A Famousest Victory of All
Zeyad has much much more recounting and analysis of local sources on the Najaf . . . whatever it was. Including some tentative stabs at what scarequote-really happened. Excerpt:
Another story that is surfacing on several Iraqi message boards goes like this: A mourning procession of 200 pilgrims from the Hawatim tribe, which inhabits the area between Najaf and Diwaniya, arrived at the Zarga area at 6 a.m. Sunday. Hajj Sa’ad Nayif Al-Hatemi and his wife were accompanying the procession in their 1982 Super Toyota sedan because they could not walk. They reached an Iraqi Army checkpoint, which suddenly opened fire against the vehicle, killing Hajj Al-Hatemi, his wife and his driver Jabir Ridha Al-Hatemi. The Hawatim tribesmen in the procession, which was fully armed to protect itself in its journey at night, attacked the checkpoint to avenge their slain chief. Members of the Khaza’il tribe, who live in the area, attempted to interfere to stop the fire exchange. About 20 tribesmen were killed. The checkpoint called the Iraqi army and police command calling for backup, saying it was under fire from Al-Qaeda groups and that they have advanced weapons. Minutes later, reinforcements arrived and the tribesmen were surrounded in the orchards and were sustaining heavy fire from all directions. They tried to shout out to the attacking security forces to cease fire but with no success. Suddenly, American helicopters arrived and they dropped fliers saying, “To the terrorists, Surrender before we bomb the area.” The tribesmen continued to fire in all directions and in the air, but they said they didn’t know if the helicopter crash was a result of their fire or friendly fire from the attackers. By 4 a.m., over 120 tribesmen as well as residents of the area had been killed in the U.S. aerial bombardment.
The Islam Memo website says an American NBC cameraman and an Iraqi journalist named Aws Al-Khafaji were trying to reach the area to film the battlefield but were prevented by a security force from the Najaf governor’s office to leave their hotel in Najaf. The website also quotes Sheikh Khalaf Abdul Hussein Al-Khaz’ali, who said the government killed 33 members of his tribe and that they described them as Al-Qaeda. A delegation from the Hawatim and Khaza’il tribe are allegedly negotiating with the Najaf governor to retrieve the corpses of 70 tribesmen, including women and children, still kept at the Najaf Hospital. The delegation threatened with “grave consequences” if the corpses are not delivered to the tribes within 24 hours. A source from Diwaniya said that 57 bodies have reached the city and were buried in the Hawatim tribe cemetery, west of the city, Monday afternoon. The website published a list of the names of those who were killed from the tribe.
Both the Hawatim and Khaza’il tribe are anti-SCIRI and anti-Da’wa. Last July, they threatened to kill any of their members who join the Mahdi Army or the Badr Organization. SCIRI, on the other hand, accuses the tribes of being Ba’athists and Saddam loyalists.
And, by the way, the Western media is confusing Ahmed Al-Hassan with Mahmoud Al-Hassani Al-Sarkhi, another Sadrist drop-out. They are not the same person, but they lead similar movements. Here is the background of Al-Sarkhi.
Comment by Jackmormon —
January 30, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Oh man.
Comment by Hesiod —
January 30, 2007 @ 11:58 am
This situation was made for the word “clusterfuck.”
Comment by diana —
January 30, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
If this doesn’t cry out for investigation, what does?
If there is any truth to the rumors that Zeyad has transmitted, this sounds like Amritsar.
Comment by Jay C —
January 30, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Good luck with getting any substantive investigation of THIS pooch-screwing: anyone really think the US media (still less any governmental agency) is going to look (or even want to look) past the Brave-US-Troops-and-Noble-Iraqi-Allies-Kill-Evil-Terrorists cover story? And maybe find out what REALLY happened?
I won’t hold my breath. And btw, I think this is just going to the first of many such Tales of The Surge we are going to be having to deal with in the near future.
And probably not the bloodiest, either.
Comment by diana —
January 30, 2007 @ 6:55 pm
I don’t know what happened.
Perhaps no massacre. But I do know that My Lai took quite a while to come to light, and only as a result of dedicated men of honor who risked a lot, and who lost a lot.
Comment by diana —
January 30, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
PS what somewhat disappoints me is that Zeyad’s pointed skepticism, complete with details (such as the make of the Shiite “cult” leader’s car) hasn’t gone viral on the antiwar blogosphere.
Comment by Jim Henley —
January 30, 2007 @ 7:11 pm
diana: I wonder if there is an “antiwar blogosphere.”
Comment by Tom Scudder —
January 30, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
Seems to have gotten a fair amount of linkage in the middle-east-o-sphere (roughly represented by the aardvark’s sidebar).
Comment by Nell —
January 30, 2007 @ 8:52 pm
I wonder if there is an “antiwar blogosphere.”
You know what? There isn’t, and there damned well needs to be. More thoughts on the subject in this comment at MaxSpeak. Maybe some set of standard links…?
Comment by BruceR —
January 30, 2007 @ 11:54 pm
Fact is, the cover story plays to everyone’s best interest. The pro-Iranian Shia have eradicated one of the more prominent nativist Shia groups, to their and their funders’ political advantage; the Maliki government and US military now can say, “look, we’re beating up on the Shia, too” and the Sunni and Kurdish factions know it’s got nothing to do with them. Win win.
Comment by Alex —
January 31, 2007 @ 6:44 am
I’m not sure I believe this version either. Fact is, even the Iraqi Army could massacre a buncha dear-o libertarian homeschoolers (seeing as Jim insists on viewing this through the frame of Waco, for reasons I can’t imagine) without needing to call out the 25th Infantry Division.
I’m not too sure about the “oops, we accidentally brought down the AH64″ bit either.
Further, there seems to be substantial reason to think *someone* beat up an Iraqi army unit in the area at the same time.
Comment by Alex —
January 31, 2007 @ 7:40 am
Cole argues this version of the story is being got up by Sunni sources to get at the “Iranians”=SCIRI governor of Najaf.
Comment by diana —
January 31, 2007 @ 9:18 am
“diana: I wonder if there is an “antiwar blogosphere.”
What do you mean? Discuss. (Not being snarky; am truly puzzled. Seems to me, in my utter naievete, that this would be tremendous grist for Atrios/Marshall/Huffpo…)
Comment by diana —
January 31, 2007 @ 9:53 am
As I suspected, if the truth is uncovered, it will happen in the foreign media.
This excerpts a Patrick Cockburn article in the Independent (prolly not available online).
Grains of salt all around, yeah, yeah, but clearly what we’ve been told is BS, so let’s investigate.
Comment by Jim Henley —
January 31, 2007 @ 10:02 am
Bruce: Bingo.
Alex: As reports continue to come in, I don’t think this incident fits the orthodox version of a massacre. Specifically there appears to be a large number of prisoners. But we still have NO evidence that this group intended to take offensive action against Ashura pilgrims beyond the statements of self-interested politicians.
As to the fearsomeness of the foe, our evidence for that comes exclusively from statements of the Iraqi military, and boils down to, “They were tougher than us, therefore they must have been formidable.” This assumes the Iraqi military does not itself suck ass as a fighting force.
diana: The “there is no antiwar blogosphere” business merits more discussion than I can give it right now, but let’s take the bloggers you listed: they are part of a liberal blogosphere that certainly exists, which mostly sees the war through a Dem vs. GOP lens. This particular story lacks a clear domestic partisan-political hook.
Comment by Alex —
January 31, 2007 @ 10:11 am
This assumes the Iraqi military does not itself suck ass as a fighting force.
Doesn’t matter. Everything in war is relative. Even if they were just less sucky than the Iraqi Army, that’s who they were fighting and is hence the relevant standard of value.
Comment by Jim Henley —
January 31, 2007 @ 10:20 am
Other Alex: Maybe I wasn’t clear. The supposed effectiveness of the folks at the orchard is being adduced as telling on their threat value: specifically, they were “highly trained.” But like you say, everything is relative. I’m sure they looked “highly trained” to an Iraqi police force whose core competence is collecting kickbacks and shaking down construction companies, but being able to stand off that crew is not proof that this was a more militarized collection of eccentrics than the Iraqi norm.
Comment by diana —
January 31, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
(prolly not available online).
Argh, I have a tendency to write & click before I read the whole thing. The Cockburn article is linked in the link I gave.
Jim: I get your point.
I actually do think that a subtle thinker can derive partisan advantage from this (the we are being lied to sense) but you’d have to be a master of the English language to do so. The liberal blogosphere is heavily invested in Supporting The Troops No Matter What.
It gets a bit complicated and I don’t have the time either.
However, just because the truth is inconvenient doesn’t make less true, and if the blogosphere fails to help uncover the truth (if a massacre happened, and I’m not saying one did), then doesn’t that point out a weakness of the blogosphere?