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Lion of Babylon -> RE: Wife swapping Mehdi Army (6/21/2007 2:43:24 AM)
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I found some more....
Exposed: Sadr's Ramblings, Anxieties
Embarrassing Leaked Video Shows Sadr, Deputies Bickering
One day after the Pentagon identified his Mahdi Army as eclipsing al Qaeda in Iraq as "the most dangerous accelerant" of violence in that country, IraqSlogger has obtained a video of Muqtada al Sadr in which he rambles, questions the loyalty of deputies, and appears to struggle to control his own organization.
The Arabic-language video, apparently recorded in October, recently surfaced on Iraqi Web sites critical of Sadr.
The seven-and-a-half minute video is streamed in its original Arabic-language above.
A translation of the entire video follows after background on Sadr and his Mahdi Army.
Background: The young cleric who rose to power from anonymity following the American overthrow of Saddam has basked in the glory of his father's name. Muhamad Sadiq al Sadr was one of Iraq's most important clerics who was assassinated in 1999 and was called the Second Martyr. Sadr represented the poor and oppressed Shia underclass that had remained in Iraq, and he built around him a vast following and a militia, the Mahdi Army, which now dominates the Iraqi Police and much of the Iraqi Army as well as various ministries and Shia neighborhoods.
But evidence on the ground suggests Muqtada al Sadr is merely a figurehead for an army with no real leadership or hierarchy, which acts locally. Sadr has also clashed with many deputies, firing close allies.
In a video of an internal debate among his men that was released without his approval, a different Sadr is seen, and it is clear how little control he has over his men and how jealously he guards his tenuous power.
Speaking in poor Arabic, all slang, Sadr reveals his jealousy and insecurity as well, criticizing a deputy for praising Abdul Aziz al Hakim, the leader of the rival Shia Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The video begins with a public relations man in a grey suit from Muqtada al Sadr's office in Baghdad's Kadhmiya district, which is run by Hazim al Araji.
The man in the grey suit is talking to Sadr in a tone that verges on disrespectful.
MAN: "The student organization will need ... We have done everything we could but if you want us to work more or to make more progress it's up to you. We will need you to direct all your offices and institutes to support the project. According to a formula you choose and you already know the importance of the project.
The students make up 90% of the Sadr Current. About 90% of the attendees in the Friday prayer are youth. The Sadr Current is a youth current and the youth are ignored. Instead of spending two million dinars on a celebration, what does a celebration do? You should use the money to organize the youth, otherwise someone else will come to organize them. There are so many secular organizations that will attract them like a magnet just like what happened during the time of Seyid Mohammed Baqir Al Sadr, when the Marxist party attracted all the youth including the sons of the clerics. This might reoccur within two or three years. Secularism is attractive in Iraq. It's true that the economy is not prosperous nowadays but in two or three years this could change. The league ..."
(Sadr interrupts the man, hunched over, and speaks in strong slang)
SADR: "Leagues and...? Unions and leagues but in practice what are they doing, my dear? We have spent over a year hearing: "found a league", "establish an institution", "make a foundation" and make I don't know what. Which all means actually "give me money" and I haven't seen any results. I am not talking about you only I am talking about you all."
(A cleric seated by Sadr interrupts him)
CLERIC: "Our master, we mean spending money on the organization is better than spending it on celebrations that cost two or three million dinars."
SADR: "I made celebrations, my dear? You can't come to criticize me. I didn't make celebrations."
CLERIC: "Some of your offices have done that."
SADR: "I had nothing to do with that. Why don't you go to the office and ask them why they have spent two million on celebration. I haven't given anybody any million to make celebrations. I don't have two million to give. This is not to be discussed in front of the camera and you don't have the right to. If I gave you two million, wouldn't you spend it, my dear? I am sure you will. Correct yourself and then criticize others. Enough with the nagging: criticism, criticism, criticism. You are like the newspapers after finishing criticizing the enemies they launch their missiles against Sadr Current. Not like this, my dear. Fear Allah, you are in the public relations office and I respect you but I won't let you insult others. Who spent two million? Come on tell me who is it that spent two million? From one side they beg me to give them money and the other side you come to tell me they spent two million, I don't know, unless that is Hawasim (looted). If it is Hawasim then I have nothing to do with that..."
(Hawasim is a reference to Um al Hawasim, or the Mother of all Decisive Battles, the name Saddam gave to the last war; during the first Gulf War he called it the Mother of all Battles; following the war, all looted goods became commonly known as Hawasim)
(The cleric is still arguing in the background as Sadr speaks)
SADR: "All the offices (say), "Give us money to establish foundations" and I have been begging for the last six months to open a public library. I was telling you to support the charities like foundations for children, old people, and women, disabled, I don't know what... Only 'give money, give money, give money,' I was telling (them) to build schools. You are a public relations office man and I haven't seen anything from you with all respect to you.
CLERIC: "We have a lot of work to do!"
SADR: "I have seen only one thing from you. You were....As the Sadr current, we were insulting people 24 hours (a day) and now we are trying to open channels with the people that you were insulting. This is wrong. Not like this and not like this. We have to make standards and have to follow them. Don't insult them and don't beg them. I respect you a lot but I am not happy with the fact that you use the mosque's podium to praise Abdul Aziz (al Hakim)."
CLERIC: "who praised Abdul Aziz?"
SADR: "I heard you on TV"
CLERIC: "What did I say?"
(Sadr smiles)
SADR: "Shrewd politician," I don't know what..."
CLERIC: "I didn't say that. I said, "Thanks is due to Abdul Aziz al Hakim" and I think it is much less than what you said about him when you said "God praise him." I am ready to face anyone that says he heard me saying Abdul Aziz is a shrewd politician."
Sadr interrupts, laughs, and speaks in a high-pitched and dismissive voice)
SADR: "I heard you saying that on the TV myself."
CLERIC: "In the Friday mosque sermon?"
SADR: "Yes, in Friday's sermon in Kadhmiya"
CLERIC: "I have the Friday Kadhmiya speech recorded on a CD that Adil will get you, all I said was "thanks is due to Abdul Aziz" about the issue of Jordan. I said no one has condemned what the Jordanian tribe of Al Banaa has done (a suicide bomber in Iraq hailed from that tribe) except our office and "Abdul Aziz, which is commendable."
SADR: "Thanks is due, thanks is not due... Stay balanced, do not stoop low, and do not flatter. We have standards and don't get out of that. It's very important."
CLERIC: "What I said does not critique or flatter or make us beg him, ok? It was simply a stance, ok, I just want to point out his attitude. We simply made a reasonable commendation of his act I wanted to thank his attitude and to the limit of the reasonable. Despite the fact that his initiative on that subject was substantial."
SADR: "I am saying that I don't like what you are doing. I am talking about something else, what you are doing does not please me, it simply does not please me."
CLERIC: "And how would we know what you like and what you don't?"
SADR: "I'll tell you this. I don't agree you make connections with ministries. I don't agree that you visit a party ten times and I don't agree that you use the mosque pulpit to praise people and parties. Don't attack them and don't praise them. I'll tell you. You are the public relations manager of the Sadr office, for which I am responsible before society. You don't have the right to ignore my directives or not listen to me. Get me an agenda for the office work so I read it. Otherwise I won't agree."
CLERIC: "I criticized parties more than I praised them on the mosque pulpit. My criticisms are often acerbic, if you ever hear that I..."
(Sadr interrupts)
SADR: "Do not criticize either. Who said that I want you to criticise people? I don't want you to do that either. Act as if nothing happened or something never existed."
CLERIC: "The Iraqi street wants to hear politics."
SADR: "You are a religious man so talk about religion, talk about morals, talk about everything else..."
CLERIC: "The Iraqi street's main concern today is politics. I make the first part of the sermon about religion but who explains the political situation to Iraqis if not the Friday sermon? The satellite television channels are performing a horrific role. They make the right false and the false right. Who would clarify these things to the simple folk? People come to Friday prayer to hear politics and it is the role of the man on the pulpit to explain that. I can not keep people blind. I am following the fact that the second Martyr said in 1993 'I came to get the Shia out of the darkness.' I can not keep them in the darkness. This is not possible."
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