Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Powell is missing a little something; this is bigger than he thinks.

Sistani has restored order. There is no more potent an action. The civilizations of the ancient world held the greatest reverence for ‘the First Time’. The restoration of order is the act of the one chosen by god. To eradicate injustice and oppression is to re-establish order.

An example from the Two Lands.

Before their first king Menes the wise men of ancient Egypt imagined with unwavering faith ‘the time of the gods’, a golden age in which the gods reigned on earth. All that was good, order, balance and harmony was conceived in this ‘the First Time’, Zep Tepi, before chaos or rage or strife had come into being. This epoch of absolute perfection was known variously as ‘the Time of Ra’, ‘the Time of Osiris’, and ‘the Time of Horus’. In theory Horus transmitted the actual blood of the sun-god into the royal veins of the Pharaohs. Hence the Pharaoh is on earth “for ever and ever, judging humanity and propitiating the gods and setting order in place of disorder.”


Najaf is a hub of mythology, tradition, and historical memories of injustice, resistance and martyrdom that inevitably affect its significance as a military target. Especially when Shiite resistance fighters take refuge there, and use it as a base of operations against unwelcome infidel troops.
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Finally, Sadr started announcing that the Shiite messiah, who is known as the Mahdi, is about to arrive any day now and that he will appear in Iraq. In Shia tradition, the Mahdi is the 12th and last ancient imam, who disappeared and is expected to reappear some day. Moktada al-Sadr claims that the Americans knew the reappearance was imminent, and that this is why they invaded Iraq: to grab the Mahdi and kill him. In rallies, Mr. Sadr's supporters often chant his name in a way that implies that he is the "son of the Mahdi," and he named his militia the Mahdi Army. Recently he even claimed that the army "belongs to the Mahdi" and thus he is not at liberty to disband it.
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The Mahdi is no longer an idea. He is no longer a prophecy. We need not wait for his birth. He already exists actually and we only wait for the inauguration of his role. He is a specific entity living among us in his real human form and shares our hopes and disappointments and our joys and griefs. He witnesses all the acts of oppression and persecution which are perpetrated on the face of the earth and, somehow or another, he himself is affected by them. He is anxiously awaiting the moment when he will be able to extend his helping hand to everyone whom any wrong has been done and be able to eradicate injustice and oppression completely.
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On Friday August 27th, Mr Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen, who had been engaged in a bloody stand-off with American and Iraqi government forces for three weeks, were reported to have handed in their weapons and left the Imam Ali shrine, melting in with the thousands of pilgrims flocking there.

Mr Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shia cleric, had swept into Iraq from Kuwait hours earlier, at the head of thousands of pilgrims, having flown into the region on Wednesday from London.
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