Shias and Kurds have been watching with interest as the Arab world gets indignant over charges that American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners. Shias and Kurds recognize that the vast majority of these prisoners are Sunni Arabs arrested for attacking, or supporting attacks, on Shias, Kurds and coalition troops. The pictures of abused prisoners bring feelings of satisfaction, not disgust, to Shia and Kurds who have lost so many family members to decades of Sunni terror. Al Jazeera?s indignant coverage of all this gets a different response from Shias and Kurds, who consider this the ?Sunni News Network? because it supported Saddam when he was still in power, and now it laments the treatment given to Saddams diehard supporters. All of this reinforces the feeling that Shias and Kurds have much to fear from the Sunni Arab world. Shia know that many Sunni clerics in Saudi Arabia regularly preach that Shia Moslems are heretics. The Kurds are hated because they are not Arab (but Indo-European), even though most are Sunni Moslems. The Shia and Kurds know well that Saddams thugs are still threatening, and murdering, people. Al Jazeera doesn?t cover this violence. To al Jazeera, the only thing wrong in Iraq is that the Sunni are no longer in control, and the Sunni struggle to regain control is portrayed as a valiant effort by an abused people to assert their rights. But to the majority Shia and Kurds, the main thing the Sunni want to do is run the country for their own benefit and kill lots of Shia and Kurds along the way.
|