Further Thoughts on Najaf

On the face of it the official accounts of the events at Najaf just defy commonsense. For example, we are asked to believe that Iraqi forces on their own decide to visit the compound of the alleged radical millenarian sect in the middle of the night by themselves. This just does not add up. Is there any account of Iraqi forces conducting such a bold night-time operation on their own? I certainly don't recall any.The allegation against the millenarian group was that they were preparing to seize Najaf and therefore should have been expected to be heavily armed. In that case, one would expect the Iraqi's to go in during the day supported by at least one American brigade and with substantial air support. Instead they go in at night by themselves. Anyone who believes that is drinking deep of the kool-aid proffered by CentCom. Frankly, anyone still drinking that has at this point less dignity, integrity and moral hygiene than your typical heroin addict.

From the moment I first read about this incident I have had the profoundest doubts about the official explanation. It just doesn’t ring true. Iraqi troops and US pilots mistaking innocent members of the Hawatimah and Khaz'al tribes for insurgents and slaughtering them along with their families is par for the course with these fucktards. The Bush administration, their CentCom minions, and the Maliki government have shown themselves to be incompetent time and again. With these guys the most fucked-up incompetent explanation of a sequence of events is always the most likely turn of events. If they slaughtered hundreds of innocent people of course their first thought would be to cover it up. Picking a millenarian group as the bad guys is just brilliant marketing.

Juan Cole today continues to case great doubt on anything but the millenarian explanation. The significant issue he has in that post is the allegation that the Hawatimah and Khaz'al tribes were going strictly to Najaf. That make no sense to him because they should have been going to Karbala for the particular celebration they were planning on attending. But that is refuted by links to accounts he has in a previous post that the tribes were going to pass through Najaf on the way to Karbala.

For me, the official account of the Najaf incident brings to mind a previous occasion when the American military slaughtered innocent men, women, and children because they held millenarian beliefs. I refer to the Wounded Knee Massacre. A good account of this event is by Dee Brown: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. There is a Wikipedia entry that is occasionally hacked. The official US military history describes the event as a battle.