Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Robert Fisk on suicide bombers
Everything you always wanted to know about people who would blow themselves up in the middle of a group of strangers. Napoleon had a dictum, "Know your enemy", but can you ever know someone who sees value in killing himself?
Tip o'the hat to Outta the Cornfield
But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper...Imagine that, Li'l Georgie is sharing his legacy with someone else.
...Not even a disparaging remark about those who would send him on his death mission – that they were prepared to live in this world while sending others like Khaled to their fate – could discourage him. "I am not going to become a 'shahed' [martyr] for people," he replied. "I am doing it for God."
It was the same old argument. We could produce a hundred good ways – peaceful ways – for him to resolve the injustices of this world; but the moment Khaled invoked the name of God, our suggestions became irrelevant. Rationality – humanism, if you like – simply withered away. If a Western president could invoke a war of "good against evil", his antagonists could do the same.
Tip o'the hat to Outta the Cornfield
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So many are screwed for so long in respect to this tactic. Fisk was able to point that out as only he can.
Thanks for the plug. tb
Thanks for the plug. tb
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