Muqtada al-Sadr and Michael Moore - seperated at birth?
In another excellent essay,
Steven DenBeste analyzes the failed campaign of Muqtada al-Sadr and compares it to the current Anti-America campaign of filmaker and 'documentarist' Michael Moore.
Neither come out looking very good...
al-Sadr:
bq. To prevent the uprising from spreading, the response was slow, methodical, and relatively cool. 1st Armored Division got the job of fighting against the Mehdi Army, and it refused to give al-Sadr the provocations and incidents he needed and hoped for. Even when members of the Mehdi Army used major holy sites and at least one major cemetery for military purposes (a war crime, just in passing), the Americans didn't respond by flattening them.
bq. Thus it was that the average uncommitted Shiite saw that the Americans treated those holy sites with more respect than the Mehdi Army did.
bq. Shiites did consider those holy sites to have been desecrated. Sistani publicly condemned the desecration, and those responsible for it: al-Sadr and his forces. There was no general Shiite uprising.
Moore:
bq. Moore has planted his flag smacko in the middle of the Holy City of anti-Americanism. To defend that position, the LL's will now vocally proclaim something many have long believed but avoided admitting: they hate America and everything it stands for. That is not a message that will sell well to the broad electorate. They will proclaim that they love this nation, but... and then make clear that they despise most of the people who live in it, and despise the very features of this nation that the majority of us see as its greatest virtues. And they will poison the leftist political position even for non-loonie leftists. (Since Moore's supporters constitute a significant base of support for the Democratic Party, they're going to represent an ongoing headache for the Kerry campaign by their antics. And that will force him to continue to equivocate about his position on major issues, to avoid alienating them, and at the same time avoid alienating the broad electorate.)
Heh...
Posted by DaveH at July 9, 2004 10:25 PM