[Marxism] Shia leaders in Karbala call for all military forces to leave

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Great hopes are placed by the US government on statements like those
that follow by Shia leaders, but overall they -- coupled with the
military stalemate taking shape in Karbala and Najaf -- are more signs
of the isolation and weakening position of the occupiers.  More and more
sections of the bourgeoisie -- even including unprincipled characters
who were carried into Iraq by the invading army -- feel that the only
way forward for them in this situation is to oppose the occupation.
This lineup shows every sign of continuing to get worse.

It is quite clear that there are significant sections of the population
of Najaf and Karbala -- sections of the bourgeoisie and middle class but
I suspect broader strata as well -- that don't want al Sadr's forces to
have exclusive possession of the streets.  It really isn't hard to
imagine reasons why this would be true, without labelling people
collaborators and so forth.

But the trend is toward broader opposition to the occupation, and the
events in Karbala and Najaf have reinforced that.

The next round of the uprising will be broader in all classes than the
last one.  The occupation forces can be counted on to make sure of that.


The real Iraq -- yes, if anyone insists, the independent bourgeois Iraq
-- has not been broken by Washington, and the occupation as an attempt
to change the fundamental relation of forces in the Middle East cannot
even fully accept that Iraq, much less the Iraq that is at the very
beginnings of taking shape among the masses.

Its useful to keep in mind the social alienation of the occupation from
Iraq.  The occupation was based on the assumption that Iraq was a broken
and virtually nonexistent nation, incapable any longer of asserting or
defending its independence and that it could be reconstructed according
to the plans of the occupiers.  In my opinion, the depth and scope of
this misreading was symbolized the bombing of a village wedding --
obviously not a gathering of the wretched of the earth --  apparently
because they were in what the occupiers consider the desert and had
jewelry and cars.  To the US occupation, this proved -- what?  That they
had forgotten their place in the scheme of things?
Fred Feldman

May 22, 2004  New York Times
SERMONS
Clerics Urge End to Clashes Between U.S. and Rebels
By EDWARD WONG

KARBALA, Iraq, May 21 - Hundreds of worshipers poured into two holy
Shiite shrines here on Friday to hear clerics demand an end to
continuing clashes between American forces and insurgents loyal to the
rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

The clerics called for the withdrawal of fighters from both sides but
carefully avoided singling out either the Americans or Mr. Sadr's
militia, the Mahdi Army.

The Americans had in fact already retreated from the city center earlier
Friday. American commanders said the military had left downtown Karbala
to allow local leaders to reach an "Iraqi solution" to the standoff with
Mr. Sadr's forces.

As they pulled back, starting just after midnight, fierce battles
erupted, leaving at least 21 insurgents dead, many near this city's
holiest shrines, according to Col. Peter R. Mansoor, commander of the
First Brigade of the First Armored Division.

On Friday afternoon, he added, the police chief of Karbala said scores
of Mahdi fighters had been killed.

Mr. Sadr, who lives in the nearby holy city of Najaf, has been leading a
six-week revolt against the occupation forces. Some of the bloodiest
fighting has occurred over the last two-and-a-half weeks in downtown
Karbala. Entire city blocks have been ruined.

More than 120 Iraqis have been killed in all. Insurgents, including a
very skilled sniper, have killed 4 American soldiers and wounded at
least 52 others.

Beyond Karbala, Mr. Sadr's militiamen, many from the sprawling slum of
Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, have also taken Najaf and are
attacking other cities across the south.

At Friday Prayers in nearby Kufa, The Associated Press reported, Mr.
Sadr told 1,500 worshipers, "Don't let my killing or arrest be an excuse
to end what you're doing, supporting the truth and standing up to the
wrong."

But other clerics spoke Friday in Karbala at the blue-tiled Shrines of
Hussein and Abbas, dedicated to two of Shiite Islam's most revered
martyrs. One of the clerics, Ahmed al-Safi, represented Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, the most influential religious leader in Iraq. The
ayatollah demanded earlier this week that all armed forces withdraw from
Karbala and Najaf and asked for people to demonstrate against the
violence.

"We don't want anybody to manipulate these two cities, whatever his
identity might be," Mr. Safi said at his sermon.

After Friday Prayers ended at the Shrine of Hussein, many of the
worshipers marched along a wide plaza to the Shrine of Abbas, calling
for peace. The plaza is usually thronged with pilgrims, many from Iran,
but visitors have dropped off considerably since the fighting began.

Many pilgrims have opted to stay inside their hotel rooms or to not come
at all, while merchants have shut down sidewalk stalls where they sold
Shiite religious souvenirs.

The American military canceled a major operation at the last minute on
Thursday night and decided to pull its forces back early Friday from the
Mukhaiyam Mosque, which it had occupied on May 12 after a pitched
battle.

The mosque, once a stronghold for the insurgents, was being used by the
Americans as a forward base to run patrols into the old city. It had
turned into a lightning rod for attacks, drawing mortar and sniper fire
from the insurgents. Three American soldiers were killed while defending
the mosque or patrolling the immediate area.

As a company of tanks began rolling past the shrine area early Friday on
their way back to Camp Lima, a military base on the city's outskirts,
insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at them. One M1 Abrams tank
fired at a building northeast of the Shrine of Abbas with its powerful
main gun. An AC-130 gunship pounded the area with 40-millimeter cannons.


Insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades were holed up in a school
northeast of the shrine area. Intelligence indicated that many of those
fighters might have come from outside Karbala, military officials said.
The AC-130 opened fire on the school and a building immediately south of
the Shrine of Hussein that was believed to be the headquarters of Hamza
al-Tai, the local leader of the Mahdi Army.

[A car bomb exploded outside the Baghdad home of Iraq's deputy interior
minister on Saturday, killing at least five people and wounding several
others, the police and witnesses told Reuters.

[American soldiers said one of the wounded was Gen. Abdel Jabar
al-Shikli, the deputy minister. The bomb detonated directly in front of
his house, they said.]

Also in Baghdad, an American soldier and two Iraqi civilians were killed
when a roadside bomb exploded Thursday, the military said.

The American military has come under increasing scrutiny for its
activities since the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and an air strike
near the Syrian border that killed 41 people on Wednesday.

The American presence in the holiest cities of Shiite Islam has provoked
protests throughout the region, including small demonstrations in Iran
and Jordan. Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims demonstrated in Beirut
Friday to protest the American operations, and 30 people were wounded in
clashes with police in Bahrain, where about 5,000 people turned out, the
Associated Press reported.

Al Jazeera, the popular Arab satellite TV network based in Dubai, said
one of its drivers was killed by gunfire while standing with a
television crew on the roof of a hotel in Karbala's downtown.

After American troops completed their withdrawal from the Mukhaiyam
Mosque, Iraqi policemen entered the downtown, trying to take control for
the first time since April, when Mr. Sadr's forces seized the area,
Colonel Mansoor said. "It seems like a good thing," he added.

But there are doubts that Iraqi security forces are prepared or willing
to rid the area of insurgents. Last month, when the uprising began, many
Iraqi policemen and members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a national
militia, ran from the insurgents or even joined in attacks against the
Americans.

After the Americans seized the Mukhaiyam Mosque, they had to cajole
Iraqi security forces to help them guard the mosque. When policemen did
turn up, they sat in the relative safety of the mosque's covered rooms
while American soldiers went out on patrols. The policemen soon
disappeared.

The Americans are still running heavy patrols into the city. On Friday
evening, it sent an entire company of infantrymen into Karbala. Windows
rattled as Bradley fighting vehicles, M113 armored personnel carriers
and other armored behemoths rolled through the streets, looking for a
fight. But not a single shot was fired at the patrols.



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