Conservative Soup - food for thought

Shi'as, Kurds, Sunis, and others have been denied the simplest of freedoms for decades. The ability for them to express their political and religious opinion has been stifled by an overwhelming, sadistic dictator and his sons. Mass executions were conducted against the Kurds because of their willingness to demonstrate their displeasure of the Hussein regime. Shi'as and Sunis were routinely gathered for execution because of the hatred of a single man.

Because Suni, Shiite, Kurd Muslems were being held under the thumb of their ruler, their own political and religious ambitions were relegated to the back-seat. Self-preservation became the level at which their hierarchy of need was limited. That has changed since the allied forces have helped these groups gain their independence. Unfortunately, these folks are not accustomed to existing at the next level - the one of FREEDOM. These poor people have simply not yet settled into a society that can support differing opinions in a peaceful co-existance. As blessed Americans we ignorantly assume that they can immediately settle into our idealistic mode of living.

Coincidentally, this civil upheaval is happening during the same period as the timely death of Slobodan Milosevic. You see, a similar experience was witnessed in the former Yugoslavia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Similar to Saddam Hussein's regime, the Soviet government had strict restrictions on how one might express themselves. Unfortunately, after the Slavs of Eastern Europe were freed, civil strife erupted. Muslims fought Muslims, Christians fought Muslims, and Christians fought Christians. Yugoslavia was split down the middle as a result.

If we could see past the politics of bad faith - through the political wrangling of blaming the U.S. - we would see that this strife is again the fault of Saddam Hussein. Like the man that routinely kicks his dog should be blamed for the dog's anti-social behavior (no I am not comparing Muslims to dogs you leftist whacks), Saddam's decades-long tyranny contributed heavily to these latest battles between Muslim groups. Interesting to note is that those that had to bare the most, the Kurds, have been far removed from these latest hostilities.

Will