There are lots of things I just don’t understand about Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general.

One of these things is the role of religion in the average person’s daily activities.

Of course, everyone knows by now that most people are either Sunni or Shia Muslims. But beyond that, most people, including many Americans in Iraq, know very little.

For example, I know a little bit about the tenets of both groups and what they split over and why it’s important, but I still don’t know why they want to kill each other.

But I don’t know why the Catholics and Protestants want to kill each other in Ireland. Or why some Americans in the name of religion want to kill doctors who perform abortions.

Your religion is so important here that it’s on your national ID card, which is a cross between a state-issued driver’s license and a Social Security card with some other information thrown in for good measure.

Ninety-nine percent of the time when you ask someone for it, they tell you they don’t have it with them. And I can understand why they don’t carry it. There have been many cases of that card deciding whether you lived or died.

It works like this: Some group decides that they are going to kill another group today. So they dress up like police or army personnel, go out in the middle of nowhere (which is easy to find here) and set up a check point.

They stop everyone who comes by and if your card has the wrong religion listed, you are pulled out and shot. Just like that, your life is over because your religion is listed on your ID card. That’s how important it is.

Religion and government are intertwined here.

I remember the first time we went to a prison we had been visiting for a while and found stickers and posters of al-Sadr on the walls and entry gates. I went with the No. 1 advisor to the warden’s office and he told him how inappropriate it was to have al-Sadr stickers and posters on the walls and gates. The Warden agreed to have them taken down, but you could tell it was only because we were talking to him about it.

He seemed to be mystified that it bothered us. To them, who they support religiously is a matter of great pride, and they want the world to know they are affiliated with that person. It’s an important part of their identity, more so than most of us.

I consider myself Christian, but that wouldn’t be the first word I’d use to describe myself. But you will find many people here who will.

Like I said at the beginning, there are many things I don’t understand. I don’t understand how a young man or woman can strap on a vest full of explosives and go to a funeral, wedding or crowded market and blow themselves up because some religious leader told them too.

But then again, I don’t understand how 1,000 Americans could have followed a religious leader to the jungles of South America and then drank poison Kool-Aid either.