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MAYBE THEY BLOW THEM UP SO THEY CAN’T BE TORTURED
Reuters reports:
Forty-six people were killed in today’s suicide attack on a Shi’ite funeral in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Iraqi health officials said. Witnesses said the casualties were from various sections of Iraqi society ...
Why would anyone do such a thing? Reuters explains:
The insurgents’ ranks have been boosted by frustration at the US occupation, shootings of Iraqi civilians by troops and foreign contractors, and by abuse of prisoners in US-manned jails.
They’re killing Iraqis because they’re upset about mistreatment of ... Iraqis. Makes sense to Reuters.
Fair go, Tim. How can you say that the violence is not a response to the invasion? There was no terrorism of this type or scale in Iraq prior to the arrival of Coalition troops. If you are going to ridicule Reuters then why not state your own position? If the terrorism is not directed at or fuelled by the occupation, then what is causing it?
Besides, the victims of terrorist attacks are seldom the political targets - such as in the history of ETA, FARC, and the IRA, among others. The aim of terror is to show the perpetrator’s apparent strength and to reveal or highlight the target’s vulnerability. In this case, attacks demonstrate that the US is powerless to defend itself or the Iraqi people against the terrorists.
After all, in order to produce fear or instability in an occupied country it is much easier to attack civilian targets or public places than it is to take on the US troops head on.
And before the regulars get excited, I am not a bloody “troll�, just a disappointed reader.
I think they are between Iraq and a hard place!
Posted by Homer Paxton on 2005 03 11 at 03:47 AM • permalinknwab, unless you understand that terrorists do what they do because they are terrorists, you will be lost. Exactly what else do these terrorists want other than to be terrorists? All they have ever stated is that they want to kill infidels. [Some, admittedly, are mercenaries who will kill anyone.]
What do they want that does not involve terrorism? What did Saddam want?
My personal “position” is that they are terrorists who want to kill us, and we will defeat them instead. Do you really expect them to not be terrorists at some magic time short of our death or enslavement? They really don’t have to do what they do, do they?
And do you really want to start this argument over again from “ground zero”?
[Also, you play with the term “terrorism” in claiming there was never this level in Iraq prior to occupation, a rather telltale tactic, I must warn you.]
J. Peden,
Apparently Saddam’s police-state terrorism apparatus doesn’t count, or those mass graves were faked by the Bush regime…
I think the Shiites of Basra might disagree with you, nwab.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 11 at 04:22 AM • permalinkWhether the ranks of the ‘insurgents’ have really been ‘boosted’ is debateable in the first place, but if they have, perhaps getting paid for murdering Iraqis may have something do do with it.
In any case, it is arguable whether these are ‘insurgents’. Personally, I prefer the term ‘terrorists’. And it is clear what drives the recent increase in the number of their civilian victims - the immensely scarey thought - for them - of something akin to democracy spreading in the ME.
JPB
Nwab - certainly it’s a response to the invasion, no disputing that. The question would be: a response by whom? Aggrieved Joe Citizens with lives, who are organizing and funding everything internally, or someone else? A lot of the Iraqi “freedom fighters” are not actually Iraqi; they’ve been getting a lot of funding and men from other places - Syria for starters. I’d say it’s a response to the invasion in the sense that other countries in the area are freaked out by the transformation Iraq is undergoing and want to undermine it any way they can, lest the election infection spread. They wouldn’t be the only terrorist organization to be foreign-funded; the IRA for a long time got most of its money from dumbcluck Americans who were under the impression that turning hapless British cops into red mist was some sort of noble endeavour.
It’s true that terrorist organizations will end up killing a lot of civilians; however, these people seem to be concentrating almost *exclusively* on civilians who are presumably “of their own” (though not really, considering the number of foreigners involved in the movement). The IRA and the ETA aimed quite often for government installations, and often phoned in warnings ahead of time. Not that this excuses them in the slightest, I should point out. One of the earliest terrorist attempts - the Gunpowder Plot - was aimed at a government installation (and quite a lot of government personnel). And even when terrorists decide that concentrating on civilians is the cheap’n'easy way to make their point, they tend to go for places where most/all of the civilians in harm’s way will be seen somehow as “occupiers” - Manchester for the IRA, Moscow (and planes out of the Moscow) for the Chechens, Madrid for the ETA. Mohammed Atta did not fly planes into Saudi buildings. These people were not bombing locales that were likely to be made up of 100% locals; funerals, for instance.
The bombers in Iraq aren’t exactly demonstrating that the US “can’t protect itself” - they don’t dare to take it on except very sporadically. Nor are they routinely bombing places where a lot of foreigners/Americans are likely to be; likely they can’t get past the security, or don’t think they can. No, they’re bombing the easiest victims; ordinary civilians who are NOT in any way occupiers. (It’s true that they probably see the Iraqi militia as being sellouts, which would explain that, if not excuse it; but a FUNERAL, for God’s sake? Did the IRA bomb Catholic churches?) That the US “can’t protect Iraqis”? I imagine a lot of Iraqis are wondering why the hell they need to be actively defended against people who are supposedly acting in their names when they slaughter huge numbers of them (Iraqis - sorry, too many pronouns).
If the Americans were to withdraw tomorrow, leaving a democratically-elected Iraqi government in place, I’m pretty sure the bombings would go on. The point isn’t to drive out the Evil Overlord so Iraqis can live in peace and contentment forever more. The point is to screw up the place until it collapses or at least weakens to the point where its neighbours can feel more secure.
nwab, you said….
How can you say that the violence is not a response to the invasion? There was no terrorism of this type or scale in Iraq prior to the arrival of Coalition troops.
Others have pretty well responded to you on this, and correctly so. So my question is a bit different.
Why are you disappointed?
Perhaps I am oversimplifying, or reading too much into, your thoughts. But when 46 people are butchered by a suicide bomber, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Should we try to feel for the terrorists as they cut the heads off of children? Or hold a fund raiser so that they get paid more for killing police officers?
I await your response.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 11 at 04:37 AM • permalinknwab, yes, in a way you are correct: Saddam’s violence was on a much larger scale.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 11 at 04:39 AM • permalinkTRJ, quite simply I am disappointed that Tim takes a stab at Reuters with a couple of off-the-cuff remarks, yet says nothing himself. Anyone can heckle the mainstream media, and I am tired of hearing it when matters are as serious as this.
You’re right - the situation we are discussing is horrific. Further, I’d say it is NOT an opportunity to take pot shots at journalists you disagree with, especially without stating a position of your own.
To be honest, I’d rather read Tim’s views than watch him poke fun at Reuters. Hence disappointment.
Dear Not-a-troll,
Your characterization of terrorist motivations is half-true but very incomplete. Neither you nor Reuters mentions the myriad other factors like fanatical Wahabism, indoctrination/hate-preaching and bribing (their families will get payments, they will get a 72-year-old virgin, or something like that), funding and training by the remanats of the old regime, global networks from fundamentalist Islamic religious organizations, Arab and Iranian Security and Intelligence, sectarian hatred of Shi’ites or the desire to (re)impose despicable tyranny over all Iraqis. When you look for root causes, why do you only focus on the pretexts that try to displace ALL blame onto the West. How plain can it be: These are Evil tactics employed on behalf of an Evil cause.
While you may not see it, more and more Muslims are starting to.
One more point, the fact that there was no suicide bombing in Iraq before the invasion(except in free Kurdish Iraq where Al-Qaida affiliate Ansar al-Islam was trying to terrorize the Kurds into abandoning freedom and democracy) is largely irrelevant since Iraq was a brutal police-state tyranny that had brought nothing but oppression, suffering and death to Iraq. And the ones who did the tyrannizing are now the ones committing or aiding the terrorism and the ones who suffered before are now the victims of this terrorism and also our allies. To describe these terrorists as anti-Imperialist or anti-Colonialist is absurd.
So the fact that they’re frustrated by the American presence is only part of the picture and by focusing on this part alone while preteniding to be reporting an objective fact, Reuters is simply deluding their readers (and themselves) and acting as apologists for tyranny.
Posted by John in Tokyo on 2005 03 11 at 04:58 AM • permalinknwab- So Tim’s posting is not up to your expectations? You should demand your money back!!!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2005 03 11 at 05:04 AM • permalinkNwab,
Tim’s site is always about off-the-cuff remarks and heckling. How can you say you’re disappointed? There are millions of commentary blogs out there and stop demanding that Tim change his format to analysis and/or essays.
The great thing about Tim’s heckling is that it cuts through pretensions and is often more profound and revealing than the people who drone on (or rant) at length.
This Reuters article is a perfect example of lazy cliches, mindless reporting, and maybe even deliberate deception on a gravely serious topic. It deserves ridicule.
Posted by John in Tokyo on 2005 03 11 at 05:09 AM • permalinkJIT, the Reuters coverage of Wahabism over the past decade or more has been commendable.
I’d also suggest that the issue here is not the root cause of terrorism as a phenomenon, but the cause of increased or continued levels of terrorist violence in occupied Iraq. That distinction is clear enough, isn’t it? Are you suggesting a recent exponential rise in the number of demented violent Wahabists?
By the way, as you are in NE and I am in SE Asia, I am sure we are both fully aware of what anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism are all about. But no one here has suggested that the terrorists are either of these things. We agree on this.
I’m glad to hear that you think the situation is horrific. But you might note that Reuters doesn’t think so, and tries to justify these actions on behalf of the terrorists. One could have chopped that sentence from the article and still have presented the full story, sans editorializing.
That you focus on tim’s “off the cuff remarks” and not the barbarians or those that apologize for them is what is sometimes called “shooting the messenger”. In that regards, I am disappointed in you.
As noted above, there are plenty of in depth commentators in the Blogosphere. That tim chooses sarcasm and jabs to make his point is a matter of choice. The content of this blog—in my humble opinion—is not “disappointing” to me.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 11 at 06:05 AM • permalinkWhat does Reuter’s coverage over the past decade have to do with the merits of this article?
Why is the root cause of terrorism distinct from terrorism in Iraq? The same ideology and modus operendi that drove al-Qaida is driving the Iraqi terrorists.
The number of violent, demented Wahabbis has been rising for 15 years at least, although there is reason to believe they’ve peaked and the only thing that could save them is to cave-in to them and grant them a victory.
On the other hand, the emergence of a democratic and progressive “Arab Street” is quite new and it’s really only become visible since Jan. 30th. For 3 years, Reuters and many others have been obscuring it with their shoddy reporting that focuses only on the terrorist violence and their facile explanations, treating lightly or ignoring all other developments - i.e., any good news. They repeatedly peddled the old myth that the Arab street was 100% behind al-Qaida and they would only get madder if we attacked them, without once questioning whether they had been sold that line by the Arab despots and their state-controlled media.
As for the Iraqi terrorists, if they can’t rule them, would rather kill these new inhabitants of the Arab street. This is why they are sending suicide bombers to funerals and executing election workers. Iraq is their battle ground against the forces of…well…pretty much everything non-fundamentalist, so they target everything from U.S. soldiers to mosques to funerals to Iraqi election workers. That’s the reason for the number of attacks and the violence of the attacks. This is their desperation thrust, their Battle of the Bulge.
Why do you defend Reuters when they unthinkingly spin this as nothing more than “Yankee go home”? Quite clearly it’s about more than that and the terrorists wouldn’t simply drop their weapons and their fight if the U.S. packed up and left tomorrow. It’s not about the U.S. or Bush anymore, it’s about the guys with the rolling eyes, the Koran and the semetex belts trying to kill the men and women with the purple stains on their fingers (they also have Korans, but they wouldn’t use it to justify murder.)
I don’t think you would suspend your scepticism for official reports from the Howard Government and I trust you can see through spin from Murdoch-owned media. So why do you unquestioningly swallow the formulaic nonsense and simplistic explanations of the wire service companies? Why leap to their defense when Tim rightly exposes them for laughably reductionist throwaway lines in a story about a horrific attack? Reuters gallingly presumes to translate the terrorists’ justifications for the public and in doing so they have downplayed or omitted the more unpalatable aspects of their message. Some believe that Reuters does it out of deliberate ideological bias. I suspect it’s more arrogance and mental decay from having been the self-appointed gate keepers of information and failing to challenge their own assumptions. Deliberately or not, they are objectively apologizing for religious fanatics who just murdered Iraqis who were attending a funeral.
Posted by John in Tokyo on 2005 03 11 at 07:13 AM • permalinkThe Reuter’s insight into terrorist psychology has to be an “opinion” rather than a statement of fact.
Here’s another opinion:
The insurgents’ ranks have been boosted by weak border controls in neighbouring countries, the fear that Baathists have of a democratic Iraq, and by the weak responses to terrorist attrocities of some nations participating in the rebuilding of Iraq.
Christopher Hitchens demolishes this partisan attribution of motive to terrorists in a recent ‘Slate’ article about the way journalists use the notion of ‘fueled’ : http://slate.msn.com/id/2114450/
’ ... I would like to have a dollar for every time I have read that the American presence in Iraq or Afghanistan “fuels” the insurgency. There must obviously be some self-evident truth to this proposition. If coalition forces were not present in these countries, then nobody would or could be shooting at them. Still, if this is self-evident one way then it must be self-evident in another. Islamic jihadism is also “fueled” by the disgrace and shame of the unveiled woman, or by the existence of Jews and Christians and Hindus and atheists, or by the publication of novels by apostates. The Syrian death squads must be “fueled” by the appearance of opposition politicians in Lebanon or indeed Syria. The janjaweed militia (if we must call them a militia) in Sudan must be “fueled” by the inconvenience of African villagers who stand in their way.’
One might add that in the case of Iraq, terrorism is ‘boosted’ by fear. These bastards are defending their right to do as they have always done: intimidate, torture and massacre their countrymen. It is perverse and morally obscene to claim that their motive stems from the actions of those who are attempting to stop them.
Why would anybody do such a thing? Papertiger explains:
The insurgents’ ranks have been boosted by weak supply of computer games from neighbouring countries, the fear that Baathists have of haram gaming gear from east Asian manufacurers, and by the strict repuke Muslim clerics give to youths wasting their time playing such titles as legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Lady Pacman.
Posted by papertiger on 2005 03 11 at 08:53 AM • permalinknwab writes: “There was no terrorism of this type or scale in Iraq prior to the arrival of Coalition troops.”
Indeed? When my son was stated at Abu Ghraib a year ago, he wrote the following about the prison complex:
The Army’s building every conceiveable structure to make the place more secure and more livable. One big problem, though, is everywhere they dig they keep finding bodies. This place was a real Dachau, from what the locals say—you came here, you didn’t leave. We visited the old death row about a week ago. It’s a huge room, with a raised concrete
platform with two trapdoors under two huge steel half-rings bolted to the ceiling, with a cleat on the wall behind to wrap the rope around. It’s painted over now, but on the wall opposite the traps (about fifty, sixty feet away) was a huge picture of Saddam painted on the wall, so the last thing you’d see before your neck stretched was his grinning mug. The only place in this place where grass grows is the area right behind the death-row cellblock. Wonder why.Technically, you are right: there was no terrorism in Saddam’s time, because the terrorists were the government. Stalin wasn’t a terrorist, after all; neither was Hitler. They didn’t have to blow up bombs at funerals to murder people: they had the mechanism of police and prisons and army to do it for them. They had a bureaucracy of murder; no need for freelancers or foreign mercenaries.
In a sense, I am glad that there is terrorism now, at least for the short term. Because it means that the bastards whose job it was to murder people are now out on the street, killing people only occasionally.
But anyone who treats these people as a serious political force has his head up his ass. What is their message? What is their plan? Their goal? Their platform? Their vision? They murder in order to cower people into obedience so they can murder still more.
That’s their program.So, nwab, Tim’s levity bothers you? There’s only two ways a rational human being can react to Reuters’ apology for murder: with indignation or scorn. Tim chose the latter, and expresses it through dark humor. It’s too bad that bothers you, but I think it’s you’re problem, not his.
Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2005 03 11 at 09:07 AM • permalinkMore Biased reporting from AL REUTERS to day as they fulfill their role of arabist propagandists.
From Arutz7 10/03
IDF Force Kills Terrorist Involved in Tel Aviv Attack
Following the failure of the PA to locate the perpetrators of the terror attack on the Stage club on the Tel Aviv boardwalk, the IDF has taken action, killing one of the terrorists involved.
The IDF and the GSS (General Security Service) launched a joint operation early Thursday morning to apprehend Mohammed Abad Altif Hasin Halil, 26. Halil was hiding in the village of Nazlat A-Wasta, north of Tul Karem.Originally from Tul Karem, Halil took part in planning and facilitating the Tel Aviv boardwalk bombing two weeks ago, in which five Israelis were killed. He also took part in rigging a vehicle full of explosives meant to be detonated just a few days after the Tel Aviv attack by crashing it into a busload of soldiers. The truck-bomb was uncovered in the Arrabeh area on February 28 and neutralized
AND THIS IS THE REACTION FROM AL REUTERS ARAB PROPAGANDA DEVISION.
Israeli forces, striking into the West Bank on Thursday despite a cease-fire, killed a Palestinian militant with alleged links to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month.
The raid prompted protests from Palestinian leaders.It is stunning, boring, and significant that the terrorist apologists, the “understanders”, do not realize the word games they play in “understanding” the situation, and the further shifting of tactics they use to justify their own moronic position: that the U.S. enc. is at least equivalent to the terrorists, and even the [evil] cause of terrorism.
There is really nothing to understanding sadomasochism, even though some of these pathologs are hypocritical in merely pursuing the sadism aspect of it. The situation is actually as close to a good-evil paradigm as is possible.
Those who apologize for sadomasochism, those who attempt to “understand” it in some other way, have chosen the wrong side of the reality. They, in effect, are the wrong side along with the more overt actors: their thought process is sadomasochistic, the masochistic aspect also being themselves, their actual thought-being or nature.
Reuters and the other MSM, the “journalists”, are included by their own thought-acts. Mocking them makes this point, and without further adoo. And unless you understand this tactic or mode of understanding, you do not “understand” anything - as proven well, in my humble opinion.
Understanding the mindset of the biased Journalists of Reuters and others is not easy.
for example in the following account, the mindset of the Italian journalist is revealed clearly, but immediately requires further peeling of the onion skin to understand the sources of such biased opinions. And how can such a person be employed in unbiased news reporting?
Via Biased BBC- Guliana Sgrena‘Be careful not to get kidnapped,’ I told the female Italian journalist sitting next to me in the small plane that was headed for Baghdad. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That won’t happen. We are siding with the oppressed Iraqi people. No Iraqi would kidnap us.’
It doesn’t sound very nice to be critical of a fellow reporter. But Sgrena’s attitude is a disgrace for journalism. Or didn’t she tell me back in the plane that ‘common journalists such as yourself’ simply do not support the Iraqi people? ‘The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind,’ the three women behind me had told me, for Sgrena travelled to Iraq with two Italian colleagues who hated the Americans as well.
‘You don’t understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,’ they said. The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers, the enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.
papertiger — “Repuke”? As good a description of the Koran as I’ve read…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 11 at 11:58 AM • permalinknwab:
Tim need not comment any more than he did on the Reuters dispatch because it pretty much ridiculed itself.
In Reuterworld, the U.S. is the cause of all bad things, and any adverse action toward the U.S.—or in this case, even against peaceful civilians unaffiliated with the U.S.—must be justified by U.S. presence.
The logic is so twisted it doesn’t deserve to be called logic.
As for the lack of this type of incident under Saddam Hussein, others have noted that he ran a police state much like Stalin, where again such incidents were virtually unheard of. That may fit some people’s definition of “peace” but it isn’t.
Reuters and others fail to acknowledge what regular readers of this blog already know: The “insurgency” is little more than an amalgam of people who have a stake in preventing democracy in Iraq. In this case, I’m confident it was former enforcers of Saddam’s police state who, in the new democracy, will be hunted down and held accountable for three decades of brutality.
And it won’t be as charitable as South Africa’s Truth Commission.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 03 11 at 12:09 PM • permalinkHow can you say that the violence is not a response to the invasion? There was no terrorism of this type or scale in Iraq prior to the arrival of Coalition troops.
This kind of thinking reminds me of when I was working in West Germany many, many years ago, and a German secretary, who had seen Adolph Hitler in a parade when she was a small girl, said to me:
“In America, you have too many serial killers. You would never have seen this kind of thing under Hitler.”
And she was dead serious.
MAN FUELS INSURGENCY
A Sydney man has been warned about angering Iraqi militants after an outburst on a commuter train last Wednesday morning. Witnesses claim 42 year old Murray Perkins put down his paper and muttered, ‘I hate those murdering bastards.’
His comment coincided with a spike in attacks in the Baghdad area in the days that followed.
Abu, that’s exactly what I plan to do, mate. Having hung around for a couple of years - under one name or another - my tolerance of the fuckwits here has reached a peak.
By all means, mate - sit in rapture as Tim says nothing about anything and achieves bugger all. I hope that you wander into my local one Thursday night and have the courage to spout yor baseless and shallow shite in front of real people.
For a while I reckoned this was a good way to guage fair dinkum opinion. Bullshit.
Baseless and shallow shite?
Real People?
Tolerated the fuckwits here?
Tim achieves bugger all?Nwab you reveal your worth briefly - it is a task that takes little doing. What took you so long? Did you have reformist zeal?
Did you think the force of your intellect would have everybody praising your insight?
Who are you really?
Now it’s us versus your mob, at your place on a Thursday?
You were here by your own volition, not because anyone forced you.
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You mean news reports are supposed to make sense?