One maniacal terrorist thug has become a martyr. The question in my mind is, will the Jordanian, Al-Zargawi’s death slow the sectarian violence in Iraq? Zargawi wanted to destroy as many Iraqi Shia as possible in order to instigate a civil war, though it’s difficult for me to understand why he, a Sunni Muslim hated another type of Muslim, the Shia so much. There is no parallel in the West today, though historically fifteenth and sixteenth century Western Europe provides us with the vision of governments and Christian Catholic Church in cahoots with one another in the attempt to persecute Christian Protestants.

I have tried to picture what the United States would be like today if evangelical Christians hated liberal and LGBT Christians as intensely as some Sunni hate the Shia in the Arab countries. While evangelical prejudices are frustrating and have caused the three branches of our government to waist much valuable time on the proposed marriage amendment instead of dealing with the important issues at hand, it is almost impossible to imagine our country involved in a civil war based on religious intolerance. Since, it is at least partially our fault that Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war, let us hope that we manage to help the Iraqis achieve a national unity in which Shia, Sunni, and Kurd put away the guns and respect one another’s differences. I could even wish Mr. Bush “good luck” if he were to express that as an objective.