An interesting note on the Iraqi tennis players story

[nickgutierrez]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/tennis/05/27/iraq.killings.ap/index.html?section=si_topstories

Gunmen stopped the car in which the athletes were riding and asked them to step out before shooting them Wednesday, Manham Kubba, secretary general of the Iraqi Tennis Union, said Saturday. The coach, Hussein Ahmed Rashid, was Sunni, and the two players were Shiite, Kubba said.

Six months ago, if you had asked a journalist whether a murder victim was Sunni or Shiite, you'd get the same blank-faced expression that you'd expect to get from your dog had you asked it the same question. It seems of late, to me at least, that the racial(? ethnic? religious? Not quite sure what to call it) aspect of this is being paid more attention to, perhaps as an understanding of the plausibility of a civil war in Iraq.

The purpose of this thread is not to discuss the vile actions of the murderers, or to decry the horrors of religious extremism - it's to ask the following question: is the media becoming more conscious of the Sunni/Shiite/Kurd divisions in Iraq, or is the mention in this article a one-off incidence?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I've been seeing more and more articles

hinting of at the very least an "ethnic cleansing" going on in mixed neighborhoods in Iraq. There was even a piece about it on NPR on one of the rare occassions I listen to it. So I think the media is becoming more aware, but they still shy away from the term "civil war".

[nickgutierrez]

2. But even ethnic cleansing has a certain very negative quality to it

It essentially means "genocide", at least to my ears, and it can't possibly sound like "a good thing" to any but the most vile.

I think the fact that they're noting ethnicity now is the precursor to the beginning of talks about a civil war. That's why I think this might be important.

[robbedvoter]

3. Again, the positive note is they were playing tennis together

Stop being negative about the success of this war, damn it!

[BrklynLiberal]

4. See that. Dimson IS a uniter!!!

:puke:

[nickgutierrez]

6. Mr. Rumsfeld? Is that you?

:rofl:

[BrklynLiberal]

5. And there are still those who cannot figure out why Iraqis would hate the

USA. hmmmmmmmm How much of this random killing happened before we got there?

[nickgutierrez]

7. Aside from Saddam's random killing...

...probably not this much.

Lose a rat-bastard of a dictator, gain a fundamentalist state with rampant terrorism. Result: wash, at best.

[Igel]

8. They used to be mostly Sunni,

and it was only in the last few months that it became clear that this was definitely no longer the case. The media tried to pretent it wasn't religious, but political; as though that's a meaningful distinction in many cases.

In this instance, I think they mentioned it because it seemed to deny religious motivation for the killing.

But, at the same time, it leads to the issue of dress, which has suddenly become a religious issue of a slightly different sort. On the other hand, examples can probably be found where it's fraternization between the two 'sides' that merited the death penalty.

They've become more aware; but they've had to, as the facts on the ground make the distinction one that can no longer be overlooked.

[nickgutierrez]

9. This, especially that last part, is what I'm thinking. n/t

[dailykoff]

10. Hasn't religion been the phony cover story all along

going back to 9/11, which was obviously not the work of the Afghani Taliban?

U.S. sponsored right wing death squads kill opponents of U.S. interests, whether they're Sunni, Shiite, or Catholic nuns.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. and Negroponte was in charge of most of them, then and now.