Sadr calls for a million person march against U.S. occupation

As this occupation of Iraq has taken root and has deepened, I've just gotten more and more confused. I can't keep track of the players, what their interests are, I don't know the length of Iran's involvement, I'm not clear on what "The Awakening" is. In a just war, it should always be clear who are the white hats and who are the black hats.

Last week, there was a battle that took to the streets, between Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraq forces, trained by the U.S., and a Shiite cleric, Sadr, and his legion of followers, concentrated in the city of Basra. Despite the assistance of the U.S. military, Maliki's forces were only able to fight to a standstill with those of Sadr's. After behind-the-scenes politicking that apparently involved Iran, Sadr called a truce, and that's proceeded to put quite a bit of egg on Maliki's face.

That's basically what's been going on. And now Sadr has called for a march of a million strong on the city of Najaf, to coincide with the 5th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. Here is what the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said about it in a briefing:

"If his intention is to get a whole lot of people together and go and make trouble in Najaf, I don't think that is going to be very popular".

It's telling that after the WMD hoax was exposed for the fraud that it was, Bush and co. began to emphasize how we had to invade Iraq to get rid of the dictator and to give freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people. But when a popular cleric organizes a march that could draw a very large crowd of Iraqis who oppose our presence there, he's getting "a whole lot of people together to go and make trouble."