EXCLUSIVE-Baghdad Shi'ite militant says fighting for all Iraqis

They call him the "Shi'ite Zarqawi", a torturer with a passion for power tools, a sectarian warlord bent on driving Sunnis from Baghdad, a man whose shadowy legend has grown with recent narrow escapes from U.S. forces.

But the elusive militia commander known as Abu Deraa says he has just been misunderstood, turned by the media into a bogeyman when in fact he loves Sunnis as his brothers in Islam and wants only to protect his city's poor and drive Americans from Iraq.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has accused Abu Deraa of running sectarian death squads and told Reuters he narrowly evaded capture in a major raid on Sadr City last month by troops hunting kidnapped Iraqi-born U.S. soldier Ahmed al-Taei. snip.

He flatly denied reports from Iraqi officials, and veiled suggestions from Sadr's inner circle, that he has been disowned by the anti-American preacher for being too violent: "All these lies and rumours are published by those who serve the occupation. I was and remain a soldier of the Mehdi Army,"

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC529741.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. More likely Negroponte

is the one that's behind the death squads. That's his MO.

[cali]

21. Oh, please

as if nobody but Americans could be doing anything like this. I completely doubt that Americans have anything to do with the death squads in Iraq. We are responsible, in that we created the conditions, but this mindset that precludes reality is seriously warped.

[DoYouEverWonder]

22. Oh no

the US would never do a thing like that. :sarcasm:

[cali]

23. LOL

Exactly my point. Anyone can do vile shit like this. And i've seen zero in the way of evidence or even logic that the US is actually doing the sectarian killing in Iraq.