A Million Iraqi March

An odd combination: military action leaving hundreds dead followed by a call for peaceful demonstrations.

On Thursday Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for 1 million Iraqis to march against U.S. “occupation” next week, to “express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people.”

One million is the estimate currently given for the number of Iraqis who have died since the illegal invasion of their country by the US-led Coalition Forces.

The date of the march will be on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad in the city of Najaf, an Islamic Holy City, site of the shrine of Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph. Najaf also contains one of the largest cemeteries in the world and according to Imam Ali, any Muslim buried there will enter paradise.

Let’s pray that the cemetery will not grow larger as a result of this demonstration.