This is a natural resource map of the Middle East. The An Albar province has little to no water resource in the way of an aquifer. Some wealthy Middle East nations use distillation processes of sea water (click on) as a means of acquiring a water source. Iraq has a very small shoreline and does not border An Albar at all. The accommodation of a water suppy for the province could bring irrigation water as well and a productive farming community.
The other resource noted here is oil. Needless to say An Albar is out of luck. I don't know if that is such a bad thing. But, the people of the province need resources to support them. Their legacy of living peacefully among the Shi'ites and Kurds of Iraq would dictate they would be provided a portion of the profits of that resource. However, with a warming planet, all OPEC nations need to examine other means of economy to insure a world for their children to inherit.
The USA occupation of Iraq needs to end. The Shi'ites need to move their majority to that of the traditional territories of their ethnicity and the central authority of Iraq truly has only one purpose and that is to oversee any International Treaties and Contracts regarding the oil reserves there and distributing the wealth of that equally based on 'per capita' need.
I don't see the USA military staying much longer in Iraq. The sectarian violence will stop when the ethnicities feel secure and have their own territories to protect and defend. Al Qaeda will not be tolerated beyond the occupation as it will serve to destroy any authority of any province. Al Qaeda will not have longevity in the region and by incorporating the provinces to that of the region, the allies to each province will seek to help reduce any terrorist network. That focus will be facilitated by the fact none of these nations seek to facilitate the extremist networks that destroy their infrastructure and kill their citizens. 
The Biggest Picture
A 'key' was absent here as well. The dark green areas are Shi'ite. The light green areas are Sunni. The Kurds are Sunnis, they are just a different tribe of Sunnis.
The Bigger Picture
I didn't see any 'key' to the colors on this map, however, from my perspective and understanding the red area is Kurdish and the green area is Shi'ite.
This is just a reaffirmation of the divisions of ethnicites of Iraq in a way that screams provincial authority.
Do I see a large area called An Albar that is strickly of one tribe?
Hm.What's the issue? If the 'elected majority Shi'ite' government can't agree about priorities then they need to be exclusively in control of their own province without crossing over into the Sunni province. Their authority should be limited to the Shi'ites and not allowed influence in any area of Sunni Kurd or Sunni Arab. To pursue a democratized secular nation in Iraq is futile and will be undermined by the underground extremists for as long as homogenization of government is forced down their throats. It won't happen. We need to leave. The provinces need definition and borders and a right to protect themselves.In actuality they already are.
It is why al Qaeda was tapped as a resource by the Sunnis.
The Shi'ites were arming themselves through their majority authority in Iraq. The Grand Ayatollah al Sistani ain't no ones fool. He provided cooperation for a reason. As a result the cooperation with Bush brought him an army of men affiliated with morally strong Ayatollahs from the geneology that falls to al Sadr.
The reason the 'young' cleric is so important is because he binds the unity of the Shi'ite in a way that provides for their protection against any further torture from the world. Even if the young Cleric al Sadr were to be captured or killed, the legacy of his family's geneology would live on forever and the fight for control of the Shi'ite safety would never end.
It is why Bush's USA occupation seeking the destruction of this geneology of religious authority is a form of genocide and should never be tolerated. It is the same genocide Saddam Hussein sought. The fool-hearted Bush and Hussein thought if they could kill off the geneology that was of al Sadr they could control the Shi'a. That is a hideous assumption and will never manifest into reality and why the 'ideas' of McCain are so stupid, misdirected and genocidal.
This source is The University of Texas, therefore, there should not be any divisiveness regarding it's accuracy. A country this definely divided is so because of profound cultural differences. To ask them to find a way toward a "Unity Government" is asking for nothing more than a Civil War when one realizes the level of mistrust bred during the years Saddam Hussein ruled and tried to kill off the Shi'ites by drying up the wetlands. Will these ethnicities ever trust each other enough? Will a democracy in Iraq whereby the minority obstains from participation ever be equitable and just? I don't see how.
The wide distribution of the weapons imported by the USA for use by the Iraqi National Military but diverted to the militias screams at me. The Shi'ite aren't interested in settling a peace among the ethnicities. They are however interested in securing their hamlets and towns away from occupiers with different intentions than they have.
Our troops will never be in the presence of 'friendly' people cooperating willingly in a democracy of equity. We are causing more of the problem then we are solving. We are arming an authority the Shi'ites approve of outside the authority of the Bush Recognized Government FOR Iraq. As a result the USA military have created the sectarian violence they state they are there to stop and have become the killers of the people that have come to protect themselves.
An Albar is mostly unihabited land.
It is where much of the trouble is.
It is where the Sunnis claim a right to exist.
Give it to them. Why should they have to live within a settled area with an ethnic culture they aren't even identified with?
About the last thing the United States ought to be doing in Iraq is funneling weapons into black-market weapons bazaars, as sectarian militias arm themselves for civil war. Yet that is just what Washington may have been doing for the past several years, thanks to an inexplicable decision that standard Pentagon regulations for registering weapons transfers did not apply to the Iraq war. Of more than 500,000 weapons turned over to the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior since the American invasion -- including rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles -- the serial numbers of only 12,128 were properly recorded. Some 370,000 of these weapons, some of which are undoubtedly being used to kill American troops, were paid for by United States taxpayers, under the Orwellian-titled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. This chilling information comes to us from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which has distinguished itself as the most vigilant agency monitoring the money spent on the Iraq conflict. The agency, led by a Republican lawyer who once worked in the Bush White House, has previously reported on the contracting lapses and failures of supervision that allowed billions of taxpayer dollars to be wasted instead of being used to rebuild Iraq. The latest special inspector general's report came in response to a request from Senator John Warner, another conscientious Republican. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner wanted to be sure that the Iraqi security ministries had the skills and resources necessary to make good use of the huge quantities of arms that Washington has been turning over to them. It turns out that the Pentagon not only failed to register the weapons, but also failed to provide the spare parts, repair manuals and maintenance technicians needed to keep them in working order. The agency found that Iraqi security forces are still heavily dependent on Washington's support for the most basic military functions. And with America planning to scale back much of that support over the next year, it is far from clear whether Baghdad is preparing to pick up the slack. Separately, the inspector general's office also found insecurity so rampant in six Iraqi provinces -- five of them in the predominantly Shiite south -- that America's joint military and civil reconstruction teams could not operate there effectively. These findings go a long way toward explaining why Iraq appears to be ever more violent, with no clear plans yet coming from Baghdad or Washington that seem likely to restore a semblance of order.
SEARCHING FOR END TO THE WAR...The commander, Brig. Gen. Shakir Hulail Hussein al-Kaabi, was chosen this summer by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to lead the Iraqi Army’s Fifth Division in Diyala Province. Within weeks, General Shakir went to Colonel Jones with a roster of people he wanted to arrest.On the list were the names of nearly every Sunni Arab sheik and political leader whom American officers had identified as crucial allies in their quest to persuade Sunnis to embrace the political process and turn against the powerful Sunni insurgent groups here. “Where’s the evidence?” Colonel Jones demanded of General Shakir. “Where’s the proof? What makes us suspect these guys? None of that stuff exists.”...To that, Colonel Jones recalled, the Iraqi commander replied simply, “I got this from Baghdad.”.....................“We are really painting them into a box here,” he said. “If you want to have a fight for the next 20 years, it’s here. I can’t imagine anybody who has seen war who wants that to happen. It’s the innocents, it’s these farmers out here, it’s these kids who pay the price. But these interests are colliding and they don’t care about that. Power is what they’re going after, consolidated and uncontested political power.”“I think the sectarian war is coming this way,” he added.Sectarian HarassmentDespite a population that is 50 percent Sunni Arab, Diyala has a Shiite-dominated government, because many Sunnis boycotted provincial elections last year. Now, much of the provincial police leadership appears to be allied with Shiite militias, American commanders say. The Diyala police chief, Ghassan al-Bawi, “is stacking the deck in a sectarian manner,” Colonel Jones said. “We believe there are death squads that are operating, if not sponsored by the police, certainly with the knowledge of the police.”THE LEGITIMATELY elected authority here is majority Shi'ite. They are seeking to control the Sunnis that stood in defiance of the elections. The Sunnis are viewed by Baghdad as the issue, however, the same Sunnis are viewed by the USA commander to the area as the answer to the divisive problem that exists in Iraq. There isn't even agreement between the 'freely elected' central authority in Baghdad and the USA commanders. Do you actually think this war is ever going to end ?By overriding the elected authority, and invading cities of Shi'ite majority the people are more confused than we are about who really is in control in Iraq and where the madness of this occupation ends and when. Will it end with the destruction of the Shi'ites? Is this just another way of killing them without justification? How do we know the Sunnis that are seen by the USA as a venue of change to cooperation aren't involved with al Qaeda in one form or another? Has anyone asked the George Bush 'freely elected' government exactly why these people were being arrested and why?
When the USA military states it is having operations in this city or that city and they use 'urban warfare' as a means to 'smoke them out' everyone needs to realize there are real people with real lives being dominated by war and ruin. These are the people the USA military were never prepared to protect when they first invaded. These are the people that find comfort with protection from the Mahdi Army.
Sunni religious scholar Main group in Islam, making up 90% of the religion's adherents. Has been dominating almost continuously since 661, when the Shi'is departed from the main fold (the Kharijis left in 658). Sunni Islam claims to be the continuation of the Islam as it was defined through the revelations given to Muhammad and his life, a claim which is substantiated through the fact that Shi'i Islam for a number of decades had very little following and had no real, formal organization. As for the theology, Sunni Islam represents no more of a continuation of Islam than the other orientations.Hence one should be careful about thinking of Sunni Islam as mainstream Islam, and clearly refrain from calling it "orthodox". None of the 3 orientations of Islam coming out of the schisms of the 7th century, can do no less than trace their origins back to the very first Muslim societies, and for the bystander none of the orientations must be deemed as inferior to the others.Sunni Islam has its name from its identification with the importance of the Sunna (the examples from the hadiths), which earlier than in Shi'i Islam was established as a central element in Islam, and central to understanding the full truth in the religion. There was a need to establishing a law, called Shari'a (for which the hadiths served as a central source), as Sunni Islam was the religious orientation of the rulers, while the Shi'is did not establish administrative organizations for yet a long time to come.The basis of the Iraqi Consitution is within the traditions of Shari'a Law. It might be that is a concession to include the Sunni, but, without knowing the thinking behind the Grand Ayatollah's 'cooperation initative' in the beginnings of the Iraq Central Government. One has to question the actual desire of these ethnicities to govern together. When the first one hundred representatives were chosen, the Cleric al Sadr was under seige at the Imam al Mosque. Something tells me that soured the eventual outcome of any cooperation of the Shi'ites with the Sunnis.
Considering the critical importance of the subject, it will not be surprising to see that the Shia differ from some Sunnis in this subject. In fact, the Sunnis do not have one voice in specifying the Members of the House the Prophet. Most Sunnis are in the opinion that the Ahlul-Bayt of the Prophet (PBUH&HF) are:
Fatimah al-Zahra (AS) (the daughter of the Messenger of Allah), Imam Ali (AS), Imam al-Hasan (AS), Imam al-Husain (AS), Wives of the Prophet (PBUH&HF) Others among the Sunnis further include ALL the descendants of the Prophet to the list! Some other Sunnis are very generous and include all the descendants of Abbas (the Abbasid) as well as the descendants of Aqil & Ja'far (the two brothers of Imam Ali) to the list. It should be noted, however, that there have been some leading Sunni scholars who did NOT consider the wives of the Prophet among Ahlul-Bayt. This happens to be consistent with the Shia point of view. THE ANSWER to the question, what makes a Shi'ite different requires an encyclopedia and a profound length of time to come to gribs with the subject. I mean even the Roman Catholic Church does not concentrate on Geneological Charts when deciding on the Pope. The likelihood the Shi'ites will ever see the world differently than they do now, it slim to none.The question then is, will the Shi'ites and Sunnis ever resolve differences to cooperate with each other in a 'Unity Government' in Iraq.
It's Saturday NightThere was some indecision about what to address first this Saturday Night including the end of Hurricane Season and the incredible heat in Antarctica, but, the voters won out. This past week was historic placing potentially the first women as Speaker of the House. There was record 'young voter' turnout this election, the largest in twenty years. And the reversal of majority of both the House and Senate with some new members with interesting tilts including social conservatives, but, not the case when it comes to the subject on most people's minds; The War in Iraq.I decided the Global Warming issues could wait a week, but, addressing the war; the number one reason for voter turnout couldn't.
Across the lake of fire
Through the desserts of decay
The flames are burning higher
In this land of death you're easy prey
Black Earth
Save - Our - Souls
Looking back in anger
At the twentieth century
Tormented we surrender
In artificial serenity
Twisted, torn and burnt
Violation of the crust
Man got what man deserved
Turned the future into dust
A millenary failure
The dark age has returned
Waiting for a miracle
To save the common herd
"In a century of darkness
The horror spreads within -
As our planet stops to turn
All hope is lost for man"
