Huge fighting in najaif NOW...

its going on RIGHT NOW... several mosque ruined ...

not 100%

If mosques are being destroyed (especially THE big mosque), boy, is this going to get uglier than it already is.

I kust posted this in LBN....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x761684

why in the hell would they say mosque were ruined??? ugh i cant stand CNN..

...inside the Imam Ali shrine right now and are trying to get a report from them.

around it is totaled

A bit confusing, to say the least!

they say it's a mortar attack on a police station...

but, it is confusing



The sounds of intense fighting erupted today around Najaf's Imam Ali mosque, and two of the mosque's minarets appeared damaged, according to a CNN producer inside the compound. It was unclear if the fighting signaled the start of an offensive against fighters aligned with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who are holed up inside the mosque.

We can apparently level the entire town without fear as long as the mosque stands. You know, I love my church, but when it comes down to it, my house is more important.

i heard it is but i really dont know...
if it is.. im sure that there would have been many people trying to protect.. let say.. the said place of jesus birth... but who knows

shrine for the Shia's. But I could be wrong.

On edit: didn't want that to make it sound insignificant. I mean what's higher...Mecca? Oh, I hope that never happens...

The "birthplace" of Christianity is in a Muslim neighborhood and controlled by a Jewish state. Catholocism still places a strong emphasis on holy places and such, but most mainstream Protestants have been taught that physical locations don't matter. It's why our churches are so ugly and boring.

and believe it's just as stupid as you like, but that won't change it. These places are sacred to them, and whether you like it (or understand it) or not, desecration of those sacred shrines is something like an order of magnitude more than just a hot button issue. It is similar, I would imagine, to the destruction of their culture -- or perhaps part of it in their minds.

However, you are apparently not alone in your insensitivity to their culture; it's obviously matched by official U.S. insensitivity, coming out of Washington or at least the Pentagon.

And we wonder why they hate us.

I am as sensitive to their culture as I am to the West's. I'm also as critical of it as I am of the West's.

What I find amazing is the borderline hypocrisy of Left-wingers who would fight tooth and nail to get every vesitge of Christianity out of our national character, yet treat Islamic culture as if it were this great untouchable. If a group of abortion clinic bombers were hiding in a Church of Christ, I doubt there would be this level of sensitivity.

For the record, I think we do need to be sensitive when it comes to the symbols of Islam, etc. But if this really is a war and if insurgents are firing from a mosque, it becomes a target in my mind.

The point is not that the mosque is somehow ethically untouchable. Whatever, really. The point is that attacking the mosque is pragmatically counterproductive, insofar as it will inflame the Shia population - and not just in Iraq. So one has to conduct a cost-benefit analysis: is clearing out the Medhi Army in Najaf more or less costly than the possible results of attacking the mosque? This question is undecidable as "truth," since it contains an element of futurity (what will happen?); in this sense, it is like any decision or proposal, from whether to build a missile shield, to what kind of tires you should get for your car to some new rule you put oin place for your employees (I know you are fond of talking about how you lord it over your employees and require this and that). However, we do have reasonable ways of assessing these possibilities and coming to good decisions.

Point being, one need not give a damn about the "sacred" character of the mosque, or Islam in general, or Christianity in general, etc. One can very easily condemn the latest tactics of the US/ Iraqi Comprador regime based solely on pragmatics - on the high level of risk for relatively little reward. What are the possible consequences of destroying the mosque and even killing al-Sadr and wiping out the Medhi Army in Najaf? The possible favorable consequences? The possible negative consequences. This is not a moral or ethical question. One need not ask about right and wrong here, or about "good guys" and "bad guys," or about the character of religions. The mosque has a social function that cannot be ignored in a pragmatic calculus. Simple as that.

If a group of abortion clinic bombers were hiding in a Church of Christ, I doubt there would be this level of sensitivity.

Because we don't happen to HAVE the same sentiments towards our churches that Muslims have about their SHRINES. See? You have to go just a little further than your OWN thoughts about THEIR beliefs. You have to actually understand them (their beliefs); whether you agree with them or not is another matter. But understanding them comes before any reasonable let alone informed critique of them.

This issue always seems to crop up when progressives talk about other cultures. We are so programmed to "respect" other cultures that we seem to have a diffcult time calling them on their bullshit. This happens a lot when women's rights or relgious freedom in the Muslim world are discussed. A lot of people have a tendency to talk around the issue so as to not offend anyone. If Israel flat-out banned the practice of Islam in Israel or the US banned the practice here, progressives would lose their minds. But it's the way of life in much of the Arab world and little is said by us.

So, yes, we should respect the mosque, because we should respect all people's cultural heritage. But if you use a mosque as a machine gun pit, I say blow it up.

That would make things much easier.

of sensitivity to anything except acquisition.

However, no one gave a shit when Israeli troops surrounded it a couple years ago. It's funny how Chritian fundamentalists are so slavishly pro-Israel that the alliance with that country is more important than protecting the holiest church in Christianity.

the World Trade Center was just a couple of office buildings. Not that big a deal really.

coming from the Mosque

This is not good.