Joe L.: "al-Sadr's words showed the American troop surge was working."

[rodeodance]

......He urged his followers not to attack fellow Iraqis but to turn all their efforts on American forces.

"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said.

Al-Sadr apparently issued the statement in response to three days of clashes between his Mahdi Army militiamen and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad.

In Washington, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), an independent of Connecticut, said al-Sadr's words showed the American troop surge was working.

"He is not calling for a resurgence of sectarian conflict. He's striking a nationalist chord. We're going to have to watch him closely. He's not our friend. ... He's acknowledging that the surge is working," the senator, a strong backer of the war, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

[Dune]

1. sadr

Wait a minuet... It sounds like he's talking more and more like a Southern Baptist. Perhaps the surge is working the way Bush wanted it to. Let's kill others together. Yeah!

[AzDar]

2. My only consolation while having to listen to this mealy-mouthed

warmonger, is KNOWING that he's now revealed himself to the voters of Connecticut, and we shall be rid of him once and for all in a few years.
Asshole.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

3. When your enemy can pick and choose who he will kill with impunity

Just what is working here Senator?

[smoogatz]

4. Lieberman has completely lost his mind.

If the Shi'ite militias actually turn against U.S. troops, U.S. casualties will soar, and the Green Zone will no longer be even minimally secure. It's hard to imagine how that's a victory for the surge.

[karlrschneider]

5. We have already lost over 30 the first week of April.

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/

:grr:

[BlueStater]

7. Hell will have a warm place for weasels like Lieberman n/t

[marylanddem]

6. I see the "Green Zone" becoming

the corner we're painted into, with eventual escape similar to the horror show of people clamoring into helicopters that was the end of Vietnam.