[The_Rorschach]

"But Ror, not all Iraqis are Muslims. "

Thats reaching brother. Thats like implying religion instills accountability and ethics, and I think thats more credit than its due.

"In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but the parts of Baghdad that are now under best order are the ones being organized by the Shi'ite muslims in Baghdad. "

Religion does teach self restraint, but that is not saying that athiests and agnostics have an excuse to riot and kill. Every nation has people who are capable of having children. When they raise those children, they will issue edicts and instuction. Do this. Do not do this. They will expect to be obeyed. If the child does not obey them, they will punish the child. This is universal. This is teaching self restraint and self responsibility. Why are we fighting over this?


"I'm not trying to argue that the Iraqis are lawless savavges who need to be "taught" behavior, however, their rule of law for the past years has in fact been contrary to what you understand as right and just."

and. . .

"So now they're in a vacuum. the laws they have known are wrong, and they know this. What do they do? Should we presume they have all read the Second Treatise of Civil Government???"

If they never did it previously, obviously, they understood that it was socially unacceptable -which is the standard by which we measure right and wrong as most people regard ethics as archaic. If you deny they have the intellegence to tell the difference between the universally acceptable conduct and oppressive laws, we should be also seeing a virtual orgy of rape and killing right now.