CPTnet
28 July 2005

IRAQ: "If a foreign army comes to your country, you should fight them."

by Will Van Wagenen

A few months ago, Thomas Friedman wrote, "Religiously, if you want to know
how the Sunni Arab world views a Shiite's being elected leader of Iraq, for
the first time ever, think about how whites in Alabama would have felt about
a black governor's being installed there in 1920. Some Sunnis do not think
Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their
brutalization (NYT, May 18, 2005)." Friedman thus argues that the Sunni-
dominated Iraqi resistance is fighting purely out of religiously-motivated
hatred for Shiites.

I have spoken with people whose opinions make me doubt the accuracy of
Friedman's assertion. I recently met a man whose brother, Muhammad, was
killed several months ago after Iraqi National Guard (ING) and American
forces raided his home. Muhammad was 67-years old, educated in England, and
previously an officer in the Iraqi Army. One night last December, American
and ING forces surrounded his home and opened fire on his house. When the
firing stopped, Muhammad's wife allowed the ING to enter the home, after
which they shot Muhammad. The bullets destroyed his reproductive organs,
shattered his hip, and exited the other side of his body. The ING then took
Muhammad to a hospital, where he died four days later. The doctors told the
family that ING forces had kept a hood over Muhammad's head and prevented
the doctors from speaking with him.

I assumed that Muhammad and his brother must be Sunni. After the brother
told me about Muhammad's death, I asked him what he thought about the idea
that the Sunnis are fighting against the U.S. because they can't stand to
see the Shiites in power. Muhammad's brother simply responded, "I am
Shiite."

A few weeks later, I had a conversation with a man named Salaam the day
after he had attended the funeral of a friend killed in a car bombing. When
I asked him what he thought of the American military presence in Iraq, he
responded with a rhetorical question I have now heard often, "Would you like
your country to be occupied?"

Again, because of Salaam's anti-occupation sentiments, I assumed that he was
Sunni and asked his opinion of Friedman's comments. He said that though
there is some tension between Sunni and Shiites, the kind of discrimination
described by Friedman does not exist. At the end of the conversation I
asked, "Salaam, you're a Sunni, right?" To which he replied, "No, I am
Shiite."

Perhaps, some insurgents, particularly the foreigners, are fighting for
sectarian reasons as Friedman claims. But with so many Shiites, let alone
Sunnis, who oppose the occupation it would be shocking to me if most people
in the resistance were fighting for sectarian, rather than nationalist,
reasons. As another Shiite I met the other day told me, "If a foreign army
comes to your country, you should fight them. This has been true for
thousands of years."