From the Mind of Abouna

"JUST HITTING ANOTHER
BRICK WALL"

When will our government learn?

Muqtada al-Sadr has raised his ugly head again, and I think it is high time that both the Iraqi and American governments get serious and either arrest or kill this trouble maker.

Muqtada ordered his militiamen on Sunday to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq's army and police should join him in defeating "your archenemy."

Al-Sadr commands an enormous following among Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government. The statement Sunday carried his seal and was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where the cleric called for an enormous demonstration to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall.

We had a chance to arrest al-Sadr about two years ago for the murder of American troops, but due to political pressures, from the Iraqi interim government, President Bush ordered the military to back off and Sadr was allowed to go free, and build up support.

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the al-Sadr statement said. "God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said.

Al-Sadr apparently issued the statement in response to three days of clashes between his Mahdi Army militiamen and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad.

When we had a second chance to take out al-Sadr, we again bowed to political pressure and let him slip away, and to make matters worse, the Iraqi president allowed al-Sadr to have a large role in the new Iraqi government. This has led to nothing but trouble for not only the U.S. military, but also for the Iraqi people.

When is America going to wake and say enough is enough? It is bad enough to have to fight Sunni insurgents, al-Qaeda and Shiite militia fighters, but we have an on-going battle with al-Sadr, all the while Iran is supplying these groups with all types of weapons.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that if we pull out the way the Democrats wish us too, all hell will break loose into a country wide civil war. Even if we stay to “finish” the job, what good would it do, because as soon as our troops leave, al-Sadr would rise up and take control of the democratic government by force and turn it into a Muslim Theocracy with himself at the helm, then what have we accomplished?

“Abouna” Gregori