Unqualified Offerings

Clearly, the fact that, as the AP headline reads, “al-Sadr calls for attacks on U.S. troops,” can be proof positive that The Surge^TM is working or not working. But it would be nice if we at least had evidence that al-Sadr had called for attacks on US troops. In Saad Abdul Kadir’s article we have no such thing.

Kadir quotes two direct passages from the message attributed to al-Sadr. First,

“You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don’t walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy.”

Second:

“God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq,” the statement said, in an apparent reference to clashes between al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. “You have to protect and build Iraq.”

The first clearly urges Iraq’s security forces to stop cooperating with US and Coalition troops and officials. The second clearly insists that Mahdists stop attacking Iraqi security forces, and to oppose the occupation somehow or other. What it doesn’t do is explicitly tell militia members to attack coalition troops. It tells them to “be patient” and to “unify your efforts” and to “protect and build Iraq.” On balance, it sounds like telling them to avoid violence entirely.

This too can be adduced as evidence that The Surge^TM is working or not working. But it’s not what the headline says it is. Either the passages that Kadir quotes are the most elliptical battle cry ever, or they’re not a battle cry at all, or Kadir/AP left out more explicit passages from the Sadr statement, which would be very sloppy journalism. I’ll grant you we’ve had plenty of that in the last five years, but shouldn’t random chance at least lead to the occasional well-supported piece?

All, ultimately via PoliBlog and MetaVlogger. See also Cernig, just because that’s usually a good idea anyway.