As I read another news story today about another suicide bomber taking out 102 Shiites, and the escalation of attacks in Syria, I wanted to review, in my own mind what I understood about this conflict.

If one was going to compare it to Christianity it would go something like this: Christians have the Bible – main players God and the Christ family, Joseph Christ, Mary Christ and Jesus Christ and his band of merry men (Disciples, then Apostles after his death.) If you follow the general beliefs, JC died for your sins, yada yada, rose from the dead, sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Live a good life, try not to sin, ask forgiveness and accept him as your savior, you have your golden ticket to the angel factory.

For fun, you could ascribe to the musings of one said Dan Brown, and you have Jesus and the Magdalene (hmm, now that would be a name for a Christian rock band) got it on, had a kid, and made for a very interesting movie Dogma, and The DaVinci Code. We then break it down amongst Catholics and Protestants, but overall we don’t have people driving their Volvo’s’ into SuperFresh on a Saturday and killing a hundred people in the canned ham aisle, because they don’t believe the same as we do. That’s one basic fundamental difference. But since this is a primer for Muslim, I don’t need to expand on this further.

Muslims have the Qur’an or Koran and the main players: Allah and the Prophet Mohammed who died 632 A.D. Everyone got along in the Islamic world and all was quiet on the Mid Eastern front. Mohammed’s father in law became Caliph and united the entire Arabian Peninsula under Islam for a record spanning two years. Then along came Umar and Uthman the next two Caliphs, who got in a squabble by wanting to expand the empire and get some White Castle Burgers.

They succeeded in kicking ass through western Asia, the Mediterranean coast and eastern Iran ,until Uthman was assassinated.

Enter stage right, the new caliph (drum-roll please) Ali. Thank him for creating a  new fundamentalist radical sect. Ali continued the spread of Islam through North Africa, Egypt, and also Spain until you guess it, someone knocked his block off. Those that followed him are called Shiites which goes something like this: Imam-ah (not to be confused with Yo Momma or Yoyo Mah the violinist) believes that there’s only One Prophet and no others, and Imams are appointed by God (kinda makes me think they copied off the Pope and the Catholic belief system.)

In any event Shiites mean “supporters of Ali.” Since the Shiites lost political power, they went for religious power and buddied up to anyone who got the cold shoulder from the Sunnis.

When Ali was killed, Caliph Mu’awiya and the Sunnis (not a good name for an Islamic Band) came to power. They stayed in power until 750 A.D. when the Shiites regained control until 950 ,and you think term limits are a good idea?

From 950 on the Sunni’s have been in control. Now during this tenure of converting people to Islam the people who were not Arab were known as Mawali. According to the Koran everyone was equal and no one was supposed to pay taxes. The Umayyad’s however (mentally I’m singing this to the tune of Kum By Ya) were racist and only Arabs were good people.

So the Mawalis said ‘screw that’ and went along with the Abbasids who killed all the Umayyads but one lone male.

From a tactical standpoint, they concentrated their force into Iran and Iraq and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Coincidentally this is also the same time that Jeanie got placed in her bottle and eventually wound up on the beach with Major Nelson, who I always wondered how major his Nelson was.

Baghdad became the happening place and everyone got along, Arab’s, Persians, Jews, Greeks and they worshiped many things including Christianity. At one point, there were over a million people living there and it was the second largest city in the world, only surpassed by China. The one surviving Umayyad (remember him?) hightailed it to Spain and became a Caliph for several years.

The Abbasids managed to hold it all together until about 1000 AD but then their hold weakened. The Turks left North Africa and  broke away in 908 A.D. and formed the Fatimids, named after Mohammad’s daughter, Fatima. Now if you have followed along in the think train, these were Shiites as a direct descendant of Mohammad. They took over the Egyptian territories as well as Israel, Lebanon and Syria to name a few.

Finally with a blare of trumpets and a Happy 1096! Enter the First Crusade. I’m not trying to point fingers here, but essentially there was ‘world peace’ or at least an Arab Summer, until the Holy Roman Empire stuck its big fat Pope’s nose in it. They wanted to take Jerusalem and the Mediterranean back as any world power likes to do when going for global domination. So Pope Urban II gives a great motivational speech at Clermont, and everyone drops what they are doing and rushes off without weapons or money, because…and we are quoting here,”God would just knock down the walls of Jerusalem as soon as they got there.”

Now that was one hell of a speech.

Proving that people are lazy when things get difficult, some of the Crusaders found that it was just easier to stop in Germany to rob and kill the Jews because they weren’t Christians. That’s tolerance for ya…Go Pope!

Forcing onward and upward in 1097 the First Crusaders arrived in Antioch and was their face red! Not only were they surrounded by the civilization, but advances in medicine, hot baths and beautiful mosques, and as they say in real estate, Location, Location, Location.

So the Crusaders under direction of three men spent six months of fighting, famine, earthquake, cannibalism, factions, and infighting over who’s direction to follow. The Fatimids knowing the Seljucks held Antioch, tried to faction with the Crusaders on the premise ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ but following the words of the Bible,the Crusaders told them to Armageddon themselves. So after months of siege and warfare, spies, double crossing and rivers of blood shed, they inform Pope Urban II that mission accomplished and he should take personal control of the city, to which the Pope graciously declined, and oopsie, I meant Jerusalem..march on..

Fast forward, present day.

Nothing has improved, our politics are mired in thousand-year old wars. Where is the Vatican in all of this? Oh that’s right, the geniuses who elected a Nazi Pope, are calling for World Peace, the United *cough* Nations aren’t united at all, factions are formed and we watch and react and shrug as Syrians are killed by their own government, in hopes of democracy. Arab Spring? When secretly most affected by 9/11 hope for the Arab Fall.

Now I have one more idea but it would take another generation or two to make it work. Unite the Sunni’s and Shiites with arranged marriages, the male from the Sunni’s and a female Shiite and they have two children, a boy and a girl.Do this about 10 thousand times 10 (that always sounds so biblical and I didn’t feel like typing all the begets) This unites the Arabs/Muslims again. Now, find the lost descendant of Mary and Jesus and have Dan Brown turn over his notes. Depending on the sex of the child, we marry that child off to the new Shinuties (rhymes with Shapoopie) Lather rinse repeat. Now we have united the Muslims and Christians. They all have children and marry them off to the other global powers that are still around in thirty years.
Mohammad and Jesus & Magdalene reunite as judges on their own Reality Show FALSE IDOL if anyone tries to raise a new religious war.

Hey, I’m a lover not a fighter (well, I am when need be) and since killing isn’t working let’s try sex. I think an orgasm is the answer, and it is universal.

Problem solved. Vote for me.