Lethal Disquietude
Well, it's a good thing that Iraq has become a democracy. Enabling people to respect one another's differences, to live together in a spirit of harmony and good will. Something that Saddam Hussein did accomplish, in fact. By brutal force, of course, through his totalitarian form of government, just as Marshal Tito kept Yugoslavs from cutting one another's throats.In the former Yugoslavia, with the death of Father Tito and brotherhood and unity in disarray, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and others were released into anarchic tribalism.
With the American invasion of Iraq with the help of the 'coalition of the willing' and the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Iraq imploded into a cataclysmic paroxysm of tribal revenge. Muslims perhaps, honouring the basic precepts of Islam that exhorted peace between brothers, but yet given to tribal and sectarian antagonisms finally unleashed with the absence of the iron grip that Hussein and his Ba'ath party and his Sunni military relinquished to an invading coalition.
Butchery ensued and viciously heartless slaughter between Islam's Sunni and Shia factions. So much for shared citizenship and nationality, shared religious beliefs - albeit from varying perspectives - and so much for a common heritage and traditions and values as Arab Muslims. While Iraqis were busy waging revenge atrocities on one another, Hussein-beleaguered Iraqi Kurds ingathered in a civilized and well-managed effort to re-establish their territory.
And into the general melee porous borders between Iraq and Iran, Iraq and Syria flooded fundamentalist Shia on the one hand, and Sunni fanatical extremists on the other. While Iraqi Sunnis finally turned against the extreme predations of the fanatical Sunni al-Qaeda groups, the majority Shia administration shunned the equal participation of the Sunnis, disarming them and marginalizing them.
And although elections were held for a second time and a hugely popular secular-oriented political opponent succeeded in garnering more votes than the incumbent, Shia president al-Maliki, a new government has not yet been established. What is ongoing, however, is continued violent attacks against both security forces and civilians, as Iraq continues to convulse.
Almost 350 people wounded in one day, and 102 killed in blasts that went off one after another in various parts of Baghdad and other cities. Over 20 attacks in one day successfully continuing to destabilize order and security, in a series of co-ordinated assaults. Carnage reins supreme.
This is, after all, the Middle East, where tribal antagonisms and sectarian violence seem to trump civility and peace.
Labels: Middle East, Political Realities, Terrorism, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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