Part I : Sunni and Shiite Muslims, two sects of one religion.

Sunni Muslims comprise 85% of the world’s Islamic population. Shiites make up most of the remaining 15%. The six million Muslims in the U.S.A. (2% of the population) are found in the same proportion. BUT in Iraq the proportion is much different.

In Iraq the Muslim population is 2/3 Shiite and only 1/3 Sunni. Got that? Two-to-one in favor of the Shiites.

Under Saddam Hussein the mostly secular Sunni Baath Party ran the government and the army while the majority Shiites got shat on.

I realize both the names start with “s” but so do “shit” and “shine-ola” and those who can’t tell them apart are considered stupid (another ‘S’ word like “Shrub”).

Okay, now Shrub and Dick fake, mislead and even lie to us (Americans) about Saddam’s weapons potential. On March 20, 2003 they unleash a hellfire storm of missiles under the operational name of “Shock and Awe.” I kid you not. After launching more firepower than was used in Europe during the entire Second World War the troops go in and in three weeks Baghdad ‘falls’ while Shrub and his fellow boobs believe it will all be wrapped up in a few months. Pretty wrong, yes?

So Saddam is gone, the government and army are disbanded and the Baath Party is outlawed. That means the minority Sunnis are up Shit Creek without a paddle. OTOH the Shiites are dancing in the streets because they are the majority and they are going to make up for all the wrongs done to them by those (insert bad thing here) Sunnis.

So there the Sunnis were - out of power and outnumbered two-to-one by Shiites. What is amazing is that the current blood bath didn’t start until much later. It was called ‘civil war’ by everyone but Shrub & Dick et al and then ’sectarian violence’ but the war’s instigators seemed to be in total denial about all of the demons their unprovoked war had released in Iraq. We are seeing a re-run of the Serb vs Bosnian genocide of not so long ago. Remember Bosnia?

Part II: Sunnis, Saudis and alQaeda

I’ve quoted this before and I’m doing it again. This is one of the LIES President Shrub told in his “Mission Accomplished” speech. “We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.” Je repete, il est faux. I’ll back up just a bit.

The notorius Osama bin Laden is (was?) a Saudi national. Saudi as in, Saudi Arabia loaded with oil, rich as a bitch and the site of Mecca, THE holiest place in Islam with an overwhelming majority of Sunni Muslims. Osama is an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim who either left or was thrown out of Saudi Arabia and took up residence in Afghanistan toward the end of the Russian army’s occupation. It is said that his organization which became known as al-Qaeda (the ‘foundation’ or ‘base’, as in military base) was one of those funded by the CIA as proxy fighters against the Russian occupation.

So Osama is a Saudi Sunni Muslim, ultra-conservative to the point of wanting to rid Islamic countries of Western influence, rid the world of Israel and establish an Islamic Caliphate (something like a golden age for Sunnis).

Saddam Hussein was a secular leader “whose government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia law courts, except for personal injury claims.” (Wikipedia) For this and other “blasphemys” he was disliked (hated?) by Islamic conservatives. However, his power base was the minority Sunnis who made up the working class of the country.

Saddam relied on the Sunnis to shore up his control of the country but he was an enemy to Sunni conservatives like Ossama bin Laden who despised secularism. The feeling was mutual and al-Qaeda never had a prayer (pun) in Saddam’s Iraq. As for supporting terrorists with cash, Saddam had no use for the likes of Ossama bin Laden. The fact is that our own CIA and our “friend” Saudi Arabia were the ones who funded Ossama’s al-Qaeda.

Part III: Conservatives vs. secularists

The main branches of Islam, like those of Christianity and Judiasm, all contain their conservative and reactionary elements. Thus it is not a simple case of Sunnis vs. Shiites in Iraq. Both sides have their conservatives who happen to be the ones who want to kill the “other” side. Al-Qaeda lines up with the Iraqi minority Sunnis. The majority Shiites have a number of religious leaders who are in control of virtual and actual armies of followers. Moktada al-Sadr being the most prominent and powerful.

What the Shrub Administration is doing is getting the word “al-Qaeda” in every place it can. The propagandists want to reenforce the false premise that all “enemy” Iraqis are really al-Qaeda terrorists. However the organization calling itself “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” is “a homegrown Sunni insurgent group with some foreign operatives” according to Stephen Farrell of the NY Times. It is a fact that the spread of al-Qaeda’s influence in Iraq was directly caused by Shrub’s invasion and subsequent neglect of the country.

You will note that the repitition of “insurgent,” “militant,” “terrorist,” “al-Qaeda” give the impression that we are really fighting terrorism, as Shrub continues to blare at everyone he can. He relies on our ignorance of Sunni-Shiite  and religious-secular tensions. Our troops also fight Shiites who are responsible for killing mostly Sunnis and recently each other. From an Iraqi point of view our military is more or less helping rid the country of Sunnis while the Shiite clerics call for our withdrawal and/or death.