Iraq: Holy Shi'ite tomb attacked with rockets

[Teaser]

Gunmen fired two rockets at a tomb sacred for Shiites south of Baghdad causing damage but no casualties, a Shiite official said.

The tomb of Salman Pak, also known as Salman al-Farisi, was attacked after sunset with two rockets, said Jamal al-Saghir, an aide to Shiite political leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.

The tomb is located in the village of Salman Pak, 30 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. The village carries the name of the man.

link

[MsKandice01]

1. Wow...

This is bad, really bad.

[Oreo]

2. Holy Shiite!

I saw a bumper sticker today that said Shiite Happens. My question is... why?

Of course now that there's a curfew all has been forgotten... at least that's what the sheeple are being told.

[Rocknrule]

13. Damn, you beat me to it!

[SoCalDem]

3. I'm sorry, but when I saw "Holy Shi'ite" in the title..

well..you know what my first thought was..

Seriously though, what we have now is full-blown "catastrophic success' that Rummy talked about..

civil war is a reality there..and sadly, our crew in charge will probably use this as the excuse they need to remove the troops (who should have NEVER been there)..

our media will trumpet it as a MARVELOUS decision, and our Iraq-adventure will have all been for nothing..(which is what WE said in 2002)..

[Teaser]

4. Title was probably a joke by an editor somewhere

he/she figured most people wouldn't get it.

[Robb]

5. Headline writer

Editor should've caught it, but writing the heds is a full-time job in a big newspaper. :)

[Marie26]

6. They're obviously trying to start a

civil war. Why?

[The Stranger]

7. Maybe this whole notion that bricks, rocks and mortar can be "holy" needs

to be completely re-thought.

Holy relics, holy land, holy sites, holy shrines, holy tombs -- these are inanimate objects and should not be used to resort to violence.

Holy shit.

[Teaser]

12. We can't rethink this.

I'm convinced that this kind of mystification is in our genes. The human will either survive with it or it will help annihilate us. But we'll never be rid of it.

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

8. Why destroy a tomb?

Seems to me destroying something containing people who are already dead is a perfect waste of weaponry. Perhaps it is just my use of WESTERN logic.

DBDB

[parasim]

9. Riverbend provides a little perspective on that...

-snip

The mosque damaged with explosives today is the “Askari Mosque” which is important because it is believed to be the burial place of two of the 12 Shia Imams- Ali Al-Hadi and Hassan Al-Askari (father and son) who lived and died in Samarra. The site of the mosque is believed to be where Ali Al-Hadi and Hassan Al-Askari lived and were buried. Many Shia believe Al-Mahdi ‘al muntadhar’ will also be resurrected or will reappear from this mosque.

-snip

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

[Teaser]

11. That's not this tomb, though...

This is a second tomb...

[Yupster]

10. Joseph's Tomb

the guy they made the Broadway play "Joseph and the Amazing Technocolor Dreamcoat" hadhis tomb destroyed about 10 years ago, and he's been dead for 4,000 or so years.

There was constant sparring between the Israeli soldiers holed up in the tomb like the Alamo and Palestinians who would take shots at them whenever possible. Eventually an arrangement was worked out where the Palestinian Authority agreed to guard the tomb if the Israelis would withdraw their soldiers.

The Israelis withdrew and within two hours a Palestinian mob had invaded the site, ruined everything they could,, burned the historical books and anything else that would burn and the Palestinian Authority guards stood by. Yasir Arafat said it was an outrage and vowed to rebuild the tomb some day.

Joseph was the Jewish teenager who waskidnapped and sold into slavery by his brothers (to the hairy Ishmaelites) and due to his ability to interpret dreams, was able to forsee famine coming and therefore rose to a high position in Pharoah's government. When famine struck the land, he invited the Jews to live in Egypt, where they eventually fell into slavery. When Moses led the Jews out of Israel, they brought with them Joseph's bones which were eventually reburied in the Promised Land. There is dispute whether the tomb is actually where Joseph is buried or not.

Here's the wickipedia account

"When violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians began in the West Bank in October 2000, six Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in fighting around the tomb. The Israeli army subsequently agreed to withdraw on October 7 and turn over control of the site to the Palestinian police, who were supposed to guard it. Instead, they stood by as a mob ransacked the site, burned holy books and destroyed reading stands; the mob also burned down the army outpost. On that same day, a United States-born rabbi and settler in Elon Moreh named Hillel Lieberman who taught at the seminary, was found murdered outside Nablus."

[The Stranger]

15. Above, I posted a question regarding rethinking whether inanimate objects

should be holy.

A corollary to that would be mythological figures with modern day "tombs," where it is admittedly in dispute whether their remans (or anyone's remains for that matter) are actually buried there.

This post seems to illustrate my point, albeit unknowingly.

Thanks nevertheless.

[gizmo1979]

14. Man's inhumanity to man never

ceases to amaze me.Do they even realize what they have done?Things that have stood for 1200 years gone.Even Sadam Hussein never did anything like this.