[Dean's World] Dave Price: Good News? Bad News? Not News?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Good News? Bad News? Not News?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1195063101.shtml


   [1]Hmmmm.

     BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government seized the west Baghdad headquarters
     of a powerful Sunni Muslim group Wednesday, cordoning off the
     building and accusing the group of supporting al-Qaida, officials
     said.
     The Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni clerics group
     with links to insurgents, has its headquarters in the Um al-Qura
     mosque in the capital's Sunni-dominated Ghazaliyhah neighborhood.

   One's first reaction might be: uh oh, Shia government acting against
   Sunni group; that sounds like it could spark more sectarian violence.
   But this may be more about an intra-Sunni split:

     Iraqi security forces dispatched by the Sunni Endowment, a
     government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines,
     surrounded the mosque complex at 9 a.m. and demanded that the
     building be evacuated before noon, the association said in a
     statement posted on its Web site.
     ...
     The head of the Sunni Endowment held a news conference at the
     mosque later Wednesday, accusing the clerics' group of supporting
     al-Qaida.
     "The Association of Muslim Scholars has regrettably been attacking
     any tribal awakening, resistance or worshippers whenever they form
     a force to purge their neighborhoods of al-Qaida elements. The
     association has always justified killing and assassinations carried
     out by al-Qaida," Ahmed Abdul-Ghafoor al-Samarraie, the Sunni
     Endowment chief, told reporters.

   I'm assuming the head of the Sunni endowment is also Sunni. And just
   to further confuse things, another Sunni Endowment official claims
   they just want to renovate the mosque:

     "We have nothing against the association ... and its members, but
     we have plans to renovate the mosque and construct more buildings
     inside," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was
     not authorized to speak to media.

   This all sounds terribly [2]familiar.

     Every war sim has a "Fog of War" that obscures the map in darkness
     until units scout the landscape. Well, I want a hazy, brown "Fog of
     Bull***t" layer below that. I want it to make a village of farmers
     look like a secret armed militia, I want it to show me a massive
     enemy fortress where there is actually an aspirin factory. I want
     to never know for sure which it was, even after the game is over.

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AiK9T3d52Aon6Au0e5KMcXJX6GMA
   2. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1195011255.shtml