Fascism outside official fascist parties is never ever a matter of fact. It's an opinion, an attribution of a set of characteristics to an individual or group who might well deny the attribution. And they could get even casual observers to help them deny it. My research of Sadr's positions lead me to conclude that even if I bent over backwards I couldn't call him a 'theocratic fascist' (though I'm not sure just who you were referring to). Nor would I call the Sunni clerics who were assassinated last month anything like this.
Now we could also start every essay on Iraq about how quite of the few pro-US elements in the US, worldwide and even in Iraq are theocratic fascists, but I think that's a rehearsal of unnecessary material just to have something to say about Iraq. More striking and far more worth pointing out would be just how deep and wide the insurgency and its support now is. The facts do include, however, that the parties of the left in Iraq are widely viewed as tainted for their cooperation or lack of opposition to the occupation.
Wouldn't it have been nice if this thread had evolved into a more in-depth exploration of Sadr, anti-occupation Shiism, anti-Iranian Shiism, and the militant Shia in full cooperation with militant Sunna (and just what are they actually being 'militant' about?).
Finally, I don't think there is a solution to the US occupation of Iraq yet ready to hand in the US itself. The only source of any pressure to end this abomination is coming from the Iraqis themselves (with the most solidarity coming from Palestine, who quite obviously see the parallels). So many more Iraqis will have to die or be imprisoned or have their lives destroyed.
Meanwhile, the slaughter continues, with a focus on Samarra as a place for the US to work out new tactics with their Kurdish troops and new pro-Allawi recruits (and if you subtract the Peshmerga from the 'National Guard', it isn't much of a fighting force at all).
http://www.albasrah.net/moqawama/english/0110/iraqiresistancereport_011004.htm
US launches campaign of butchery against Samarraf.
According to the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in Samarraf, 115 civilian residents of the city had died martyrs in the savage US assault on that city unleashed Friday. That figure seemed likely to rise since there were still many houses that had been blown up over their occupants. More than 154 men, women, and children were wounded according to the correspondentfs figures assembled shortly after midnight Saturday morning. The Resistance has lost between 23 to 25 men martyred, in addition to those who were wounded.
Much earlier on Friday the correspondent reported that thirteen houses had been destroyed in the vicious US attack, and more than 23 private cars set ablaze.
For their part the Iraqi Resistance in Samarraf early on managed to disable one US Bradley armored vehicle and one troop transport.
The American Associated Press (AP) bragged about their savage attacks on the city and quoted one puppet so-called Iraqi minister as saying that more than 100 Resistance fighters and one American had been killed in the slaughter. As usual the Americans and their stooges concealed the number of their own casualties and ignored their killings of Iraqi civilians.
The AP however quoted a Dr. Khalid Ahmad of Samarraf General Hospital as saying that 80 bodies had been brought to the hospital and more than 100 injured persons admitted.
American sources had recently claimed that negotiations with religious and community leaders in Samarraf had produced an agreement gsolvingh the gproblemh of the Resistance in the city to the satisfaction of the American aggressors. Fridayfs US slaughter of the city indicates that the charade of the negotiations was a meaningless exercise designed to cover American preparations for a savage military assault.
There have been indications that the US military also welcomes civilian casualties in the hopes that they will in some way gdrive a wedgeh between the Iraqi people and the Iraqi popular Resistance. The dismal failure of similar attempts by the Zionists in occupied Palestine indicates the absurdity of this American theory.
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