Sunni side down

Lately I've been having trouble keeping all the pieces of the Iraqi puzzle straight in my head. And now that the Bush Administration has grabbed Iran by the collar and dragged them into the fracas it's even more difficult to untangle the distortions we've been given. It's true, Bush and his handlers paint with broad strokes, so I've been trying to get to the bottom of this complex and highly-nuanced issue.

Starting at the beginning and keeping it as simple as possible - Saddam Hussein was a member of the Baath party, a party made up of Sunnis. They held control of Iraq until Hussein's unseating. Because of America's initial decision to exclude the Sunnis from the government after our invasion the Sunnis felt jilted and began carrying out the majority of the attacks against American soliders.

As for the Shiites, the Iranian population is largely Shiite and have most likely been providing weaponry to Iraqi Shiites to some degree. But as for the Shiites' feelings toward our troops, they don't really have a beef with them. We're the ones who put the Shiites in charge, forming the first Shiite-centric State in the middle east. Do some of these weapons coming over from Iran kill some of our boys and girls in uniform? Probably. However, the bulk of the deliberate attacks on our soldiers are launched by angry Sunnis, and guess who's giving them their instruments of destruction. That's right, Saudi Arabia, whose government is run by Sunnis. What's the liklihood we'll be demonizing the Saudi royal family anytime soon?

At least with this war the press seems to be treading lightly, asking some questions and trying to hide their true nature of being the White House's lap dogs. Yet this is something that should be brought up and discussed. The reason, I feel, it's not is because this narrative doesn't fit nicely in a ten second sound bite.