Freedom - And Proselytizing - On The March

This is simply unbelievable. And pointless - nothing good can come of it, only rage from the local population. This isn't Papua New Guinea we're walking into, it's a country with an ancient religious culture that isn't going to be swayed by a bunch of missionaries.

Fallujah, the scene of a bloody U.S. offensive against Sunni insurgents in 2004, has calmed and grown less hostile to American troops since residents turned against al Qaida in Iraq, which had tried to force its brand of Islamist extremism on the population.

Now residents of the city are abuzz that some Americans whom they consider occupiers are also acting as Christian missionaries. Residents said some Marines at the western entrance to their city have been passing out the coins for two days in what they call a "humiliating" attempt to convert them to Christianity.

In the markets, people crowded around men with the coins, passing them to each other and asking in surprise, "Have you seen this?"

The head of the Sunni endowment in Fallujah, the organization that oversees Sunni places of worship and other religious establishments, demanded that the Marines stop.

"We say to the occupiers to stop this," said Sheikh Mohammed Amin Abdel Hadi. "This can cause strife between the Iraqis and especially between Muslim and Christians . ... Please stop these things and leave our homes because we are Muslims and we live in our homes in peace with other religions."

Eventually, we're going to be kicked out of Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr is already demanding a referendum on future joint operations between the Americans and the Iraqi government, and the signs are that Sistani agrees with him. And the reason we're going to be kicked out is that you cannot run a counterinsurgency campaign and an occupation at the same time. The occupation is fueling the insurgency and at the very least fueling resentment toward the occupiers. And incidents like this, inevitable when you have 140,000 troops performing the counterinsurgency and the occupation simultaneously, trying to be nice and forceful at the same time, and thrust into a situation where they are not equipped, only increase the anger.

There's almost no question in my mind that Sadr will be the Supreme Jurisprudent of Iraq in five years. A bold prediction, but I'm sticking to it.