Monday, January 16, 2006
I look forward to a long working relationship with Today in Iraq. Although I strive to do stron honest reporting on Iraq over at my own space, "Alive in Baghdad" the work that Today in Iraq does, organically collecting so much media everyday, is an essential tool in parsing out truth from the misrepresentation covering so much of Iraq.
I hope the readers of TiI will find this post, concerning a forgotten event in Iraq's history, interesting and enlightening, and I look forward to many more partnerships:
MSM Encouraging Civil War?
I received a report from a friend in Iraq, regarding a recent campaign of civil disobedience, apparently begun in Mada'ain, a town south of Baghdad.
While attempting to uncover additional information about the civil disobedience occurring or being planned there, I uncovered some very interesting other news and history of Mada'ain. Some of you may remember, in April of last year, a report that several dozen to as many as 150/170 Iraqi Shiites had been kidnapped by Al Qaeda.
This report came from the Iraqi interim government, just prior to Iyad Allawi and the CPA-appointed government stepping down. What you may not recall, is that this event allegedly occurred in Mada'ain. Just over two weeks after this event, another, less publicized, event happened. More than two dozen Sunnis were found executed in Mada'ain. The Association of Muslim Scholars accused Interior Ministry agents of causing the massacre.
What some may not remember is that the mass-kidnapping by Al Qaeda appears to have been determined a hoax. The mass-killing of Sunnis however, was not. Many claimed when the "kidnapping" occurred that it was a new sign of the growing civil war and strained tensions between Sunni and Shiite. The rapid appearance of a cause-effect relationship in sectarian violence quickly shows how Mada'ain could be considered a microcosm of Iraq's wider troubles.
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