Agamemnon
"Interesting opinion that facts mean nothing to these "zealots of war"(was the phrase I believe). "
Just catching up but I missed the facts. Sure, the US soldiers pursuing suspected Ba'ath loyalists is a fact. This is an important step to the so called "zealots of war" and yet it means nothing?
"The fact that the understand and follow a religious order more strictly than most of us is one."
Yet Iraq has historically been ran by secular dictators, not religious fanatics. The freedom to become religiously and politically active is brand new, and what you are seeing is the more fundamental elements make a play for power.
"Another is that they face the fact that everyday the United States soldiers may come into their homes and arrest their husbands, children, cousins, and any other relatives that may have had connections to Saddam Hussein."
If this is a "fact" I wonder how the US handles the millions who were 'connected' to Saddam by being Ba'athist? Let alone the children who are taken from them! Do we house them in the same facility Saddam used for the children of political undesirables? Is the media must be underreporting the arrests of actual militants by an order of magnitude?
"The fact is, is that the Sunni were in control under Saddam and worked for him because they had to."
And who didn't have to do what Saddam wanted in his Iraq? Sounds like the Sunni's knew a good deal in joining the Ba'ath part, better pay, housing, power. Were forced to get these extras?
"Shiites are getting more control the risk of an abusive majortiy rule will be equaly as bad as an abusive minority rule."
Democracy is equally as bad as a dictatorship? Wow!
"These zealots fight and die for what they hold most precious of all, their faith, their families, and their people. To try to put a label on their behavior as one of misdirected an insane zealotism is unfair."
I label Islamist suicide bombers as insane zealots. The Iraqi's behind the bombings care little for "their people" who happen to frag along with it. I'd label them "murderous bastards" myself. Not "precious", just a group of the same thugs who want to run the show again.
"Would anyone have insulted the British if they had suicide bombed the Italians during WWII?"
Is the suicide gesture somehow important to bombing? The Brits have the sense to get far away from the explosion first. They also have the sense to refrain from killing civilians just to make a point. And fighting wars they can win. Then again the Brits have never been sooo oppressed they are forced to blow up soccer moms in shopping malls.
"Hell no, we viewed them as an evil enemy therefore we supported their actions. It is a matter of nationality and perspective, not simply a label."
Yet the day Il Duce and his gang of fascists were ejected how is it the Italians were viewed as allies, and OVERNIGHT began fought to fight alongside the West, cheering their advances?
Don't expect to sell the idea that we viewed the people of any nation as evil, when its only the regime which could be so? Where was the big push to defeat the "evil Iraqi's". Aren't we all smarter than that?
