More commentary on Mahdi Army & another militia

When the Sadrists took to the streets of Baghdad in protest, what did they chant? Down with America? Death to Maliki?
No!:

"Yes! Yes! for Iraq.
Yes! Yes! for law.
No! No! for arrests,"
shouted the demonstrators in the Al-Amel district of southwest Baghdad.
[Sadr followers stage Baghdad protest, AFP, 25 March 2008]

Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army isn't the only militia in town. Michael Schwartz over at Tom Dispatch reports:

The Battle of Baghdad
Iraq's Most Fearsome Militia, the U.S. military, on the Offensive
...
Over the course of five years, Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, has been transformed from a metropolis into an urban desert of half-destroyed buildings and next to no public services, dotted by partially deserted, mutually hostile mini-ghettos that used to be neighborhoods, surrounded by cement barriers reminiscent of medieval fortifications. The most prominent of these ghettos is the heavily fortified city-inside-a-city dubbed the Green Zone, where Iraq's most fearsome militia, the United States military, is headquartered. It is governed by the Americans and by the American-sponsored Iraqi government, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

Read the full article. It provides a devastating analysis regarding the putative success of the "surge", and the effect of successive American mis-steps.

From this perspective, Maliki's vow to rid Basra of "militias" can be viewed as just a battle between the "official" militia (Iraqi & U.S. forces), and one among many alternative militias deemed bad by the nominal government. We're simply fighting on one side of a multi-sided civil war.

If the side we support wins, I guess that'll be "success".
But what if one of the other sides wins?

Yes - the problems facing Iraq are at heart political.
Why do we keep applying military "solutions"?

What did the Sadrists marching in Baghdad want?
Death to America? No!

"Yes! Yes! for Iraq.
Yes! Yes! for law.
No! No! for arrests."

Sounds like we oughta be reaching out to these guys, not demonizing them.

Stop the madness!