According to this BBC article, Muqtada Sadr is losing his thin veneer of religious legitimacy supplied by Ayatollah Haeri in Iran. Unlike Sistani, Haeri has been giving Muqtada support religiously for his activities. I’m not sure what to make of his about face, except perhaps to make it easier for him to be more active in Iraq, either directly or through other proxies. On the surface, this is an important development, because if every Ayatollah now denounces the attacks on US and UK troops, it theoretically becomes easier to isolate those Shi’ah, and to a certain extent Sunnis, who do carry out attacks. I’m hopeful that the attacks in Sadr city will settle down, and more importantly that the city itself will be less likely to serve as a launching ground for others in Iraq.
Related Posts
Muslims for Secular Democracy [updated]
Update: The original post has been recovered here. Comments on this post are now closed. This post was originally sent in by Ghostdog. However, TypePad managed to lose all our posts from yesterday, so I had to re-post, and it’s now tagged with me as the author. To be clear, I am not.
Brown People, no more pressure
As many of you have now heard, there were attempted bombings in London and Glasgow Airport. BBC round-up. In case we needed further proof that terrorists are idiots, these guys are doctors who apparently don’t know basic chemistry or physics, so the whole thing failed, thankfully. What have learned from this experience: Doctors are not necessarily smart people. Terrorists are stupid. Doctors who are terrorists are definitely not smart people. For brown children everywhere who are pressured into being doctors, you can now tell your parents with a straight face, doctors are stupid and people fear them. No prestige, no…
Adoption Game
I don’t know what’s going on at 20/20, and I’m surprised at Barbara Walters for doing an adoption game style promotion for a news piece. I’m shocked the challenge is on legal grounds to the theft of an idea instead of outrage that such advertising, and perhaps such games, are permissible.