AIR STRIKES IN SADR CITY

Juan Cole reports on his blog today:

"The US military raided Sadr City on Saturday and arrested a Mahdi Army commander whom they accused of being involved with smuggling weapons from Iran. The arrest provoked clashes, and the army called in air strikes on JAM positions, killing 5 persons. Bombing a city you militarily occupy is probably illegal in international law."

The United States should put its war planes away. There is absolutely no reason to bomb or shell civilian areas, no matter that insurgents may be hiding or taking refuge within.

Furthermore, that the Mahdi Army imports weapons from Iran should not be surprising, because the U.S. has been supplying weapons to the Lebanese Army which fires them into homes in the Palestinian refugee camp outside of Tripoli. The whole weapons and munitions industry thrives on just this sort of dark commerce in blood. My solution: ban the manufacture world-wide of any type of ordnance, and force nations to rely not on cluster bombs or war planes but on diplomacy and mutual respect.