Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

As sectarian violence spins out of control in Iraq, today The Washington Post reports that Moqtada al-Sadr’s compound was struck with two mortars. He was inside and survived injury.

 After the attack, al-Sadr released a statement with the obligatory call for calm. As translated by The Associated Press:

 "I call upon all brothers to stay calm and I call upon the Iraqi army to protect the pilgrims as the Nawasib (militants) are aiming to attack Shiites everyday," the statement said, according to the Associated Press. 

Or did he? The Post article points out:

 In the past two months, attacks on two Shiite targets — a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, and Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold of Sadr support — have unleashed the greatest sectarian bloodletting since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. Sadr issued similar appeals for calm after both attacks.

 However, Sadr’s thousands-strong Mahdi Army militia is accused by many U.S. officials and others in the violent retaliation to the mosque bombing and Sadr City attack.

 Al-Sadr uses the word "Nawasib" in his statement. It is a very loaded word and is code for inciting violence in otherwise benign statements. "Nawasib" is understood by the Shiite to mean "those who declared hostility against the household of the Prophet". It is an insult used to refer to Sunnis. It is not a word you would use when you are interested in reconciliation. It is a word you would use to incite hate and violence. To make the comparison more immediate, consider that there are similar words that racists use in the United States (and I will not repeat them here) when they are interested in hatemongering.

 The radicals use our ignorance of their culture against us. They are very adept at playing the Bush Administration for full advantage, on the one hand, getting material support as the "good" guys in the Green Zone, and on the other hand, using that "material support" to kill innocents while we are patting ourselves on the back for teaching these people about democracy.

 Hate always has many names. In Iraq, Hate sometimes likes to call itself "Nawasib".

Here is the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Iraq, published March 8, 2006. It speaks for itself.