The Messiah enters Najaf was Re: [Marxism] US/occupation govt forces slaughter 300 (latest figure) Shia dissidents

[<g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Shrewd as ever Fred wrote:

>All I can express is a strong feeling that there is more to this story than 
>the reported assassination plots.  On NPR this was reported with the 
>announcement that "we" are gaining in the Najaf region, which has actually 
>been relatively peaceful for about two years.  Sounds like as step in the
opposite direction.

My Comments:

Details are of course hard to come by and the level of reporting, never high, 
is rapidly sinking.  However something like the following appears to have 
happened.

A junior messiah emerged among the Shia. One of his many names was al-Yamani.  
He was undeducated and thus from outside the religious establishment.  It is 
not know if he have ever been a carpenter. In any case it would seem that he 
promised that the Big Messiah was coming and that the end of the world was at 
hand. 

During this time of religious fervour in the Holy City, he and his followers 
mustered outside Jerusalem, sorry Najaf.  The religious authorities regarded 
this undeducated messiah as a dangerous upstart and resolved to move against 
him.  They said he intended to destroy the temple, I mean the Shrine of the 
Imam Ali, and to kill the High Priest (I mean the Grand Ayatollah).  

But the attack on the followers of the new messiah failed and the religous 
authorities decided to call for help from their imperialist masters - the 
Romans, oops!, I mean the Americans and the British.

The Imperialists did what imperialists do best;  that is they slaughtered the 
new Messiah and his followers. There was a shortage of trees for crucifixes so 
they had to rely on 400 lb bombs.  "Kind of messy" admitted one of the American 
commanders, "but they get the job done."

Within the Holy City the Governor, Asad Abu Ghalal gave thanks to Allah and the 
Americans.  He said that the supposed messiah possessed weapons of mass 
destruction, didn't believe in democracy or privatisation, was a bad man who 
beat his wives, had terrible personal hygiene, didn't clean his teeth and was a 
real threat to world peace.

The Americans don't appear to have much to say. For them it was a case of 
"Shucks, weren't no big deal". After all what does a few hundred jihadis more 
or less mean?  Why there is still a million or more of them yet to be bombed. 
Privately one of the American commanders admitted that he could not understand 
what all the fuss was about.

regards

Gary


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