Harsh, and yet...

rather telling.

This latest essay by Scott Ritter helps to clarify what the history behind the infighting between the Shia and the Sunni in Iraq is really all about.

It is a convoluted mess. You think that Biblical history of the evolution of Christianity and the bloody repression it faced in the early years following Christ's death is complicated? How about the Spanish Inquisition and the repercussions that it wrought? The Protestant movement and its subsequent migration of thousands of Europeans to the Americas, resulting in the extermination of hundreds of indigenous tribal peoples? The Crusades? The Rennaisance?

All of them significant and traceable to the modern day political, social and economic swamp we find ourselves mired in.

However, they all are comparable to the turmoil and strife that was ongoing between the peoples of the Middle East when we were still ignorant of their existence and ways, or worse yet, cognizant of their existence but dismissive of their social structure, which was as sophisticated as a Western model while also adapting its own distinct characteristics.

While long and quickly mind numbing to the average American reader (bear down when you feel your eyes start to cross, it's worth it) Ritter's essay provides a brief rundown of the vital splits that occurred within the Islamic religion resulting in the three major competing sects of the modern day: Shia, Sunni, and Wahabbi, following the death of Muhammad and the ensuing struggle for power at the top levels of the leadership of the Islam faith.

What this all boils down to is that we as Americans have no idea what the root causes of the violence between Sunni and Shia Iraqis are--and even if we did have the respect and take the time to do so we would throw up our hands and let them work it out between themselves. It's been being hashed out between various incarnations of the sects for over 1500 years, so why should they all of the sudden listen to a foreign power who is only really interested in stripping the land of its natural resources tell them how to solve their differences and govern themselves?

To put it into perspective, imagine if a huge foreign power came over to the U. S. and overthrew the current regime (an interesting concept in and of itself) and then tried to institute a form of government that had never been put into practice before; all the while looting the natural resources of the country, dismantling the national, state snd local institutions; leaving almost no public services intact and putting millions of people out of work. The resulting unemployment would manifest itself in the polarization of these suddenly unemployed individuals by various religious groups which have traditionally been at odds with each other. The result would be similar to what we are seeing in Iraq today, only on a much larger and messier scale (the polarized divides would, I'm sorry to say, develop more along an ethnic (I'm loathe to use the term racial--we're all members of the same race--the human race) lines, with minorities at odds with Caucasians and the occupying force).

The occupying force would no doubt be undereducated as to the nuances of the cultural and social history and fault lines of the American experience, from the marginalization of the native American peoples to the enslavement of Negros and other minorities to the war that was fought to restore the Union and secure the freedom of all people in the U. S. to the repression of all those minorities and the various forms that that repression takes up to the present day to the class marginalization that is rampant in the U. S. and so on and so on. Due to this ignorance, the occupying force would have nary a clue as to how to address the violence short of introducing more armed forces into the equation, resulting only in the further inflamation of the violence. Over time, however, the leaders of the various factions would recognize the fallacy in striking at each other as opposed to the occupying forces and begin calling on their followers to act against the occupying force as opposed to each other.

In short, whatever nation or force took on such a task would quickly discover that they had struck an active hornet's nest which they mistook for a beehive full of honey that they thought had been either abandoned or was full of hibernating bees that wouldn't mind all of the honey being "harvested". Further whacking of the nest and other methods of quelling the hornets would continue to prove fruitless. How they responded to this revalation is another matter entirely.