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Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
The reality is all over the Middle East Shia and Sunni are not living together peacefully, right now they are engaged in a war, wishing otherwise isn't going to help.
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Do all Sunni and Shia view each other this way, obviously not, but it takes next to nothing, a few market place bombs and a few beheadings to push everyone back into this feud.
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This is just so patently untrue, you're being blinded by media bombardment that paints a ridiculously twisted view of what goes on in the islamic world.
Libya has been through total chaos quite recently, but has not descended into religious warfare. (Even though it's not 100% peaceful either.)
Saudi-Arabia has had all sorts of trouble stirred up by local jihadists, but that has not made the population turn on their neighbours the way you suggested.
Lebanon has it's troubles, but it's not sunni and shia killing each other.
Irans internal strifes go more along the lines of pro- and anti-pro-western sentiments, not religious sentiments. (And it's mostly political stuff.)
And of course Azerbaijan and Bahrain (for example) being peaceful muslim countries with both sunnis and shias does not even register in the discussion.
Big as it is, the ISIS is a really small minority of muslims, and in everything that goes on there, religion is a much smaller part of the problem than we like to think.
Because you know, if the real problems were more in the line of "people are turning to violence because they're desperate and angry because they are poor and being ruled by dictators, and many are traumatized by the two times when US and their allies put them through war, and btw pretty much all of those dictators are supported by the west, and hey why is it that the only place where they've had a peaceful and democratic elections and a change of leadership was in supposedly evil country Iran?... And where was it again that all these dictators and warlords are getting their money from?"
That would all be too awkward. But religion is a simple reason for people to kill each other, and it's an explanation that needs no action from us, because nothing can be done. It's basicly the story that sells. As far as most of the media is concerned, Middle-East = religion. There doesn't even seem to be any oil over there anymore, funnily enough.
All that is not to say that I'm necessarily against bombing the ISIS, they sure seem like a bunch of pricks. But it would be interesting to hear more about them and what goes on in those areas, other than people killing people. Because I'm pretty sure the chance to kill people is not the main reason why some people are flocking under their flag.
(I'm sure there's more information out there than I have cared to look for. There's just a lot going on in the world right now.)