Strike in Pakistan Fails
Pakistan Demands Apology
Ooops. The bombing of a village in northern Paksitan, apparently done in hopes of killing al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahir, missed its intended target. The idea had been to kill him while he was eating a joint dinner with his hosts in honor of the Feast of Sacrifice (commemorating the story of Abraham and his son).
I presume that the Pakistani government is crying crocodile tears over the strike, which it certainly authorized, and for which it would have held a victory parade if the bombing had succeeded.
As it is, the US has killed at least 18 persons, some of them, it is being alleged, women and children. In this age of global media, we'll no doubt get to see the pictures.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/15/2006 12:09:00 AM
|
Facebook
3 Comments:
I would have thought that more pics of Bush's victims would be more readily available, but it doesn't seem that way.
I don't know if the Pakistani government approved the strike, but you can bet the American government sure did.
I've had it with the "OOPS!! we'zz bee dumb" excuse from US military intelligence and US political intelligence. They really cannot be that dumb.
The logical explanation is that Bush wants Afghanistan and Pakistan and the entire middle east to be in turmoil and chaos, the better to control the oil and gas... and stop it from getting to China and Russia.
It sickened me to read what Bayh, Lott and McCain had to say about this bombing of three homes in another country. Our government officials are terrorists, and this bombing was terrorism, and not a mistake.
They don't give a damn who they kill, and if they wanted to catch and stop al Qaeda, they would be catching them alive... both for the human intell, and to humilitate them in front of the world. What they are doing instead is increasing terrorism, and really, it is not because "we'zz bee dumb agin".
They are not that dumb.
No, you're right - they're not that dumb, though your comments look pretty... shall we charitably say, "uninformed."
The death of innocents is always sad, even tragic, and no civilized leader feels good about that result. (Note that this explicitly excludes our enemies in this war, who exult in the death of innocents...)
Of course, now that we know that at least two, and probably three of al Qaeda's top operations folks *were* killed in this attack, that raises the question of whether there were any true innocents among the dead.
Obviously, any children should (probably) not be considered as enemy combatants, but adult women in such company are, at best, under the subjugation of the males in their lives (and thus could be conceivably considered innocent). At worst, though, they may have been active, thinking supporters of the killers they died with.
As civilized people, we certainly should err on the side of feeling sorrow for the death of any who might have been innocent. But please let's don't blindly assume that all (or even some) of the dead are victims of an evil plot to kill people on the far side of the planet.
Post a Comment
<< Home