...During his three years (click title to entry - thank you) in exile al-Sadr has spent his time studying under some of Iran’s hardline ayatollahs at the Holy City of Qom, the place where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, developed his radical Islamic ideology....
To begin with, he was never exiled. It was a known fact he wanted to study to have a potential to rise to the status of Ayatollah as his father did. There is this weird precept to the religion that the distaff side of a Holy Man's lineage 'sorta' demotes him to be a Cleric at best. That is where the Shi'ites and Sunnis part company, so to speak. The Shi'ites have a reverence for their female lineage that offers esteem to the Holy Men of that family. So, there is a better than 'good' chance Moqtada will be an Ayatollah or Grand Ayatollah someday considering Saddam Hussein nearly wiped out the entire lineage.
I don't know about anyone else, but, I think of higher education as of at least four years for an undgergrad degree. I doubt Seminary is much different. So, to realize he was studying in Iran is understandable as no opportunity of that nature was offered in Iraq. A Shi'ite Seminary? Where?
I think the man arrived by car. It might have been a commercial jet, but, he didn't decend on a cloud or on a chariot of fire, okay?
He arrives to a country with an election process whereby his supports are called, of all things, Sadrists. I'll be darn.
You know, I wonder if he has a newspaper enterprise yet? The Bush Guys destroyed his last one.
Oops, there goes freedom of the press.
You know something else, he didn't march into the country of Iraq with tanks and bombers over head like we did.
I wonder how the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is doing? No one ever hears from him anymore. I have to wonder if that cardiac procedure in Great Britain was 'all that.'
What was that guy's name that advised Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld? Screwball or Fastball or Have a ball? Remember that guy?
Well, they are getting set up for the next one.
A number worry that the firebrand cleric will once again spark violent confrontations and question whether he has really changed. (click here)
January 10, 2011By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Baghdad — Even as supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr rejoiced at his return to Iraq, some in the country's Shiite Muslim majority population expressed alarm Sunday about the implications of his homecoming.
In Baghdad and the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan, the news gave deep pause to some Shiite Iraqis, mindful of Iraq's history since 2003 and wondering whether Sadr would once more spark violent confrontations, or whether he had in fact truly evolved....
In Baghdad and the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan, the news gave deep pause to some Shiite Iraqis, mindful of Iraq's history since 2003 and wondering whether Sadr would once more spark violent confrontations, or whether he had in fact truly evolved....
Go get 'em, Ned. Those conservatives with all the money to buy newspapers simply love this stuff.
"Faces of the Fallen" (click here) Maybe next time 'you all' need to really 'get it right.'
Unfortunately we are still in that country and receiving fire with dead soldiers. We not going to continue to do this and if there is an escalation of tensions and fighting, then we need to leave. DEFINATELY. We have been there BEFORE !
If the Iraqis need to separate into three autonomous provinces and fight to do it, then I'll guess they will fight it out alone !
