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Sectarian Violence in Iraq... since when?!

Seriously, dude, since when did this ruckus start? Forget that the Sunnites and Shi'ites are just politically apart and that the last major bloodshed between the two groups occurred in the past. Forget, also, that the Sunnites and Shi'ites have no such animosity elsewhere. Let's just call it for what it is, eh? "A bloody battle between Sunnites and Shi'ites, who, out of centuries of bloodshed and hatred, are jumping at each other's throats again!"

But, putting my penchant for sarcasm aside, why, then, are the factions shaking their hands with clenched fists? Well, for one thing, it's not because of history. The last major bloodshed between Sunnites and Shi'ites occurred during the Caliphate dynasties, who fought against each other for power. Centuries of peace and cooperation between the two sects throughout the Islamic world followed. Together, Sunnites and Shi'ites protest against the British Colonialism of Iraq during the early 1900's. Together, they built Iraq from ground zero, and lived side-by-side with no possibility of any sort of sectarian violence between the two.

Then, big bad Uncle Saddam came along. He was a "Sunnite" (personally, a secular despotic brute like him doesn't deserve the title of "Muslim"). Well, it was said that he favored the Sunnites, but history shows otherwise: Saddam simply killed anyone who did not agree with him or submit to his rule of tyranny. Don't believe all the political bullshit that Saddam favored the Sunnites. He was, by definition, a despot, and despots don't favor anyone over the other because of "sect"; despots have the presidential throne as their only responsibility to keep safe... by any means necessary. However, during Saddam's reign, violence was not rampant, and certainly we are witnessing in Iraq a lawlessness and anarchy that was not present during Saddam's autocratic rule. This policy of autocracy continued until the biggest lie, the war on Iraq, was launched to oust this dictator. While I opposed the war from the beginning, I would support the idea of seeing the Iraqi people liberating themselves from this monster of a man.

Things seemed quiet for a few weeks after the "liberation" of Baghdad and the ousting of Saddam. However, in the coming months, the Coalition's lies were exposed time and time again, and now, the biggest mistake of the war is out, and the Coalition is running out of scapegoats. This mistake, of course, is the sectarian violence in Iraq. Remember first that there is more than one political party in Iraq. Moreover, there is more than one fighting faction in Iraq. Consider that many political parties have militias and armed groups within them. Also, consider that many of these factions have different goals, as do political parties.

Unfortunately, Iran and Al Qaeda are being used as the scapegoats. However, I will prove that these scapegoats are already dead in place, and have no function in what is happening between the Sunnite and Shi'ite factions in Iraq.

So, who is inciting this sectarian violence?

It's the Coalition.

You might not be surprised at this answer, but shocked nonetheless, that the army of the "compassionate conservative", Dubya Bush, is inciting the civil strife. But it's not only the army, but also the U.S. delegation to Iraq's parliament.

So, what's the role of the delegation? For one thing, neocon warhawks like Zalmay Khalilzad wrote out the Iraq Charter. Well, what's so messed up about the Charter? For one thing, it is written out by the imperial power, the U.S. For another, the Charter itself is said to be not represent all Iraqis. According to the Global Policy Forum,
Once a government is formed, sectarian divisions will certainly make governing difficult, as will disputes over regionalism, oil control, and amendments to Iraq’s troubled constitution.
The delegation also has the nerve to install notable brutes such as Iyad Allawi, who was known for his role as a mukhabarat (intelligence) agent under Saddam. There were also many corrupt politicians running for Iraq, who all hail from different sects and political parties; for sure, then, they will serve the agendas of themselves and their respective sects, supporters, etc, at the expense of others. In that sense, a sectarian government being purposely created by the delegation is not a representative government. This form of "direct democracy" is faulty, and that is why I would rather support a representative republic, but that is an ongoing debate that I am having with fellow liberals and libertarians, and I will be discussing it later on.

Well, the delegation is already starting the fire, but who's really adding the fuel. We turn to the Coalition: the Anglo-American Army that is rampaging through the cities of Iraq. It was argued that during the beginning of the war, Al Qaeda factions were invited to Iraq, and they caused a wave of terrorist attacks aimed at civilians, both Sunnite and Shi'ite; the Kurds of the north did not get a lot of action, it seems. However, the major tensions that we are seeing between the "Sunnites and the Shi'ites" are really a wave of tensions going around. It seems, for example, that there are some Sunnite and Shi'ites who still stand together in certain Baghdad suburbs. Then, there was the Askariya mosque getting whacked. Some people were surprised. Where the hell did it come out of? I mean, was it because of the "civil tensions that were present since time immemorial"?

Such a bigoted, ignorant assumption is easily proven false: what many people do not know is that the Iraqi sectarian government that got elected had a Shi'ite majority, which involved leaders that wanted to do their fair share of brutalizing on the Sunnite population "after what Sadddam did to the Shi'ites". But those idiots in the parliament obviously forgot that Saddam used to kill and torture Sunnites as well! In their selfish agendas, the Foreign Ministry was ordered to send their death squads into Baghdad, which went about and killed and tortured many Sunnites in the streets, whether (un)armed civilians or militants; in many cases, there was no distinguishing between the two, and very often did the two groups find themselves being attacked by the death squads. It seems, then, that the death squads were on a killing spree. According to the link that I have just provided, the Coalition is not doing anything to stop this. In fact, the Coalition was shown to have helped incite the violence in some areas in Baghdad. Moreover, as the article I have presented in the top part, the U.S. and Britian are attacking pockets of areas in Iraq and killing people in the crossfire. Even old Dubya himself claims that "turmoil in Iraq is part of progress". How can making problems help stop them? That's like what Stephen King said: "Fighting for peace is like !@#$%&* for chastity".

Obviously, the Coalition is up to its usual "divide and conquer" policy: create disunity amongst the local population in order to get what you want. Dubya and the other imperialists have this certain addiction for oil present in their "strategy for victory". I mean, seriously, Bush and his cronies don't care about the Iraqi people as much as they care about oil. It was in the headlines everywhere: in a ravaged Baghdad, the most guarded building was the Oil Ministry. They don't care about the Iraqi democracy. They just install certain corrupt businessmen as politicians, make cheapscape deals with them on oil, and sell the oil at higher prices, just to line their pockets. I'll be ranting on the oil issue much later on...

But to conclude this topic, it should be clear that the Coalition is the main reason for inciting civil strife in Iraq. Don't believe the crock of shit that Al Qaeda, a terrorist group, is causing the mess. The Coalition was the firestarter, and it just keeps adding fuel. It's not putting it out. However, to avoid sweeping generalizations, I know that there are a lot of supporters of this war who really want to see Iraq united, and I commend them for that. However, I'd rather stick to being an opponent of this farcical war, and, like you, pray that Iraq gets better in the long run, a government of the people for the people and by the people of Iraq is formed, and the cronies and war criminals be strung on coat-hanger wires for all the world to see for the shameful crimes they committed in Iraq.

Salaam, from
Saracen

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