Standing in Holy Places

Marines are currently moving in on one of the holy sites of Shi'ite Muslim belief, the Imam Ali Shrine. Reporters warn that this may set off a "firestorm" in the Shi'ite Muslim World, that we're treading on 'Sensitive Ground' according to the L.A. Times.

Know what? That's just so much fertilizer.

When the Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr started using the site as a base of operations for a militia, why wasn't he treading on 'sensitive ground'?

When the Mormons moved out to the Salt Lake Valley, they began to build a temple. If you go there today, you can see it standing in the middle of downtown. Quite an imposing edifice to have been built in the 1800's. In 1857, James Buchanan sent an army to "restore order", and forcibly remove Brigham Young as the territory's governor. Apparently, he had received false reports from federal agents who had abandoned their posts that there was widespread rebellion. 2,500 well-armed men marched to Salt Lake City.

The foundation of the temple was largely complete, and was easily the most well-fortified structure in the city. Was it the site of an armed rebellion? No. Instead of using the site as a fortress, Brigham Young and the Saints buried the foundation, and plowed it, to make it look like a farmer's field. Upon arriving, Johnson's army found a group of people who were not in revolt, but who were prepared to burn their own city to the ground and move on if necessary. Satisfied that the reports were false, the army left. (Incidentally, Brigham waited until 1860 to uncover the foundation, at which time they found that it had been cracked. The entire foundation was removed and replaced - not with sandstone and mortar, but with precisely cut granite blocks with no mortar at all). See Here.

Holy sites are not fortresses to fight from. If anything, a site may be revered for the sacrifice of men who died defending their freedom, their loved ones, their way of life (I'm thinking about the Alamo, and Gettysburg, and other sites of great battles in this country specifically), but they are not places to stage armed rebellion.

al-Sadr took this fight to the shrine. If we have to fight him there, then we'll fight him there. I'm sure we'd rather not have to fight him there. Heck, we'd rather not have to fight him at all. People on the ground there have decided that this fight is necessary, so we'll fight it. And we'll win. There's no American glee that a holy site may be destroyed in the process. And there should be no recrimination toward the Americans or the Iraqi government for making it a battlefield. We didn't make it so. You don't blame the hunter for where the cobra makes its den. You blame the hunter if he allows the cobra to strike again and again without response. Anyway, that's what I think.