Picking sides

Officials in Iraq are trying their best to not have a civil war on their hands following the bombing of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine.

I might get flamed for this, but at this point in history, I'm wondering if it would be so horrible for people to pick up guns and choose their sides.

The Shiites, while not exactly a happy-go-lucky bunch, seem to be the reasonable group in this whole operation. The Sunnis on the other hand seem to be the group that wants to blow up children and anything considered valuable by their enemies. And let's face it, with Iranian backing the Sunnis have managed to do more damage to Iraqis than anyone else.

So what would be wrong with the Shiites finally saying "enough"? If the Sunnis blew up the church in my hometown, you could be damn sure that there would be a whole lot of people going hunting without a permit, if you catch my drift. What's wrong with one side, who has suffered more under the Sunnis than anyone can possibly imagine, finally saying "That's it, you're done." and picking up their guns? Could anyone blame them?

More to the point, perhaps a civil war is what's needed if there's going to be peace in the Middle East. It's a shitty thing to say, but I happen to think it's true. You can't have peace when one side of the conflict refuses to stop killing people. You can't have peace when one group of people is willing to detonate bombs in holy sites. You can't have peace when one group of people attacks innocent children, police stations, targets civilians for death, destroys infrastructure, and refuses to even acknowledge the possibility of co-existance.

Given that situation, telling people not to fight back seems a bit rediculous to me. When someone is shooting at you, do you cry out "Hey, let's just be friends!" or do you pick up your gun and return fire? I don't know about you, but I'd be putting some high velocity diplomacy into whoever was shooting at me. I think that there might be more good that comes of of a civil war than the conditions in Iraq right now. And when the Sunnis are well and truly defeated, maybe the country can finally get fully on their feet.

As much as the world says they want peace, it's only OUR side that really wants it. That's not the way peace happens. You don't have peace by just refusing to fight. You have peace when the people who want to kill you are either dead, or unable to do anything to you. This is a battle that has been brewing for years. I say we let the two side settle their differences, and give support to our guys.

Call me heartless if you want, but I'd like to think that I'm also realistic.