COMensarations
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Watching History Repeat Itself….Once Again
Or, object lessons for Christians.
Reports are coming forward that the Iraqi terrorists are on the proverbial run.
According to StrategyPage, the Shia and Kurds are getting some of their own back at the Sunni Ba’athist dead end kids and their foreign aid supporters.
Deaths from revenge killings now exceed those from terrorist or anti-government activity. Al Qaeda is beaten, and running for cover. The Sunni Arab groups that financed thousands of attacks against the government and coalition groups, are now battling each other, al Qaeda, and Shia death squads.
This is an interesting report. If true, appears the Maoist axiom of guerrillas surviving by swimming in a big pond is working to the terrorists disadvantage. That killing the Shia in droves is having a backlash that is whipping them out of the water and onto the dry land. Their ‘pond’ is shrinking. And the other fishes are mutating into piranha.
It’s not civil war, for there are no battles or grand strategies at play. It’s not ethnic cleansing, yet, although many Sunni Arabs are, and have, fled the country. What’s happening here is payback. Outsiders tend to forget that, for over three decades, a brutal Sunni Arab dictatorship killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shia Arabs. The surviving victims, and the families of those who did not survive, want revenge. They want payback. And even those Kurds Shia Arabs who don’t personally want revenge, are inclined to tolerate some payback.
However, on the other hand, as some wag put it, “Blood begets blood.” And as I recall, Arabs tend to have VERY long memories and I don’t recall hearing much about their having a ‘christian ethic’ of forgiveness.
This current reversal of fortunes is ‘nice’ for the bloody-minded members of the Shia. However, in due time, I think they’ll find it a costly pleasure, as it will all come back to them, eventually.
Christians had these problems on a similar scale during the Wars of the Reformation. I’m wondering if any Muslim scholars paid any attention to those lessons. And whether they’ll be able to teach those lessons to their bretheran.
As StrategyPage continues....
The government doesn’t want all these payback killings, most of them carried out by men working for extremist Shia Arab political parties. In particular, the Badr and Sadr militias, both backed by Iran, have the most blood on their hands, although other Shia Arab groups, and even some Kurds, have joined in.
The challenge is going to be to bring the Badr and Sadr militias under control.
I think they’ll deal with them AFTER they have dealt with the Sunni-backed terrorists.
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