I wonder what the Religious Right has to say about this...

Perhaps this belongs in "Politics", but I think the essense of the discussion is in the religious domain. This made top bill on cnn.com today...

reposted from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/13/iraq.main/index.html

Quote:

Revered Shiite shrine attacked again

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents on Wednesday blew up two minarets at Samarra's revered Shiite Askariya Mosque, police said, in a repeat of the 2006 bombing that sparked Iraq's current wave of deadly sectarian violence.

There was no immediate word on casualties, but the blast has left residents of the city north of Baghdad furious, said a Samarra police official.

A U.S. military spokesman condemned the "violence as another attack on the people of Iraq by people who try to continue to separate divide and weaken the Iraqi people."

The spokesman declined to say whether the military would deploy more troops on the streets: "We continue to conduct the operations we do normally. I will not discuss specifics, and I will not discuss operational security."

Within hours of the attacks, Iraqi state television announced that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had imposed a curfew for Baghdad until further notice.

A U.S. military official in northern Iraq told The Associated Press that Samarra appeared calm by Wednesday afternoon.

The explosions rocked the town and blew billowing dust clouds into the air, store owner Imad Nagi told the AP.

"After the dust settled, I couldn't see the minarets anymore," Nagi told the AP. "So I closed the shop quickly and went home."

The blast followed clashes between gunmen and Iraqi National Police, who were guarding the holy site. During the firefight, the insurgents entered the mosque, also known as the Golden Dome, planted explosives around the minarets and detonated them.

In response, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for three days of mourning to mark the destruction of the minarets, according to a statement.

"Let the next three days be mourning days, where we spread the black banners and a call to prayer and shouting God is great in our mosques, whether they are Sunnis or Shiites, and to organize peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins in order for everyone to witness that the only enemy of Iraq is the occupation and therefore everyone must demand its departure or a timetable of its occupation."

The anti-American cleric also said no rival Sunni Arab could have been responsible for the bombing, calling the development a "cursed American-Israeli scenario that aims to spread the turmoil and plant the hatred among the Muslim brethren."

During the strike on the mosque in February 2006, attackers dressed as Iraqi police commandos bombed and heavily damaged the shrine, collapsing the top half of the dome.

Although Samarra is a predominantly Sunni city, Askariya is one of the four major Shiite shrines in Iraq. Iraq's other major Shiite sites are in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. The fourth is in the Baghdad district of Kadhimiya.

Askariya is sacred to Shiites, who believe Imam al-Mehdi will one day reappear at the mosque, bringing them salvation. Al-Mehdi is the 12th and final awaited imam in Shiite Islam. He is the son of Imam Hasan al Askari, the 11th imam, buried in the shrine. His grandfather, the 10th Imam, also is buried there.

Al-Mehdi is said to have disappeared in the eighth century during the funeral of his father and is believed by Shiites to have been withdrawn by God from the eyes of the people. They are waiting for him to reappear as their leader.

We're over in Iraq trying to get these people to stop fighting. But how is that ever going to happen when the bloodshed has religious motivation behind it?

It seems to me there are only 2 solutions. Either kill everyone on one side of the argument, or disavow them of their religious convictions that fuel the conflict. The choice, to me, seems obvious.

But this would require America to hold up a mirror... and how can we tell Shiites that their ridiculous religious convictions (in bold and italics above) are detrimental to a sustainable society when most of this nation is believes something disturbingly familiar about a different god? Imagine if a bloody, suicide-bomber-driven war broke out in America that depended on Christians accepting that homosexuals should have the right to marriage? How would that be resolved?

American lives are being lost over this crap... and I think one of the ways it stops is to own up to our country's own sins. Otherwise we're being hypocrites by telling people to stop casting stones.

But what does the Religious Right have to say about stories like this? "Believe in Jesus instead, and it will all go away."? "Your beliefs are retarded."? "I think they should be pissed about the destruction of their sacred minarets." ???

What do you guys think?

The following is from Wiki: see if you understand any of it.

Freedom of religion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen guarantees freedom of religion, as long as religious activities do not infringe on public order in ways detrimental to society.Freedom of religion is a guarantee by a government for freedom of belief for individuals and freedom of worship for individuals and groups. It is generally recognized to also include the freedom not to follow any religion (irreligion) and not to believe in any god (atheism or agnosticism). Religious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own. Freedom of religion is considered by many in Western nations to be a fundamental human right.[1]