Ordinary Iraqi citizens are finding it difficult to sleep at night. That's because every morning they awake to news of yet another bombing! The American troops are gone, but sectarian violence and forces waging civil war for control of the country have replaced them. Yesterday, there was a car bombing. Today, it will be a mosque. Tomorrow, the target might be an open market or a police station. The stories are the same – scores of innocent folks dead, scores more wounded and civilians everywhere are wondering whether they'll be the next casualty. It's not a kind place to raise a family.
I keep thinking about the famous photo of George Bush on that aircraft carrier with the "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background. What did we accomplish in Iraq, other than toppling a brutal, loudmouth dictator and replacing his regime with another just as bad? Yeah, Saddam was evil, but at least his subjects knew where they stood and mosques didn't get bombed on a daily basis.
Before the war, Saddam and the Baathists of Iraq, a small part of the Sunni Muslim minority who ran the country with an iron hand, persecuted Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. Now that the Shiites are in control, its leaders are carrying out what is essentially a plan of brutal political payback. Understandably, the Sunni's are retaliating too. Shiite – Sunni violence is nearly as old as Islam itself, so it's not as if today's events were not predictable. Unfortunately, it's the common folks in both religious groups who are paying the price.
When I read the daily news of murder and mayhem coming from Iraq, it bothers me that a people who only recently got their first taste of freedom, are now moving to enslave, and in many cases, annihilate their own fellow countrymen for nothing more than political pay-back.
We wouldn't do that here in America, would we?
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