You got your caliph in my imam!
February 12, 2007
Or was it, You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!?
A couple of months ago I heard a U.S. Army lieutenant share some of his experiences in Iraq at a Rotary Club meeting. He was involved in ‘detainee operations’–in other words, housing prisoners, and in the Army’s program of paying the families of Iraqis who accidentally die at U.S. hands, whether in the prisons or on the streets. His presentation was informative and enlightening in many ways. There was, however, a most disturbing moment when he took questions from the audience. Someone asked him to explain the basic differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims. After a few seconds of foot-shuffling, he admitted that he didn’t know.
Now, I’m the last person to claim expertise in how to run a war (I would say, ‘Fix the bayonets, men, and let them feel the steel!’), but it seems to me that military personnel would at least be given a one-hour course on the basic rift that is igniting so much of the violence in Iraq. I mean, if you were a policeman in Belfast, would you not be well-served to know something about why there is Protestant/Catholic conflict in certain areas of the city? Of course, most of us here safe at home are no better educated, although the terms Sunni and Shia are in the news everyday.
National Public Radio (yes, I know, spare me the conservative crankiness) is producing a five-part series this week on its Morning Edition program called The Partisans of Ali: A History of Shia Faith and Politics. The web material is worth checking out–audio, transcripts, timelines and maps. The first part is an excellent, concise account of the historic roots of the split.
We ignore Islam at our own peril.
