[A-List] Some thoughts about the Pope and Sistani

[CeJ <jannuzi@xxxxxxxxx>]

Two clerics whose importance in world affairs is largely the creation
of the US national security state and captive, infiltrated western
media :

1. The 'global' pope (the current one is only the second of these,
since the last one lasted so long)
2.  Sistani, the supposedly 'most respsected' Shia cleric in Iraq who
is neither respected in most of Iraq nor Iran (other than by the
community of Shia who use the shrines in the Shia holy places in Iraq
to rake off huge amounts of money from religious tourists).

Ironically number 1 has the least impact in the US (even given the
Christo-centric religiousity often on display in the US), where
anti-Catholicism is part and parcel of the homegrown nationalism,
xenophobia, longheld anti-immigrant sentiments, Americanfirsterism
etc. However, along with video propaganda about OBL meeting someone in
Afghanistan before 9-11, the pope prominence in the establishment
media amplifies the impact of his vital work for Bush-Blair to help
remind expanded 'free' Europe 'why it fights' in Afghanistan and
should support the quadruple occupations of Palestine (from a Pole to
a German for pope, how convenient!), S. Lebanon & S. Syria, Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Number 2 is most likely will be the religious head of the Shia
factions that try to lead Iraq into federalism, a splintering of Iraq,
and Shia-on-Shia civil war. The most likely cause of a real civil war
isn't Sunni vs. Shia but rather Arab nationalists and religious
militants of both Sunni and Shia type against Islamic 'quietists',
secular Arabs and Kurds trying to make money off the US occupation
juggernaut (e.g. the whole Chalabi clan), Kurdish separtists--or at
least the collaborationist elements of such categories.

Charles Jannuzi
U. of Fukui, Japan