Attack, Counterattack
The al-Qaeda military emir of Mosul was killed by Coalition Forces, while MNF-Baghdad uncovered a large bomb-making factory in Baghdad. Bill Roggio reports that suspects in the Samarra mosque bombing have been arrested. They are reported to be members of a provincial police unit assigned to guard the Mosque.
If the suspects turn out to be guilty it will demonstrate yet again how skilfully al-Qaeda can use bribery and intimidation to suborn accomplices. The masterful use of both terror and money was also in evidence in the attack on a Lebanese MP believed to be masterminded by Syria.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/13/2007 07:06:00 PM
4 Comments:
The analogy of a cancer within humanity is inescapable. Worse, a cancer virus.
A general term for about 100 diseases characterized by ... tumor, can invade and destroy surrounding normal tissues. Cancer cells from the tumor can spread through the blood or lymph (the clear fluid that bathes body cells) to start new cancers in other parts of the body (metastases).
www.cancerlinksusa.com/cancer/young/glossary.htm
Like cancer, this enemy has no purpose... but more, and more virulent cancer - it doesn't do the body any good, just all bad. The unlucky body, or in this case state full of 25 million bodies, can not resist it.
In this case, it's a cancer that spreads like a virus of foreign suiciders.
It must be cured, mustn't it? If not now, or if not in this place, when, where?
Perhaps this disease will die out as many if not most virulent diseases do, by killing its host. Maybe we can wait for that to happen, for another 1,400 long ones.
Many comments in the last few days appear to have given up on the prospects for an amicable solution to the current difficulty. Some are resigned, just waiting for a smash. Others are actively aggressive in the "let's finish them off" mode.
That's pretty sad. And sometimes I wonder whether I haven't contributed to the tone. But I think there ought to be a difference between accepting the difficulty of the situation and despairing. But maybe there's real cause for optimism because the war has managed to surface issues which have been buried by politics and dishonesty for so long. Not just by the Western media, but by all the conspiracy theories sold in the Arab press as well which are used to cover up real problems.
Those issues are now on the surface beyond the possibility of plausible denial. I think of some of the bloggers in the Middle East and see how desperately some of them are to find a way to handle these terrible issues without recourse to unlimited violence. Of course none of this guarantees a happy ending. But it may mean at least that we are all of us, infidel and otherwise, starting to get on the same page, even if that page is pretty ugly.
We don't think about the problems of our enemies.
Syria and Iran think that their borders can only expand outwards. We should inform them that, having themselves declared their borders provisional, they are more likely to collapse inward than expand outward. This my lead the cooler heads in these regimes to think about promoting stability.
Right now the message to Syria and Iran is "You cannot loose."
Syria can be split apart. Damascus can join Lebanon in a way the Assad regime will not like (as the "hinterland"). The Sunni areas can join Jordan and the Sunni triangle of Iraq. The traditional Shia Arab regions of Iran can join the Shia Arab regions of Iraq. The Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq can become an autonomous region of Turkey. Persia can become an oil poor nation full of energetic and free people. And so on.
In other words, the current regimes in Iran and Syria will loose, not win, if they continue on their chosen path.
Upon reading that the suspects are from apolice unit, one or two things jump to mind immediately - and perhaps reveal that I spent too much time in the ME.
First, the police are widely held to be infiltrated by Shi'a militia-types. Isn't there some likelihood that more radical elements could have done this in the interest of creating chaos which would allow them to further their particular political goals - or or even more mundane criminal activities? There have been reports of crminal syndicates moving into the police as well.
Second, my next thought is that this is an action conceived in Iran. The powers that be there, while Shi'ite, have not hesitated to trespass against their own people and institutions. I don't think they would hesitate to destroy even a sacred mosque if they could justify it to themselves as serving the greater goal.
Which isn't to say that AQI is not behind the bombing either.
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