the big news today, of course, was the four car bombings in baghdad -- three police stations and a red cross headquarters. 34 people dead and 224 injured, mostly civilians. a fourth police station was targeted, but that one was prevented by iraqi police.
Police officials identified the driver, who was badly wounded, as a Syrian national. "He was shouting, 'Death to the Iraqi police! You're collaborators!' " Sgt. Ahmed Abdel Sattar was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
yes, things are going wonderfully. this caps off a bloody two days in iraq after yesterday's missile attack on the al-rashid hotel, where wolfowitz was staying, as well as the downing of a blackhawk helicopter. and what does bush have to say about this?
"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society."
ahh, the desperate killers who hate freedom. it seems to me that people who can pull off four simultaneous bombings, take out a helo, and construct a macgyver missile launcher to attack some of the most fortified zones in iraq aren't exactly 'desperate.' to me, that suggests that they're well-organized, know what they're doing and have the resolve to carry it out.
but this whole 'worse is better' line is starting to drive me nuts. bush wants positive news shown. 'b-b-but the schools are open.' and even here, in what's probably the bloodiest day since the war sorta/kinda ended, he's basically saying, 'other than that, mrs. kennedy, the parade went pretty well.'
not that i really expect a nuanced position from bush on things like this, but i'd rather have his whole evildoers schtick than this. at least then he's saying that they're nasty people who have some metaphysical drive to kill innocent people. but with this language, it seems that they're still underestimating the enemy. yes, we ran over their barely-fighting army with our high-tech wizardry weapons, but this is that whole quagmire thing we were talking about before we even went in. asymmetrical warfare is a whole nother matter.
or, as rumsfeld put it in his memo, a 'long, hard slog ahead.'
would having a real international force in place prevent stuff like this? i don't know, but i think it would have helped. these attacks, even the ones on the red cross, are still aimed against america. you help the americans, you're just as bad as them, so you're a target now. as long as we're seen as the occupiers, they're going to go after the folks we're working with.
and this keeps getting worse. attacks on american troops have doubled in frequency from 15 a day during the summer to 30. a lot of people don't like us there, and while most iraqis aren't going to actually do anything violent, there are quite a few who have to be turning a blind eye to certain things for these types of events to occur. the longer we're there without true international support, the iraqi's perception of us is going to continue to tank, and that's going to be the biggest failure of all.
it's going to be a long ramadan.
Posted by kilgore at October 27, 2003 09:37 PM | TrackBack