Where does al Sadr's money come from?
By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The New York Times article on Muqtada al Sadr has almost fawning undertones in describing the cleric's political influence. I'm not so bothered by it, except for this:
Mr. Sadr has been working tirelessly to build support at the grass-roots level, opening storefront offices across Baghdad and southern Iraq that dispense services that are not being provided by the government. In this he seems to be following the model established by Hezbollah, the radical Lebanese Shiite group, as well as Hamas in Gaza, with entwined social and military wings that serve as a parallel government.
According to ABC News, Hezbollah gets $20 to $40 million per month from Iran (and arms through Syria), and al Sadr has spent quite a bit of time in Iran this year. You would think that a newspaper such as the Times would take a small break from cheerleading and do a little serious reporting, such as finding out where al Sadr is getting his money for all these nice projects. Also, it went without mentioning that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations, and that al Sadr is following a model similar to that used by terrorists. If al Sadr is getting a sizable percentage of monies from the Iranian mullahs, it would be fair to say that al Sadr's influence in Iraq is artificial, at least in part. It would also be fair to say that the "fiery cleric" is an Iranian stooge, no matter how nationalist his agenda. But whoever said the New York Times was fair.
Hi Charles,
You write:
"The New York Times article on Muqtada al Sadr has almost fawning undertones in describing the cleric's political influence."
It seems to me that Al-Sadr's political support is real and that those reporting it shouldn't be accused of "fawning".
When Jeff Emmanuel was last in Iraq, he described the Iraqi areas that were under the control of Sadr's militias. He wrote that
"[the] quality of life [in these areas] – from the cleanliness of their streets (no small issue in Baghdad, large parts of which appear to be one giant rubbish heap), to the safety of their neighborhoods – is assured by the JAM living there...Given this, the US cannot easily convince the people of such districts to break with JAM in hopes of receiving even better quality of life at the hands of the coalition; instead, as an intelligence officer told me, “we have to convince them that life in cooperation with us as well as in cooperation with the JAM can be even better than what the JAM provides alone.”
http://jeffemanuel.blogspot.com/2007/05/from-iraq-iraq-model.html
like that phony front for Al Qaeda that used an actor as a spokesman and kept us fooled for many months. Al Sadr is more successful because he is more well funded. Now maybe if Gen. Petraeus will deal with him as he should any terrorist front man, things can start moving forward even faster. This punk has gotten a lot of good Iraqis asn Americans killed on behalf of his masters in Tehran.
That the NYT would write approvingly of a puppet for theocratic dictators is not surprising at all.