June 24, 2014
BAGHDAD — Whether a person (click here) is a Shiite or a Sunni Muslim in Iraq can now be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
As the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized vast territories in western and northern Iraq, there have been frequent accounts of fighters’ capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shiites are singled out for execution.
ISIS believes that the Shiites are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam. The two main branches of Islam diverge in their beliefs over who is the true inheritor of the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad. The Shiites believe that Islam was transmitted through the household of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis believe that it comes down through followers of the Prophet Muhammad who, they say, are his chosen people....
The region has a problem. The group within Syria is the problem. It has perverted the faith far beyond that of the jihadist as an instrument of war as al Qaeda did. But, the actual belief system of the IS/IS/L has no basis in the Quran. If this group of radical soldiers are allowed to continue their plague on Syria and then the region the true meanings of the Quran can be lost to both branches of the Muslim faith.
Their jihadist methodology is genocidal in it's outcomes. What is most troubling is the very same method is used over 2600 miles away, inside of Nigeria by Boko Haram. Now, the question is why the similarity in methodology. I first I thought there must be a common thread such as a communication tool. But, even al Qaeda is rejecting IS/IS/L, which means they more than likely disagree with their methodology.
Let me propose this. I believe each group has studied the extreme success of the Rwandan genocide depending what one calls success. Interahamwe was the Hutu paramilitary. It is widely accepted there was propaganda that made the killing in general easier. But, the Tutsi women were viewed as sexually seductive. The Hutu women stood down while the Tutsi women were raped. When a Hutu woman dared to stand up to the rapists she also fell victim to the rapists.
29 January 1996
by Mr. René Degni-Ségui, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights
...The perpetration of the genocide (click here) and other crimes took on special connotations when women were the victims. The massacres took place according to the following scenario: the husbands and male children were killed first, for the most part in front of their spouses and mothers; then it was the turn of the latter, often after having been tortured and raped....
I believe both leaders of these vicious groups are well read in their ideologies and how to carry them out.
The region has to come together to end this tragedy in Syria and also to commit to never providing productive ground in any form of the Muslim faith to be this perverted to remove the meaning of the faith. The two branches of the Muslim faith have to accept the existence of the other. There does not have to be complete agreement, but, acceptance is vital.
BAGHDAD — Whether a person (click here) is a Shiite or a Sunni Muslim in Iraq can now be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
As the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has seized vast territories in western and northern Iraq, there have been frequent accounts of fighters’ capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shiites are singled out for execution.
ISIS believes that the Shiites are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam. The two main branches of Islam diverge in their beliefs over who is the true inheritor of the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad. The Shiites believe that Islam was transmitted through the household of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis believe that it comes down through followers of the Prophet Muhammad who, they say, are his chosen people....
The region has a problem. The group within Syria is the problem. It has perverted the faith far beyond that of the jihadist as an instrument of war as al Qaeda did. But, the actual belief system of the IS/IS/L has no basis in the Quran. If this group of radical soldiers are allowed to continue their plague on Syria and then the region the true meanings of the Quran can be lost to both branches of the Muslim faith.
Their jihadist methodology is genocidal in it's outcomes. What is most troubling is the very same method is used over 2600 miles away, inside of Nigeria by Boko Haram. Now, the question is why the similarity in methodology. I first I thought there must be a common thread such as a communication tool. But, even al Qaeda is rejecting IS/IS/L, which means they more than likely disagree with their methodology.
Let me propose this. I believe each group has studied the extreme success of the Rwandan genocide depending what one calls success. Interahamwe was the Hutu paramilitary. It is widely accepted there was propaganda that made the killing in general easier. But, the Tutsi women were viewed as sexually seductive. The Hutu women stood down while the Tutsi women were raped. When a Hutu woman dared to stand up to the rapists she also fell victim to the rapists.
29 January 1996
by Mr. René Degni-Ségui, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights
...The perpetration of the genocide (click here) and other crimes took on special connotations when women were the victims. The massacres took place according to the following scenario: the husbands and male children were killed first, for the most part in front of their spouses and mothers; then it was the turn of the latter, often after having been tortured and raped....
I believe both leaders of these vicious groups are well read in their ideologies and how to carry them out.
The region has to come together to end this tragedy in Syria and also to commit to never providing productive ground in any form of the Muslim faith to be this perverted to remove the meaning of the faith. The two branches of the Muslim faith have to accept the existence of the other. There does not have to be complete agreement, but, acceptance is vital.
