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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (758315)	1/29/2007 3:43:32 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

A new Sectarian split....shiite on shiite? An interesting read ________________________________________ Battle suggests new sectarian divides in Iraq Sunday's attack on Shiites in Najaf may have been launched by the Shiite 'Army of Heaven' sect. By Dan Murphy \| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor CAIRO - What precisely happened near the Shiite shrine city of Najaf Sunday is still being sorted out, but it seems likely that at its root was an unusual new wrinkle in Iraqi violence: a Shiite plan to attack Shiites. A battle that lasted for more than 12 hours in the nearby village of Zarqa ended with a US helicopter being shot down and a claim by local authorities that more than 200 militants were slain in the fighting. But who were the militants? Though the majority Shiite province has a problem with assassinations and gangster-style extortion, Sunni Arab insurgents are rarely active there, and fighting on this scale had not been witnessed in the area for more than a year. The incident is a reminder of the swirling agendas now at play in Iraq and the turbulent political waters US troops are wading into as more soldiers arrive and President Bush has vowed to stand by Shiite Islamist Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Religious ideologies and classic power plays are now converging in Iraq, leading to what at times seem to be multiple, parallel conflicts: Sunni Arab insurgents who want to establish an Islamic state fight US Marines in Anbar Province; death squads associated with militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stalk the streets of Baghdad, targeting both Sunni and Shiite political rivals; mostly Sunni Arab nationalists with ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath party seek to oust US forces from the country. Following Sunday's deadly battle, Najaf Governor Asaad Abu Khalil originally implied that the fighters were foreign Arabs of the sort usually associated with Al Qaeda and that their intention was to disrupt the religious festival of Ashura with plans to attack both pilgrims and senior ayatollahs in southern Iraqi city of Najaf, the principal seat of Shiite religious learning in Iraq. But his office has since backed off from those claims, and it now appears the gunmen – who killed or wounded dozens of Iraqi soldiers in the fighting as well as killing the two pilots of the downed US helicopter – were Shiites motivated by extreme religious ideology. The central Iraqi government says the fighters are members of a millenarian Shiite group called the Jund al-Sama, or Army of Heaven, and that they were plotting to kill the senior ayatollahs in Najaf, chief among them Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to prepare the way for the Mahdi, a messiah figure for many Shiites. They believe the Mahdi ascended to heaven in the 9th century and will return to earth to usher in a final confrontation between good and evil that will end with a 1,000-year reign of peace, which will be followed by the end of the world. According to Iraqi Army Maj. Gen. Othman al-Ghanami, quoted by the Associated Press, the group was heavily armed. He said 500 rifles were confiscated along with mortars, heavy calibre machine guns, and Katyusha rockets. That such a little known group should be so well armed is a sign of the myriad threats to the country's eventual pacification. Ashura commemorates Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered of Shiite saints, and is the occasion of public flagellation and high emotion. Local authorities said the gunmen were planning the attack because they believed the Mahdi was due to return Sunday, and were seeking to remove potential rivals. "In Shiite Islam there is this very strong millenarian trend, similar to Christian movements that think Christ is about to return,' says Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan. "So just like some millenarian evangelicals think that the pope is the antichrist, they would see the ayatollahs as ... usurpers of his rightful role." While Professor Cole is skeptical of the view that such millenarian movements are always triggered by social or economic upheaval, he says, "I'm comfortable in saying that in this particular case this movement that's fighting outside of Najaf is certainly enabled by the chaos in Iraq for the past decade and a half." Such movements have ebbed and flowed throughout Shiite history and Shiite religious politics have been marked by violent power grabs for centuries. Cole points to the Babi Movement in the 1840s and 1850s in Iran and Iraq as a good example. The movement attracted vast numbers of followers, mostly from the urban lower and lower-middle classes, who believed that the Mahdi was about to return and rid them of their unjust rulers. The group's followers targeted the Shiite religious hierarchy of the time, and sought to assassinate the Shah of Iran in 1852. General Ghanami said the leader of the group was killed in the fighting, and identified him as Abu Qamar al-Yamani. The London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat reported that the Army of Heaven is loyal to Mahmoud al-Hassani al-Sarkhi, a cultish Shiite leader whose followers have clashed with both foreign troops and supporters of mainline Shiite leaders in Iraq numerous times since the US invasion. His supporters have fought with those of other militant Shiite clerics, most notably those of Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi, whose men dominate the politics of the southern city of Najaf, and also sought to take control of the main shrine in Karbala last summer from supporters of Ayatollah Sistani, the most revered cleric in Iraq.

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (758315)	1/29/2007 9:26:32 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Obama’s Church - Afrocentric, Racist And Bush-Hating As readers here know, there has been some recent controversy about Barack Obama’s religious background. Mr. Obama has recently issued statements through his spokesmen in the media (i.e., reporters) which express his shock at being questioned about such things. Most of his media spokesmen (i.e., reporters) have then gone on to cite his membership in Chicago’s Trinity United Church Of Christ parish as proof that he is just a regular run of the mill American Christian. But a visit to the Trinity Church’s website proves that it is not your everyday Christian parish: Trinity United Church of Christ About Us We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts: 1. Commitment to God 2. Commitment to the Black Community 3. Commitment to the Black Family 4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education 5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence 6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic 7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect 8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness" 9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community 10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions 11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System 12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System. The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision: 1. A congregation committed to ADORATION. 2. A congregation preaching SALVATION. 3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION. 4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA. 5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION. 6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION. 7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA. 8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION. 9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION. 10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY. Some excerpts from the "Black Value System" via the Trinity Church’s website (pdf): BLACK VALUE SYSTEM Statement of Purpose We honor Dr. Manford Byrd, our brother in Christ, because of the exemplary manner in which he has thrice withstood the ravage of being denied his earned ascension to the number one position in the Chicago School System… The Black Value System These Black Ethics must be taught and exampled in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect the following concepts: Commitment of God “The God of our weary years” will give us the strength to give up prayerful passivism and become Black Christian Activist, soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind… Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect To accomplish anything worthwhile requires self-discipline. We must be a community of self-disciplined persons, if we are to actualize and utilize our own human resources instead of perpetually submitting to exploitation by others. Self discipline coupled with a respect for self, will enable each of us to be an instrument of Black Progress, and a model for Black Youth. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness” Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must keep the captive ignorant educationally, but trained sufficiently well to serve the system. Also, the captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control. Those so identified as separated from the rest of the people by: Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another. Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons. Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us”… A visit to the church’s bookstore shows they have been true to their word. It is full of "Afrocentric" books, many of which make the usual preposterous Afrocentric claims, such as that Cleopatra was black: sweetness-light.com