The Washington Post - A Fifth Column In Action

Yesterday was Memorial Day, yet there were no long articles in the Washinton Post about our soldiers sacrificing for America in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were no long stories about individual acts of heroism under fire, nor articles on acts of kindness and humanity by our soldiers. Instead, we were treated to silence yesterday while today, the WaPo runs a long story singing the praises of a man responsible for the death of our soldiers, Moqtada al Sadr. What perfidious people these are.

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WaPo says:

Sadr, now 34, has since emerged as an ardent nationalist who commands the support of hundreds of thousands of devotees . . .

I have yet to see a single bit of anecdotal evidence that supports that degree of popularity for Sadr. To the contrary, a year ago, as the surge was just getting started, Sadr called for a "million man march" in Najaf. The march on Najaf only drew between 5,000 and 7,000 people according to U.S. military observers. Since the start of the surge, in the areas that have been under Sadrist control, the people have chafed under the imposition of gangsterism and rule with ever "increasing similarity to the repressive Iranian theocracy." They have celebrated when Sadr’s rule was broken. As to the characterization that Sadr is an "ardent nationalist," given Sadr's degree of involvement with Iran and given that the Sadrists in government are completely isolated from all other factions, it would seem that the nationalist alure of Sadr effects mostly members of our MSM.

WaPo says:

His decision last week to allow the Iraqi army to enter the capital's Sadr City district, his base of power, was the latest in a series of calming edicts that began last summer. . . .

This is a complete rewrite of history. Sadr’s forces have consistently withdrawn just shy of annhiliation – in Basra, after taking lopsided casualties, they rolled over. In Sadr City, the same thing happened just as the U.S. and Iraqi forces were preparing an offensive to take the city by force. Sadr hasn’t been issuing "calming edicts," he has been reacting to his forces being decimated.

WaPo says:

Sadr has spent the past year studying in Iran under a politically influential cleric who runs the country's judicial system, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, according to several top-ranking Sadr aides. Sadr's effort to burnish his theological credentials may offer some insight into his ambitions, since he is descended from a line of clerics who endorse "wilayat al-faqih," the theory that high-ranking Shiite clerics should oversee affairs of state.

Wow. Is this misleading. The philosophy of velayat-e-faqi did not exist long before 1979 with its elucidation by Khomeini. It is an aberration at complete odds with over a millenium of apolitical Shia tradition and is unique to Iran. I have no idea whether Sadr's father or grandfather embraced this Khomeini bastardization of the Shia religion, but given that they were Iraqi nationalists, I would be surprised if they did. At any rate, the implication of Sadr's study of the velayat-e faqi today is that he wants to establish a repressive and brutal Iranian style theocracy in Iraq. This further serves as damning evidence that Sadr and his militia are allied with Iran and stand opposed to free and democratic government in Iraq.

WaPo says:

Sadr began speaking out against the occupation and formed the Mahdi Army militia in mid-2003. The militia was grounded in a theological concept developed by Sadr's father, who said that an army of believers would be led by the Imam Mahdi, a messianic figure who Shiites believe will redeem mankind.

This is another rewrite of history. The Mahdi Army was formed in the months following the U.S. invasion by a combination of Sadr, Iran and the now deceased uber-terrorist, Imad Mugineyah. Iran financed it, armed it while Mugineyah oversaw the training and established an organizational structure set along the lines of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Sadr's father may have fulminated about the Mahdi leading an army of followers upon his return to earth, but that had nothing to do with the Iranian creation beyond sharing a name.

WaPo says:

The Mahdi Army took part in two major uprisings against the U.S. military in 2004, making Sadr popular as a resistance figure and showing how formidable his fighters were. . . .

The myth of the brave revolutionary standing up and defeating the evil Americans. One could almost imagine the authors wearing their Che t-shirts as they wrote this paragraph. Irrespective, these "formidable" fighters were decimated in 2004, with Sadr walking away from that fight only by the grace of a conscious decision made by the Americans who had him surrounded. Since 2004, his "formidable" fighters have never attempted another similar uprising against U.S. forces. There has been a lot of sniping, but the "formidable" fighters of the Mahdi Army have yet to be foolish enough again to attempt any large scale fight against the far more "formidable" force of U.S. soldiers.

WaPo says:

Obaidi said he advised Sadr to declare a freeze on violence in exchange for commitments from the government to stop raids and mass arrests of its followers.

But Sadr refused. "He knew that if we rely on the government that they would break their promise, and we would be forced to end the freeze," Obaidi said.

The WaPo prints the Sadrist narrative and leaves it unchallenged. The Wapo neglects to Sadrists are infamous for their brutality and criminality, yet leaves the impression of a corrupt Iraqi government of Iraq acting in bad faith. Amazing.

The Washington Post's foreign service truly is a fifth column. One can be sure that no author or editor responsible for this article has family actually fighting in Iraq to preserve freedom. What has our MSM come to?