Friday, April 13, 2007

The Sinking Ship Of Martyrs

In response to the suicide bombing that took place in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament building yesterday, many Iraqi lawmakers spoke out against the atrocities. Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said in a speech, "The more they act, the more solid we become. When they take from us one martyr, we offer more martyrs."
To further emphasize this sense of unity between all Iraqis, Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said, "We feel today that we are stronger than yesterday. The parliament, government and the people are all the same--they are all in the same ship which, if it sinks, will make everyone sink."
This unity is something that every country needs before it can fully succeed and it is called nationalism. Only when people stop thinking of themselves as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and begin thinking of themselves as Iraqis will that brotherhood seep into the patriotic psyche and band the nation together.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State issued on its website commonly used by insurgents, "A knight from the state of Islam...reached the heart of the Green Zone...the temporary headquarters of the mice of the infidel parliament and blew himself up among a gathering of the infidel masters."
If Iraq is a sinking ship and the Iraqi politicians are mice, then it would be wise for the Iraqi people to do what all maritime victims do when their ships are sinking: follow the mice to higher ground. The people of Iraq have two options. They can stay aboard the sinking ship and accept the chaos that has gripped their nation or they can follow diplomacy to the higher ground and avoid the violence and bloodshed. If the Iraqis wish to survive, it is better to follow the mice to peace than to sink with the martyrs of war.

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