Religious Strife Shows Strength of Iraq Militias

[cal04]

The sectarian violence that has shaken Iraq this week has demonstrated the power that the many militias here have to draw the country into a full-scale civil war, and how difficult it would be for the state to stop it, Iraqi and American officials say.The militias pose a double threat to the future of Iraq: they exist both as marauding gangs, as the violence on Wednesday showed, and as sanctioned members of the Iraqi Army and the police.

The insurgent bombing of a major Shiite shrine on Wednesday, followed by the wave of killings of Sunni Arabs, has left political parties on all sides clinging to their private armies harder than ever, complicating American efforts to persuade Iraqis to disband them. The attacks, mostly by Shiite militiamen, were troubling not only because they resulted in at least 170 deaths across Iraq, but also because they showed how deeply the militias have spread inside government forces. The Iraqi police, commanded by a Shiite political party, stood by as the rampage spread.

Now, after watching helplessly as their mosques and homes burned, many Sunni Arabs say they should have the right to form their own militias. For their part, Shiite political leaders and clerics say they are justified in keeping — and even strengthening — their armies, including those units in the government security forces, to prevent insurgent attacks like the one that destroyed the golden dome of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra on Wednesday.

That stance threatens to derail recent American efforts, especially those of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, to persuade Shiite leaders to dissolve their militias and weed out police officers and soldiers whose allegiances lie with their own sect and not with the state. That is essential for the process of forming a government that would be credible to all of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/international/middleeast/25militia.html?hp&ex=1140843600&en=237a3e71e8845938&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[jody]

1. The Iraqi situation shows the effectiveness of a lightly armed, determined

militia with popular support among the indigenous population against the World’s most powerful military with its unlimited supply of state of the art weapons.

If Nature and Nature’s God had wanted mankind to defend itself individually and collectively against all enemies domestic and foreign, she would have given each and every law-abiding citizen the natural, inherent, inalienable right to keep and bear arms for defense of self and state as stated so eloquently in our Declaration of Independence (1776), state constitutions like Pennsylvania (1776), our Constitution (1789),and our Bill of Rights (1791).

Goliath has good reason to worry about David.

That’s a lesson to be relearned for those who would ban small arms for our "unorganized militia" as defined in 10 USC 311 and protected by the Second Amendment and state constitutions.

[bemildred]

2. Indeed sir. You are most correct.

While it has it's drawbacks, a well armed populace is the best deterrent to government abuse. Saddam took the trouble to see that his people were well armed before we invaded, and he told us he had done it too, and we now see the results.