Cindy Sheehan's "Freedom Fighters"

At the height of her fifteen minutes of fame last summer, Cindy Sheehan claimed that the people who killed her son Casey in Sadr City in 2004 were "freedom fighters." This claim was unquestionably repeated or promoted by scores of far-left bloggers who care more about damaging President Bush than the soldiers in Iraq or this country's national security.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article by Ellen Knickmeyer about those "freedom fighters," better known as the Jaish al-Mahdi (The Mahdi's Army). The JAM is responsible for thousands of murders in Baghdad and throughout Iraq, including (according to Knickmeyer):
- Women suspected of extra-marital sex;
- Christians selling alcohol;
- Anybody they deem takfir, or apostate, which in practice means Muslim who they deem insufficiently devout according to their definition of Islam.

In other words, they are no different from the Taliban and other jihadists in the type of society they seek to establish and the violent means they will apply in order to make it come to pass. (Oh, and they are also the ones responsible for all the mortars and rockets fired at the IZ, as well as the IED that killed my friend back in May).

Keep this in mind the next time you hear of somebody promoting Cindy Sheehan or defending the insurgents as simply objecting to American occupation.