Making Their Point
At it again, Sunni killing Shi'ites, Shias killing Sunnis. As though they ever stopped. Their hatred for one another was rather more circumspect when strongman dictator Saddam Hussein was around, when his iron fist ruled and everyone in Iraq feared him. In that sense he kept things humming along in an almost civil manner - as long as you weren't a Kurd, a Jew, a Marsh Arab, a Christian, a Shia Muslim who didn't know his place. Feared universally within the vast geography he ruled, no one was too eager to risk his wrath.Torture, imprisonment, abandonment, death were the rewards handed out so generously for angering Saddam Hussein. Without the fear his strong hand generated what would keep these irreconcilable factions from each other's throats, after all? His restraining hand is gone. Bloody dictator he most certainly was, but he ensured that life went on in Iraq in something approximating normalcy for the vast bulk of the population; his own minority Sunnis, the resentful majority Shia, and the long-simmering Kurdish population.
Restiveness was always there, freedom an elusive, subtle dream but little did those who dreamt of freedom and equal treatment imagine that with his removal utter collapse awaited the divided society.
Now, in the wake of his capture following the invasion of the country, everything has collapsed. Civic infrastructure is nominal at best. Roaming bands of sectarian militias spread terror as they murder with impunity.
Now that the West-(U.S.)approved government body has been installed, along with its own armed forces comprised mostly of Shia militia/thugs, revenge one upon the other is the order of the day. And the Shia-led government has distinguished itself by the brutality of its own reign as evidenced in the rude justice meted out to Saddam Hussein himself, a rather deplorable danse macabre.
The bloodshed goes on, accelerated and celebrated as never before. Here's the recent scenario of three minibuses of gunmen tumbling onto an inner Baghdad business street with blindfolded "prisoners", nooses about their necks, suspended to lampposts and electricity poles, left hanging for the area residents to observe. Was there pity demonstrated by the residents toward the poor unfortunates whose lives were forfeit with the death of Saddam?
"We watched as all these blindfolded men were hung up and some were shot in the head" said a supermarket worker. "Altogethere there were 23 bodies. We are all Sunni people here so we supported the gunmen. Some of them are the guards of our neighbourhood. Somebody called the police and the guards waited to shoot at them when they arrived. Half an hour after the police fled, they came back with the army and took the bodies away."
The bodies of 102 Shi'ites were gathered, people taken hostage and hanged in reprisal of Saddam's execution, throughout Baghdad. Some 200 Iraqis were taken hostage in total. The carnage rages on.
Labels: Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 09, 2007
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