Muqtada Sadr's Sermon

Muqtada Sadr is back on the minbar, predictably comdemning the U.S. and our allies. I found this part pretty weird, though:

"The Shia leader also criticised Allawi for the unbanning of the Hawza newspaper, a pro-al-Sadr publication, after former occupation administrator Paul Bremer closed it down.

"'Allawi, I tell you, what right do you have to order the reopening of the Hawza paper, if you were not the one to shut it down in the first place," al-Sadr said.'

Sadr has, however, taken a stand against the string of hostage beheadings:

"He also condemned the beheading of foreign workers. Al-Sadr said the captors of the South Korean worker were not justified in beheading him.

"Kim Sun-Il was killed in June after Seoul refused his captors' demands to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

"If you knew politics and religion, you would not have cut off his head," said al-Sadr.

"'There is no religion or religious law that punishes by beheading. True, they are your enemies and occupiers, but this does not justify cutting off their heads,' al-Sadr said."

It's worth mentioning that even during his revolt, Sadr bothered to condemn the group who threatened to burn three Japanese hostages alive. And this says something about the man and his appeal: He is very sincere about what he calls for, and there's a lot more to his agenda than just anti-Western fervor.