Holding grudges for thousands of years is just so strange to me.

[Philosoraptor]

When I hear about the centuries old battles between Sunnis and Shiites and warring factions, I am always glad I don't live there. If I did, I imagine that I'd leave on the next bus, but maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'd be just as swept up in these ancient grudges as they are, and stick around and fight the perceived enemy.

We often marvel at how long these grudges have gone on, but we are engaged in archaic grudges ourselves, many of us. Mel Gibson bears a grudge about something that happened two thousand years ago. To this day many Christians are still mad about the Jews betraying Christ, and to this day many in the south are angry about the north in the U.S.

It's natural to hold a grudge, especially when you've been terribly wronged. I can understand black or native Americans holding a grudge, after all, look what they suffered through. But when you are mad about some religious slight that you had absolutely nothing to do with thousands of years ago, and you still haven't resolved it or dealt with it, and you kill a hundred people a day over it, maybe you need to call it something other than a grudge.

All this is horrible enough without our men and resources being utterly wasted on these ancient, ugly grudges, dying because the Sunnis and the Shias can't work it out.

In my tiny brain I see that one Iraqi sect dominated and oppressed another sect and now the put upon sect is fighting back in revenge attacks or something like that. And my tiny brain understands that each of these murders requires reciprocation and retaliation involving horrific torture. Do I have it right so far?

I don't want my sons to go over there and get involved in these horrible old battles that they had nothing to do with, so many thousands of years before any of us were born.

If I was at a party and a gang war suddenly broke out and people started torturing and murdering, I'd leave, but that's just me.