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US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

 
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 03:52 pm
Iraq's descent into bombing quagmire

By John Simpson
BBC world affairs editor




Here in Baghdad, it's beginning to feel like a critical moment.


A tanker bomb killed nearly 100 people in Musayyib
In the last week this city has seen 22 car bombs, with 10 on a single day - last Friday. Not far from Baghdad, at Musayyib, between Hilla and Karbala, nearly 100 Shia Muslims were killed.

The shadowy resistance movements seem to be operating on a new and much more ambitious level.

Last summer, and in the summer of 2003, there were similar peaks, though much lower ones: The ferocious heat seems to produce new reserves of anger and violence here.

As I flew in, sitting in the aircraft cockpit, Baghdad lay dark and irregular, like a blotch of ink, straight ahead of us. Below lay the ribbon of road from the south.

In the months after the US-led invasion of Iraq we used to drive up that road to get to Baghdad. By the beginning of 2004 that was already becoming much too dangerous, and we had to fly.

Notorious road

The pilots looked at each other, and the plane went into a fierce dive, down towards the military airfield on the south-west of the ink-blotch.

We straightened out, then banked so steeply to the left that everything loose skidded across the cockpit floor. Then a sudden turn, equally heart-wrenching, in the other direction.

During the hour-long flight the pilots scarcely spoke to me. Ever since an RAF Hercules went down north of Baghdad, six months ago, air crews have concentrated totally on the job of getting their planes in safely.

The plane door opened, and we clambered out. The air was as hot as an electric heater: 50C, even in the late afternoon.

The sun glared down angrily through the haze, reddish and inflamed like a nasty wound.


On average as many people are now dying here every day as were killed in the London bombings


Ahead of us lay the most dangerous stretch of road in the world: the highway from Baghdad to the airport. Two car bombs had just been discovered along it.

Another change since I was last here, a few months ago: the Iraqi national police were out in force along the road, stopping cars of particular makes, and particular colours; that's how they found the two car bombs before they went off.

Yet the greater numbers of police haven't stopped the bombers; on the contrary, they have given the bombers a new target - the police checkpoints themselves.

I visit Baghdad at least four times a year, to see how things are developing. Since the fall of Saddam in May 2003, and the capture of Baghdad, after which major operations were declared over, I have been here eleven times.

Each time the security situation has been markedly worse than the time before.

'Endless' bombers

Briefly, after the election in January, which brought an Iraqi government to power, things seemed to improve; then, after some weeks of fewer bombs and fewer deaths, the level of attacks rose again.

Now it is higher than it has been at any time since May 2003. The supply of suicide bombers seems endless.

Two separate campaigns appear to be going on: the Baathist resistance movement which Saddam Hussein planned and provided vast stocks of weapons and money for, is targeting the Iraqi army and police, and to a lesser extent the American and British forces.


Iraqi checkpoints have become targets for bombers

As far as anyone can tell, this is the larger and better equipped of the two main underground movements.

The other is the extremist religious movement headed (we assume) by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which announced last year that it was associating itself with al-Qaeda. Foreign Muslims in sizeable numbers have come into the country to support it.

Intelligence officials in Baghdad say this group gives the appearance of being more active, because it apparently has a policy of claiming responsibility for major attacks whether or not it has actually carried them out.

But to be honest, who does what is largely a matter of guesswork.

'Civil war'

Someone, though, is deliberately targeting Shia Muslims. Last Friday's attack in Musayyib was carried out by a suicide bomber driving a hijacked petrol tanker. It exploded outside the Shia mosque.

Both of the main streams of resistance, the Baathists and the supporters of al-Qaeda, are predominantly Sunni, and both seem to believe that they will benefit if the security crisis here turns into an outright civil war between Shias and Sunnis.

The January election, which for a time seemed to improve the situation, has actually made things more difficult in one way.

Since the Sunnis tended to boycott the vote, the result put political power into the hands of the two other main groups in Iraq, the Shia Muslims and the Kurds.

The US and British governments saw the invasion of Iraq as a liberation, a way of getting rid of a particularly nasty regime. Instead, things are getting much worse.

The casualty figures mean that on average as many people are now dying here every day as were killed in the London bombings nearly two weeks ago.

It has become a civil war, fought out with car bombs and shots to the head, while the foreign forces, US and British and the rest, look on, incapable of stopping it. This isn't how things were supposed to turn out here.


If you would like to comment on John Simpson's article, please send us your views using the form below.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following comments reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far:

It definitely is adding fuel to the fire

Bill Thomas, Strasbourg, France
Like others who have responded to Mr Simpson's article, I too ask myself, "Why in the world don't Bush and Blair accept these facts and admit that the US and Britain are losing the peace in Iraq?" Iraq may not be the root cause of terrorism, but it definitely is adding fuel to the fire.
Bill Thomas, Strasbourg, France

Having watched my son, a US Marine, deploy to Iraq and finally return home safely, I have maintained a personal interest in the conflict there. It has been my sense that things are getting worse, and John Simpson, from his perspective as a frequent visitor to Iraq, seems to confirm that. I cannot imagine how Bush and Blair will ever extricate us from the turmoil without leaving a fertile nursery and training ground for terrorists.
Andy Smith, Lake Jackson, Texas, USA

This view of Iraq that John gives is filled with doom and gloom. I have spoken to many US soldiers who have been in Iraq and things are not nearly as bad as this article suggests. War is difficult, but sometimes necessary. Iraq is not a hopeless cause. But these reports are hopelessly negative and in my opinion politically biased.
James, Birmingham, USA


Comment: Some people just can't accept the fact that more Iraqis and American soldiers are getting killed in Iraq. If this doom and gloom is politically based, why are more people getting killed? This guy, James, of Birmingham, must live on a (funny) farm - divorced from reality. He claims he's spoken to many US soldiers who have been in Iraq. They probably didn't serve in Baghdad or Falluja.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 06:12 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
Iraq's descent into bombing quagmire
...

The casualty figures mean that on average as many people are now dying here every day as were killed in the London bombings nearly two weeks ago.
...

I cannot imagine how Bush and Blair will ever extricate us from the turmoil without leaving a fertile nursery and training ground for terrorists.


The Saddam regime malignancy from 1991 to 2002 murdered on average about 30 Iraqi civilians per day. That was horrible.

The al Qaeda and friends malignancyare murdering on average about 60 Iraqi civilians per day. That is horrible.

When the malignancy is almost exterminated, it will be murdering on average about 1 Iraqi civilian per day. That will be an improvement.

When the malignancy is exterminated, it will be murdering 0 Iraqi civilians per day. That will be a huge improvement.


We must succeed for the sake of the human race. Failure is not an acceptable option.

Absent any better alternative, we must exterminate the malignancy including those crossing a 15 mile buffer zone around the Iraq border. Those located in proximity to malignancy will likely be exterminated along with malignancy. If we act quickly, the number of these people will be far less than the almost 60 per day being killed in Iraq currently.

Those among us who encourage our withdrawal from Iraq and thereby are encouraging the malignancy, are contributing to the almost 60 murdered Iraqi civilians per day.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:04 pm
What a scumbag comment . . .

You got anyone specific in mind here who has counseled withdrawal from Iraq, or are you just indulging a right wingnut penchant for hurling the vilest insults possible at those who have the temerity not agree with you?
0 Replies
 
hamburger
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:15 pm
a.t. comments i picked up on CNN (?), an american research organization that has been hired by the u.s. government to advise on the future of iraq, the u.s. military should expect to stay in iraq for about another fifteen years. i also understand that they are recommending that the u.s. increase its troopstrenght in iraq for some time to come. the report was part of a segment on iraq, but i did not pay any particular attention to the program. anyone saw the full report ? hbg
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:37 pm
by Dr. Gerry Lower

OpEdNews.Com


George W. Bush, when asked by Bob Woodward "how is history likely to judge your Iraq war?" replied, "History, we don't know. We'll all be dead." (Woodward Shares War Secrets, CBS News, 60 Minutes, April 18, 2004).

It is possible that Bush's comment "We'll all be dead" might only be subconsciously related to his belief in apocalypse. Perhaps he only meant that by the time "history" is written, we'll all be dead of prevailing disease and old age. If that is the case, the man remains a complete idiot. History did not wait for Hitler to die before condemning him, nor did the Republican party wait for Clinton to die before condemning him. History will not wait for George either. The man is already in deep trouble everywhere but in his half of America.

It is not clear just what Bush meant with his remark if taken outside the context of apocalypse. It is more clear that Bush does not know what he meant either, since his remark doesn't make any sense outside of the context of apocalypse. So, what else is new about our affable guy president?

Interpreting a fool might best be left to fools. On the other hand, Bush does fervently believe that he is doing the work of his god, and we can expect the worst. Given Bush's alcoholic indebtedness to the Old Testament apocalyptic religion that keeps him sober, we are justified in examining his remark in that context, even if Bush did not understand the context within which he made the remark.

In one of those rare moments when Bush actually appeared to provide something resembling a direct answer to a direct question, Bush may have let his psychosis (and the psychosis of his neocon advisors) slip into public view, not much of that psychosis and only for the moment, but enough to allow a reasonable appreciation of the deep trouble into which Bush has plunged a frightened and frighteningly naive American citizenry. Conservative Americans thought they were voting for a good religious family man in government and they got a Jim Jones.

"We'll all be dead." By what empirical and historical evidence does this ill-educated, inarticulate Howdy Doody arrive at this conclusion? This may not be a very correct way to refer to the appointed president of the UnitedStates, but do you realize what this man (trained at America's finest universities) is saying? "We'll all be dead." Cute little children in Japan, wonderfully bright students in Ukraine, stressed out housewives in America, marvelous old gentlemen in Norway ... all dead. Just ask George W. Bush. By any sane criteria, this man and his administration are religiously psychotic.

Bush is saying that he and his crony neocon advisors know precisely what makes the world clock tick; they even know who is worthy and who is not. Bush is saying that he alone knows what is going to happen to the entire human race. Bush is saying that the cultural "isms" of the rest of the world (e.g., Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism) are so much intellectual fluff. It is the manly, apocalyptic world of death that Bush envisions, as if a Shinto farm woman in northern Japan would give a rat's ass. Is this an exercise in megalomania or what?

Bush, in claiming that "We'll all be dead" is apparently aware of ways to kill people even more effectively than epidemic infectious disease, war and natural death. Despite all of that human misery, the human population has still managed to reach some 6 billion in nummber. How does Bush plan to eliminate every last fertile man and woman on this planet? How much of that global slaughter is Bush going to implement himself, directly and indirectly, and how much is he leaving up to his god? Is this an exercise in megalomania or what?

Bush, in claiming knowledge of our upcoming global demise, is implying that he and his advisors alone possess knowledge that ordinary people could never comprehend, hence there is no need for public discussion of the "higher" knowledge driving Bush's political agenda. Because Bush is carrying out his god's work, he actually believes that the world needs the kind of self-righteous, belligerent global "leadership" that he is now famous for providing to former allies. Is this an exercise in megalomania or what?

George Monbiot reports that 15 - 18 % of the American electorate belong to churches which support a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations. For every one of those people there must be about four more "good" people who go right along with overt megalomania out of loyalty to traditional religious authority and blind faith in their "war president." These are the 49% of the electorate who routinely see the beam in their brother's eye and never the moat in their own.

Written by John of Patmos about 90 AD, the Book of Revelations is an opium-enhanced exercise in Old Testament vengeance. John, a would-be Christian, was so distraught with his treatment at the hands of pre-Christian Romans, he introduced harshly anti-Christian thought into the historical record. Two centuries later, when nascent Christianity was adopted and perverted by the Roman emperor, Constantine, this hallucinatory effort eventually become part of New Testament Roman scripture (despite having nothing to do with nascent Christian doctrine).

The sadly pathetic view which Bush sees fit to impose upon the entire world was written by a chronically-persecuted, terminally-depressed "druggie" living in Roman exile. John's apocalyptic tome was incorporated into Roman "Christianity" by Roman tyrants who proceeded to introduce the western world to self-righteous imperial conquest in the name of compassion and peace.

Four billion years of rigorously-documentable evolutionary progress and the best that Bush can come up with for a finale is death? Millennia of cultural evolution, from the beat of tribal drums to the world wide web, from the depths of biblical despotism to the concept of a global democracy, and the best that Bush can come up with for a finale is death? It would never occur to Bush and his religious supporters that the only thing they are going to eliminate from the earth is vengeance-based religion and corrupt crony capitalism, discredited from the global political arena forever. That is the far more likely outcome. The finale will be the emergence of a global democracy and a new beginning for everything human.

Bush is a man who ought be sent back to a university where he might acquire something resembling a "higher education." It has been a long time since educated people have believed that the earth is flat under heaven's dome. It has been a long time since educated people have believed that disease is godly punishment for earthly sin. It has been a long time since educated people have believed that all people on this planet came from Adam, a man without a belly button. It has been a long time since educated people have clearly opted for democracy over religious despotism.

According to Bush, we do not need to worry about the outcome of his preemptory war on Iraq because "we'll all be dead." There is likely no intelligent response to that ludicrous proclamation that does not employ America's favorite four-letter "F" word. In the world of religious freedom that Jefferson provided for all Americans, Bush has every right to impose his apocalyptic world view on himself. Good for him. Bush has no right whatsoever to impose his apocalyptic world view on another living soul, least of all the children who will outlive Bush by decades.

All thoughtful and caring American citizens ought be afraid, very afraid. Bush is likely inviting us to the People's Temple for a glass of grape Kool-Aide.
0 Replies
 
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:51 pm
Yup. With some demurrers for style I am with the above author, the one thing he left out is that the believers seek to bring Revelations into reality.
The faster we have the rapture, the faster we will all be with our Heavenly Father. They seek the Apocalypse.

J
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:53 pm
I'm all for a special tax levy to acquire a sufficient number of Saturn rockets with which to shoot 'em all into the Great Beyond . . .
0 Replies
 
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:57 pm
Looking at the Iraq invasion from the long view, it would appear that it was an attempt to bring on Armageddon.. "The enemy to the North..." and all that.

So far, so good.

J
0 Replies
 
hamburger
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 08:03 pm
c.i. wrote : " George Monbiot reports that 15 - 18 % of the American electorate belong to churches which support a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations."

on a recent "60 minutes" segment there was an interview with the "writers" (?) of the new "revelation" novels. i understand these "novels" have become bestsellers ! (and have made millionaires out of the writers - i wonder why they need any money ?)it's getting kinda scary ... but i have hope; there have been plenty of reports of the world coming to an end ... hope these guys are wrong also ... meantime they are collecting the money; just in case their prophesies don't pan out , i guess. hbg
0 Replies
 
Joe Nation
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 08:11 pm
The problem is, and I mean this quite seriously, the present US administration is chock a block with believers in the Imminent Second Coming of Christ and the Rapture. The USAF Academy was recently been in the news when it was revealed, no pun intended, that a substantial number of the officer corps there were fundamentalist believers. If Tom Clancy wanted to write a fascinating scenario he couldn't do better than that set-up to disaster.

Joe(he's flying where? His plane is carrying what??)Nation
0 Replies
 
hamburger
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 08:43 pm
us and them ...
i couldn't help myself ... had to google for...ARMAGEDDONBOOKS... .

it's really quite interesting (funny ?) to read their own appraisal. hbg
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 09:12 pm
I heard that joker interviewed on NPR once't . . . he would speak cheerfully and seriously about the coming rapture and how millions had their hope in salvation and instant translation to heaven renewed by the books . . . when asked about the millions he was obviously earning, he would chuckle softly, and reply cheerfully about how millions had their hope in salvation and instant translation to heaven renewed by the books . . .
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 09:45 pm
July 25, 2005
Sunnis to End Iraq Charter Boycott; Bomb Kills 25
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Monday, July 25 - With just three weeks to go before an important deadline for the new constitution, Sunni Arab leaders said Sunday that they were ready to end their boycott of the drafting process. The statements came as a suicide truck bomber rammed into barricades at a police station here in the middle of a raging sandstorm, killing at least 25 people and wounding at least 33 others, Iraqi officials said.

The Sunni leaders said the original constitutional committee, made up almost entirely of Shiites and Kurds, had agreed to the conditions the Sunni Arabs had set for their return, including having the government provide bodyguards. The Sunnis said they expect an agreement in writing, and a meeting between the groups was set for Monday morning to formalize the accord. The Sunni Arab boycott began last week after two colleagues were assassinated in downtown Baghdad.

"We put in writing our demands to return, and we got a promise that those demands will be fulfilled," said Ayad al-Samarraie, one of the Sunni politicians.

Bahaa al-Aaraji, a Shiite member of the drafting committee, said Sunday, "We will reach a new agreement at 8:30 tomorrow."

As a first step in their re-engagement, the Sunni Arabs have formed a commission of legal experts to review the latest draft of the constitution and recommend changes, Mr. Samarraie said.

The return of the Sunni Arabs to the writing process is considered crucial to lending legitimacy to the constitution, which the Parliament must approve by Aug. 15 before it goes to a national referendum in October. Without the input of Sunni leaders, the constitution could be rejected by Sunni voters, who would then also boycott the elections for a full-term government, which are scheduled for December. The Bush administration is relying on the political process to help quell the raging Sunni Arab-led insurgency by easing the feelings of disenfranchisement that arose after Saddam Hussein was deposed.

The attack at the police station on Sunday, in the Mashtal neighborhood of the capital, was only the latest sign that the guerrillas had little desire to lay down their arms.

The bomb struck at about 3 p.m., as a sandstorm swirled around the capital and cloaked buildings and streets in a thick layer of grit. Speeding through the haze, the driver of the truck appeared to cross over a median and slam into barriers outside the station before the vehicle exploded. People standing nearby were burned or peppered with shrapnel, and at least 25 cars were set ablaze, witnesses and an Interior Ministry official said.

A police officer at the scene said body parts were found on the roofs of buildings. The blast left a crater more than three feet deep, and metal and glass lay scattered across the street, atop thick pools of blood, oil and engine fluids. Electric cables dangled from nearby lampposts.

"I was inside the station when the explosion took place," said Muhammad Naief, 35, a construction worker from Najaf who was visiting. "It was huge. The glass showered our heads. When I got out to the bloody scene, I found my sedan totally damaged, and my cousin who was waiting for me next to it was slightly injured."

At Kindi Hospital, a man covered in dirt and wearing a red-and-white headdress sat on the ground next to a wailing woman in black robes. The man, Majeed Fadel, said he was looking for the body of his son.

"We found the charred car at the scene but never found him," Mr. Fadel said. "I'm sure he died, but I just want to have the body to bury. I sent him out in my car to buy a battery, and then the disaster happened."

The attack was the latest in a series of suicide bombings that have left hundreds dead and have raised serious doubts about the ability of the government and the American forces to placate the insurgency.

Weeks ago, Iraqi and American officials boasted that operations in Baghdad had helped to secure the capital and thwart the bloody designs of the guerrillas.

As if in response, the insurgents quickly pulled off several spectacular and shockingly deadly assaults, including a suicide car bombing in Baghdad on July 13 that left about two dozen children dead, and a mosque attack in Musayyib on July 16 that killed at least 72 people, using a stolen fuel tanker ignited by a suicide-belt bomber who dove under it.

The reported toll in the bombing on Sunday varied widely between Iraqi and American officials. While the Iraqis reported 25 dead, the Third Infantry Division, charged with controlling Baghdad, said in a statement that at least 40 Iraqis had been killed in the bombing.

But the American statement contained a quotation that exactly duplicated a comment attributed to an anonymous Iraqi at the July 13 explosion site in an earlier military statement: "They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today, and I will now take the fight to the terrorists."

Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a military spokesman, said he had "no idea" how the duplication had happened. "I have sent a message out to discuss this with the leadership," he said.

The American military also said Sunday that a marine had been killed in a roadside bomb explosion in western Iraq on Saturday, and that a soldier had been killed and two wounded by a rocket or mortar attack near Balad, north of Baghdad, on Sunday.

In Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in the north, a senior police commander was gunned down as he drove through the city, police officials said. Another officer was shot dead in Baghdad.

At dawn on Monday, a suicide minibus bomb exploded near the Sadeer Hotel in central Baghdad. At least 6 people were killed and 10 were wounded, police officials said.

Efforts to bring more Sunni Arabs into the political process began after the elections last January, when the scant turnout by Sunni Arab voters left them almost entirely without representation in Parliament. Under pressure from the Bush administration, the original 55-member constitutional committee, which had only two Sunni Arabs, added 15 Sunni seats and 10 consulting positions.

One of the new Sunni drafters and a consultant were killed last week, prompting the 14 remaining full members to boycott the drafting until a list of demands was met. The Sunnis said they wanted more government security, an international investigation into the attack, an end to Shiites assertions that the constitution was almost finished, and a halt to any discussion of the issue of regional autonomy while the boycott was continuing. It appeared Sunday that the constitutional committee had agreed to those conditions.

Mr. Samarraie, the Sunni politician, said the Shiites had promised to look into the possibility of an international investigation, though it might be awhile before such an inquiry actually begins.

One demand that the Sunnis made last week, for increased representation on the constitutional committee, seemed to have been dropped.

Another Sunni drafter, Kamal Hamdoun, said "the atmosphere is generally positive."

More tough negotiations lie ahead, as some of the Sunnis have expressed grave doubts about a recent draft of the constitution. On Saturday, Mr. Samarraie said he was incensed over language that bestowed special honors on the top Shiite religious leaders and that granted minority status to "Persians," or Iranians. The Sunni Arabs suspect that the Iranian government is trying to exert its influence in Iraq through the religious Shiite parties that now govern the country and have deep ties to Iran.

On Sunday, one of the only two Sunnis who have not boycotted the committee, Adnan al-Janabi, said he was also disturbed by the same language. "We think that the constitution is not the place to mention such issues," he said.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, a senior cleric, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, said Saturday that the Shiites and Kurds had formed a team to work on constitutional disagreements between them. Those issues include the border of the Kurdish autonomous region and the division of oil revenues. The sheik said that there was a separate process by which the Shiites will address differences with the Sunni Arabs.

Khalid al-Ansary and Ali Adeeb contributed reporting for this article.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 07:52 am
I think cyclop had it right the other day when he said we either have a former Iraq with Saddam like secular regime or we have the new Iraq with Iranian like religious regime.

If I was one of those who buys into the whole rapture nonsense and was thinking that all these wars and conflicts were prophesies in the making, I would be wondering on whose side God was on.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 07:57 am
Caleb Carr in [i]The Smell of Fear[/i], WSJ Opinion, 7/19/2005, wrote:

The ultimate targets of the London bombings were not, of course, human beings. Rather, they were a set of governmental policies that the terrorists hoped to change by separating political leaders from the support of their shaken citizenry. Despite this distinction, however, the underlying psychological principles involved in investigating such crimes remain the same as they would be were we studying a mass- or or serial-murder case, of which terrorists are in many respects the politicized version. Is this to say that the four young men suspected of being the instruments of terror on this occasion can be classified as clinical sociopaths? We will unlikely to be able to answer that question with certainty, now that they are dead. What we can focus on, however, are the motivations and perversities of the vastly more dangerous Islamist clerics and terrorist organizers who sought out youthful pawns and instilled in them a theology of murder.

Many political analysts have long been anxious to exclude terrorists from psychological profiling. Some fear that such scrutiny undermines the rationalization that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (as indeed it does), while others worry that focus on the mental pathologies of terrorists will detract from whatever legitimacy their causes may hold -- just as the psychosis of Hitler overshadowed Germany's grievances about excessive war reparations. But Hitler did not redress injustices against his nation, he prostituted them to his meglomaniacal visions. In the same way, the preachers of Islamist terror are less interested in securing prosperity and dignity for their people than they are in finding new communities of human instruments that they can enlist in their demented campaign to turn History's clock back. In all such cases of international criminal psychology, we have no choice but to move beyond police work and questions of political motive, and reach for the tools of the forensic psychologist -- most importantly, the art of profiling.

But it is not only or even primarily the killers and their tutors that must be so examined. Thorough profiling demands that we also study the victims, who in cases of terrorism are whole societies. The point is not to see these societies as they actually are, but as the planners of the outrage saw them. In this particular case, we must try to understand why a terrorist group associated to at least a degree with al Qaeda was suddenly inspired to move beyond the general desire of that organization's leadership to punish Britain; why, that is, such an affiliate became overwhelmingly convinced that at this particular moment, British citizens were not only deserving of the usual terrorist brand of ritualized bloodshed, but would prove, more importantly, willing to gratify al Qaeda's demands in the wake of the bombings. What had these Islamist organizers seen, as they stalked through the land that had so unwisely given them asylum, that convinced not only them, but their acolytes, that the time had come for a more-than-rhetorical assault on Britains people?

* * *

These questions will not be answered by focusing on the grievances by which the terrorists later claimed to have been propelled: The sociopath's motivations are revealed in his behavior, not in his grandiose self-justifications. Therefore, we must put the issue of the timing of the bombings into the context of the series of similar crimes that have been committed by al Qaeda and its subordinates during the long and deadly spree that they have pursued since the 1990s. Only a few examples from al Qaeda's catalogue of outrages resemble the London attack, in specific purpose and method, enough to be of real use in establishing this pattern. These few are: the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001; the bombings of a synagogue, the British consulate, and a Western bank in Istanbul in November 2003; and the Madrid bombings in March 2004. What common elements can we establish among these societies at the given moments that they were victimized?

Of paramount interest is the fact that each nation had recently exhibited a weakening public determination to aggressively meet the rising challenge of Islamist terrorism. Consider the U.S. of 2001: The Clinton administration had left behind a record of essentially ignoring those few terrorism analysts who asserted that full-fledged military action against al Qaeda's Afghan training bases, backed by the possibility of military strikes against other terrorist sponsor states, was the only truly effective method of preventing an eventual attack within U.S. borders. President Clinton himself, we now know, at times favored such decisive moves; but opposition from various members of his cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and finally (as well as most importantly) a general public that would not or could not confront the true extent of the Islamist problem generally, and al Qaeda specifically, forced him to confine his responses to occassional and counterproductive bombings -- even as the death toll from al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests abroad rose dramatically. Correctly sensing that the new president, George W. Bush, was treating the terrorist threat with a similar attitude of denial, al Qaeda's Hamburg-based subsidiaries launched the 9/11 operation.

Turkey, for its part, had taken the dramatic step of withdrawing its cooperation with the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. This move had drastically reduced the number of troops that the U.S. could bring to bear quickly on the operation, and may have colored the entire course of the war. Turkish leaders explained their decision by citing concerns about their nation's role in the region, as well as by saying that they did not trust the Kurds not to try to take advantage of the invasion. Perhaps so: but reports persisted that the Turkish government was worried about revenge attacks by Muslim extremists, along exactly the lines that (in a seeming paradox) did occur in November. Once again, an attempt to deal with the terrorist problem through avoidance only produced savage assaults.

In Spain, during March 2004, a similar public wish to avoid any forceful confrontation with terrorism prevailed, but for entirely different reasons: Spain had joined the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, which, after enjoying dramatic early success, ran into a buzz-saw of bitter resistance organized by Saddam loyalists, Iraqis angered by occupation, and foreign Islamist terrorists (many trained and supplied by al Qaeda's network). The majority of the Spanish public had never supported participation in the invasion; and the Iraqi insurgency's viciousness only made them more committed to adopt a neutral stance in the global war on terror generally. But Spain was also, at the time, facing an election, and a bazarre component of that contest were warnings issued by an obscure Islamist group (later connected to al Qaeda) which stated that the Spanish people's failure to elect a candidate who would withdraw troops from Iraq would result in attacks against them. As election day neared, it seemed likely that voters would comply; yet despite -- or in fact because of -- this cooperative posture, the terrorists detonated a particularly cruel series of bombs aboard commuter trains in Madrid just days before the voting. We may never know how much the victory of the antiwar Socialist candidate was prompted by the attacks; what we do know is that Spain's posture of pre-election submission did not save her citizens, and that after the election, when the new government did obey the Islamists' demand that they withdraw troops from Iraq, the terrorists ultimately announced that not even this move could guarantee Spain's future safety.

In all these examples, then, the "trigger" for terrorist action was not any newly adopted Western posture of force and defiance. Rather, it was a deepening of the targeted public’s wish to deal with terrorism through avoidance and accommodation, a mass descent into the psychological belief, so often disproved by history, that if we only leave vicious attackers alone, they will leave us alone. It is hardly surprising that by actively trying – or merely indicating that they wished – to bury their collective heads in the sand, the societies were led not to peace but to more violent attacks. Al Qaeda and terrorist groups in general have tended to press their campaigns of violence against civilians in areas where they have sensed disunity and a lack of forceful opposition. In the manner of clinical sociopaths, they seem to "smell fear" – and to find in it, not any inspiration to show mercy or accept accommodation, but a compulsion to torment all the more vigorously those who exude it.

When the situation is viewed through this lens of victim profiling (never to be confused with "blaming the victim"), we begin to see why al Qaeda’s leaders and affiliates evidently began to think themselves capable of breaking an alliance that once withstood the assaults of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. For a widespread psychological phenomenon has gained strength in Britain in recent years, coming to a crescendo in the last few months. In political and editorial writings, but perhaps even more tellingly in the mass entertainment media to which the young bombers were reportedly heavily exposed, many Britons have subscribed to a new narrative of the post 9/11 world, one in which the U.K. is portrayed, not as a willing partner in the invasion of Afghanistan, nor as the author of the incorrect and/or deceptive intelligence that so rallied support in the West for invading Iraq, but rather as the largely innocent tool of a nefarious U.S., one whose government has been "bullied" by Washington. In this remarkably distorted yet equally powerful version of events, Britain emerges as a nation that would, if its leaders would only obey the true will of its people, display greater concern with such benevolent programs as ameliorating world hunger and climate degradation, and far less with combating terrorism. Indeed, they are only involved in the latter, runs the new "history, " because of Tony Blair’s obliging participation in Mr. Bush’s oil-propelled policies.

Nations that experience collective psychological crises frequently attempt such re-inventions, just as do individuals. By revising the facts surrounding irrationally violent incidents so that they themselves are somehow made responsible for them, victims often seek to exert some kind of control over if, when, and how their tormentors will inflict their random cruelty. But what British citizens who have participated in this revision of the historical record do not realize -- just as Americans in 2001, Turks in 2003, and Spaniards in 2004 did not -- is that showing fear and self-disparagement in the face of al Qaeda's threats only marks the society in question as a suitable candidate for attack. Sociopaths revel most in assaulting terrified, submissive victims; and a Britain so concerned with avoiding attack that its ordinarily wise citizenry would give voice to the kind of simplistic thinking expressed in the media in recent months evidently fit that description to an extent irresistible to al Qaeda's minions within its borders.

In this light, the trigger for the London bombings was far less the presence of British troops in Iraq, and far more the media circus that surrounded protesters outside the G-8 summit, as well as the utterances of musical and other celebrities during the Live-8 performance in support of an end to world hunger, many of whom allowed their declarations to bleed over from understandable economic and political sentiments into dangerously blatant statements of opposition to the Iraq war, the global war on terrorism, and the U.S. generally. As a branch of sociopaths, terrorist leaders possess their own deformed cravings for fame, which makes them particularly susceptible to the false realities projected by celebrities. And if al Qaeda or one of its cohorts indeed mistook the angry but deeply confused language recently bandied about Britain as final proof that the nation’s will to fight terrorism has become mortally compromised, then we may well have our answer for why the London attack occurred when it did: The long-sought-after moment when a seemingly retreating Britain could be fully separated from the U.S. had finally arrived. It only required violent exploitation.

What the result of that violence will be is by no means certain. Early polls suggest the majority of the British public has been sharply and tragically reminded of what its true interests and who its true friends are, whatever the momentary shortcomings of this or that government or administration in London or Washington. Is this only a temporary reaction to outrage? Perhaps, but this much is certain: While we in the West, in our efforts to defeat al Qaeda’s terrorist network, occasionally elect unwise or even duplicitous leaders, and courses of action, there is no lack of wisdom so profound (to paraphrase the often duplicitous FDR) as that produced by fear. As it feeds historical distortion and ignorance, so does fear feed terrorism – indeed, it is terrorism’s very DNA. Citizens afraid of future attacks, along with ignorant protesters and careless celebrities, do no good – do, in fact, the work of terrorists for them – when they divide the members of the most important Western alliance by displaying faintheartedness at a time when the West needs above all to maintain its unity. Just now, that unity must be defined as seeing the Iraq endeavor through to some sort of safe conclusion, if only because al Qaeda have themselves made it clear that their fate hangs on their ability to demonstrate their potency, as well as gain a new home, in Iraq.
[/b]

But whatever the ultimate reaction of the British people to these latest terrorist outrages, we must hope that American intellectuals and celebrities will not emulate Britain's recent exercises in wavering, revisionist behavior. Already there has been unfortunate evidence that the tendency to "blame the victim" after July 7 was greater in America than it was in Britain. Such words and actions only cause the scent that emerges from our own communities to become that of fear -- and should al Qaeda again detect such an odor inside our borders, we may expect attacks such as those that struck our oldest and most trusted ally to once more visit our own shores. And we may expect them very soon.

Mr. Carr is author of "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians," and "The Atheist." He teaches military history at Bard.
0 Replies
 
ican711nm
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 08:07 am
Thankfully, some when confronted by a problem attempt to solve it.

Unfortunately, others when confronted by a problem attempt to deny it and thereby handicap those trying to solve it.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 08:39 am
Ican writes
Quote:
Thankfully, some when confronted by a problem attempt to solve it.

Unfortunately, others when confronted by a problem attempt to deny it and thereby handicap those trying to solve it.


We have a saying in our household: If you would spend 1/10th the energy solving the problem that you spend on whining/complaining/getting mad that you have one, there would soon be far fewer problems.

This of course assumes that one is not pleased that there is a problem to justify his/her whining, complaining, and/or righteous anger.
0 Replies
 
wandeljw
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 08:46 am
foxfyre,

I am not sure the quote from ican is significant. It seems to be part of a continuous loop: "caleb carr....confronted by a problem....caleb carr....confronted by a problem....etc."
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 09:03 am
ReallyWandel? Maybe. But I thought it was a rather good explanation of how hand wringing, whining, and finding somebody to blame (other than the perpetrators of course) is counter productive to solving the problem, and in fact gives encouragement to those creating the problem.
0 Replies
 
revel
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 09:22 am
Foxfyre wrote:
Ican writes
Quote:
Thankfully, some when confronted by a problem attempt to solve it.

Unfortunately, others when confronted by a problem attempt to deny it and thereby handicap those trying to solve it.


We have a saying in our household: If you would spend 1/10th the energy solving the problem that you spend on whining/complaining/getting mad that you have one, there would soon be far fewer problems.

This of course assumes that one is not pleased that there is a problem to justify his/her whining, complaining, and/or righteous anger.


Yea I know George Bush has just so successful at going out and solving problems so far.

Just the act of 'doing something' is not necessarily going to solve any problems. You should have first have an idea what the problem is and then actually set out to have a plan to solving it.

Personally I consider my whining to be part of solving the solution, the solution to getting the ones in charge of making everything worse out of the position to make everything worse.
0 Replies
 
 

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