Sunni vs. Shia

Thomas Friedman makes a good point:

If I were editor of this newspaper, I would have led last Thursday's issue with the news report, under a big headline, saying that a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber attacked the Shiite mosque in Hilla, Iraq, on Wednesday -- the Shiites' first day of Ramadan -- and blew himself up, killing at least 25 worshipers and wounding more than 87. The worshipers had come to the mosque not only to mark the start of the Muslim holy month, but also to mourn a Shiite restaurant owner who had been killed by insurgents a few days earlier. According to The A.P., ''The explosion hit the Husseiniyat Ibn al-Nama mosque, ripping through strings of light bulbs and green and red flags hung around the entrance to celebrate the start of the holy month.''

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This attack, which got scant attention, deserved much, much more because it's the essence of the terrorism problem we now face. When a Sunni Muslim jihadist blows up a Shiite mosque -- a mosque -- during Ramadan -- Ramadan -- and virtually no one in the Sunni world utters a word of condemnation, it means there is no controlling moral authority in the Sunni Muslim community anymore. When Sunni Muslim insurgents have no respect for the sanctity of Muslim lives, Muslim houses of worship or Muslim holy days -- and no one from their own wider Sunni community really moves to restrain or censure them -- then there are no boundaries anymore.

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No one is safe. Anything goes, against anyone, anywhere. If the Sunni Muslim world does not act to halt this genocidal ethnic-cleansing campaign against the Shiites of Iraq, which this week included a teacher's being dragged from a classroom and shot in front of his students, the Sunni world will eventually be consumed by this very violence. A civilization that tolerates suicide bombing is itself committing suicide.

Of course we shouldn't be surprised at this silence, let us not forget that the Sunnis spoke not a word in condemnation when Saddam was busy slaughtering the Kurds and Shia -- fellow Muslims all -- under his rule. This is why I have a hard time paying them any mind when I hear them speak out against the alleged horrors of the U.S. occupation in Iraq. Given their track record the outrage rings hollow.