Iraq: Suicide Bomber Kills 121 In Baghdad

23 Responses to “Iraq: Suicide Bomber Kills 121 In Baghdad”

1. Finnpundit on February 3rd, 2007 9:25 pm

   That number, 121, is quite an exact number for Iraqi civil authorities to have already cited, especially if Iraq is in a “mess”, and authorities admittedly have their hands full.

   Most authorities release casualty numbers on a confirmed-in-hospitals basis. With such a big bombing, it just doesn’t seem plausible that the number can already be determined, by any kind of an authority. Rather, it is safer to assume it has been fabricated by journalists.

2. Barsawad on February 4th, 2007 6:27 am

   I am on your site now; my problem was not IE 7, but the LAN Internet connection that I use. I am in Internet cafe, which I rarely visit, using Dial Up and it was quite easy reaching Wordpress.

   I will try to read as many of your posts as I can today, and then see how I can fix my LAN connection settings.

3. a from berlin on February 4th, 2007 8:37 am

   Hmmm.. I can imagine somehow that believing in conspiracy theories “helps” one to keep the blame, the “dark” side, the responsibility for the destruction and killing and what not outside one self. (Being the victim only, you have to be innocent, and have the right to do whatever you want to in the name of defense.. no?)

   But what I do not understand: Are those people who believe in that conspiracy theory not ashamed that they/their people are manipulated so easily even though it is that plain clear in their eyes that they are supporting the enemy by doing it?

   Seems to be easier to get along with the feeling of being helplessly manipulated than to accept one’s own darker spots..

   and then again, maybe I should not argue with logic, because it is illogical anyway and coming from Germany I should know quite something about that mechanism from our history..

4. Andrew Brehm on February 4th, 2007 9:21 am

   “If there was a button I could push that would wipe away all those filthy animals from existance, I would push it in a second.”

   There is such a button and George Bush could press it. But he doesn’t because it would also wipe away all those innocent Iraqis who just happened to live in the terrorists’ current target country.

   Just imagine if there was such a button that would wipe away all the American and British soldiers. I am sure some “peace protester” would press it immediately, no matter how many Iraqis it will affect in the most negative way.

   If there was a button like you envision, that would not affect anyone but the terrorists, it should have been pressed a long time, in the late 1970s; before Iraq’s nuclear project, before the attack on Iran, before Saddam’s war against the Kurds, before his invasion of Kuwait, and before his war against the Shi’ites. What we are seeing now in Iraq is the cooled-down version of Saddam’s Iraq. Journalists even survive to tell the stories these days.

5. a from berlin on February 4th, 2007 2:13 pm

   “If there was a button I could push that would wipe away all those filthy animals from existance, I would push it in a second.”

   somehow this sentence struck me and I am still thinking about it..

   I fully understand what you mean Drima.
   But yet, everytime I read something like that, I have problems with it.
   Why? Because if you just take this sentence (as I just did) and leave away the context, you could place it very easily in the speech of some hatefilled person..

   Don’t get me wrong. Often I would wish that certain persons would not exist, or at least their opinions would be gone (mostly people I feel threatened by, who preach hate against the “immoral west” and the destruction of it), which is pretty much the same as you stated, just less plain put.

   And I also do not believe that by only trying to explain (and excuse) every fanatic deed things really change. (Actually I think the exclusively excusing “position” is just another way to not care and to recede from any responsibility.)

   So I am at a point where I am really not sure, what I would accept for me to do and what not: Where do I take which measures? If I claim for myself to be less fanatic than those I despise, can I wish for their destruction, because I feel right to do that? Or do I just prove with it that I am not really different from them? (just on the “other side”). Or put differently: What is it, that makes one destructive deed morally less bad than the other one in the eyes of an hypothetic objective instance? Or is it not about moral? (Let alone the hypothetic objectiv instance?)

   Part of myself argues that there IS a difference, e.g. when I try to rescue the lives of people or when I try to prevent war (which is not in my power anyway, but what would give me hypothetically a morally accepted reason, for e.g. to kill someone - same old question: What would have been if Hitler was killed? - )…

   But what is this difference exactly?

   I don’t know if this makes much sense. I just realized that your statement made me thinking a lot. and still does.

6. Drima on February 4th, 2007 3:37 pm

   Excuse me Berlin a but me was very frustrated and angry when I read that article. We would all love it if things got better and Iraqis just exchanged hugs and kisses. Forgiveness is a lovely thing but the reality is just too ugly.

7. a from berlin on February 4th, 2007 5:05 pm

   Drima,

   I think you got me wrong. I am honestly asking those questions. Not politely critizising. I am interested in your and others’ opinion.

   I know that the reality is different. We can totally agree on that. And it was not my point to say that we should all hug and love each other (and ignore the “ugliness”)..

   My point is, that I often feel like you do, reading all these news, and that it just struck me when I read your post, that this might not be so different from some radical views as I would wish. I guess I just took your example to follow some thoughts about myself.

   I am sorry if I offended you in any way.

8. Finnpundit on February 4th, 2007 6:19 pm

   Or put differently: What is it, that makes one destructive deed morally less bad than the other one in the eyes of an hypothetic objective instance? Or is it not about moral? (Let alone the hypothetic objectiv instance?)

   It’s this kind of useless musing that makes it so easy to ignore anything Germany might want to say on the world stage. For, in the end, such musings are an excuse to take no action, even when faced with some moral outrage.

   What Germans nowadays will do, though, is critique the actions taken by others, later, imagining that they can substitute themselves in the same roles, when it is more than self-evident that most European welfare-states have been subsumed in a culture of non-action, or, - to put it more succinctly - a culture of cowardice, where taking courageous action is frowned upon.

9. a from berlin on February 4th, 2007 7:14 pm

   Finnpundit,

   I am not sure that I am representing Germany..

   But this -again - is the point I want to make:

   I have a problem with NOT DOING ANYTHING, because I think this means the same as taking no responsibility or not to care in a pc way. You call it cowardice. I guess we mean the same.

   Yet, I am not yet convinced that just killing someone makes the world a better place. And sometimes, killing someone makes the world even a worse place (even if it seemed to be the right person to be killed in the first place.)

   So in your point of view: when is it important and useful (in the sense that something changes for the better) to take extrem measures, and when not?

   Or are those questions just useless musings in your eyes?

   I know that I am more of an “expert” in being extremly cautious and it might be partly because of the place I was born and raised in and it’s history.

   But that’s why I am asking those questions seriously, I want to learn.

10. Finnpundit on February 4th, 2007 9:18 pm

    Yet, I am not yet convinced that just killing someone makes the world a better place.

    Oh, please! That statement is so puerile. Of course killing someone does not make the world a better place. However, killing an enemy does.

    Most people, including Americans, don’t like to become enemies of anyone. However, so many people have chosen to be enemies of Americans (with clear European encouragement, I might add).

    So, if you don’t want to be killed, don’t yell “Death to America!” at the next demonstration. You’ll make the world a better place, that way.

11. europia on February 4th, 2007 11:00 pm

    Well Finnpundit, I think the culture of non-action might be born out of centuries of bloodshed in Europe, as the action policy you seem to support is rather born out of some missonary ideology.
    The useless musings are better (IMO) than the “shoot first think after” policy.
    Then, plz tell me what is the moral outrage you are talking about. Mankind is full of those, so don’t tell me the actions are moral in anyway. Do you want to overcome any ‘moral outrage’ with military action?
    Action always follows interests, which is the best it could be if you keep the long term perspective. Nations/empires/tribes always follow their interests in power, ressources a.s.o. I just don’t like the Hollywood-like attitude (C’mon guys now we’re gonna beat the crap out of the evil…).
    As for your maturity, your statement “Oh, please! That statement is so puerile. Of course killing someone does not make the world a better place. However, killing an enemy does.” is not any better as the one you criticized. Just sharpen your eyes, the world has more colors than black and white… And your statement is crap as it can be followed by the “evils” as well. And if both the good (us) and the evil (them) can justify action with your statement, think about your logic. The friend/enemy frame makes things easier than they seem.

12. a from berlin on February 4th, 2007 11:20 pm

    Finnpundit,

    I hoped to gain some insights, but i guess my hope was inane.

    I think I better stick with my moral musings if such stereotyping is the alternative. Sometimes it may hinder me to act, and yes probably out of fear of becoming guilty and because of the “centuries of bloodshed” europia mentioned.

    Yelling: “Death to America?” sorry, but that’s just plain silly. At least in my case. If I would yell things like that I just could stop thinking at all… or more precisely it would be a sign that I stopped thinking a long while ago.

    My urge to differentiate (for better or worse) is not bound to a certain group.

13. Drima on February 5th, 2007 2:45 am

    a from berlin, no need for apologies at all. Don’t worry about it

14. Andrew Brehm on February 5th, 2007 9:29 am

    And again I try…

    a from berlin, please email me: ajbrehm@gmail.com.

15. a from berlin on February 5th, 2007 11:10 am

    I will try again, too.

    Seems like you did not get my last email?

16. Andrew Brehm on February 5th, 2007 12:25 pm

    a,

    It’s possible. If I don’t know the address it comes from, I might sort it away as spam.

17. Vigilante on February 5th, 2007 4:31 pm

    Let’s think outside the box. The real abyss afflicting Iraq under indefinite Anglo-American occupation might be worse - not to mention more protracted - than it might be following an abrupt American withdrawal. Consider this and this. Mindless fear-mongering got us into Iraq and mindless fear-mongering will keep us there.

18. Finnpundit on February 6th, 2007 3:55 am

    Well Finnpundit, I think the culture of non-action might be born out of centuries of bloodshed in Europe, as the action policy you seem to support is rather born out of some missonary ideology.

    Democracy is a missionary ideology? I can deal with that. As to the centuries of bloodshed in Europe, that is even more evidence that the opinions of Europeans should be discounted on the international stage.

    The useless musings are better (IMO) than the “shoot first think after” policy.

    The coalition forces had 12 years to think before invading Iraq. I think that this is eminently not a case of “shoot first think later”.

    Then, plz tell me what is the moral outrage you are talking about.

    Specifically, I would cite European non-action as 200,000 Yugoslavians were slaughtered in the middle of Europe, - only ten years ago.

    Mankind is full of those, so don’t tell me the actions are moral in anyway. Do you want to overcome any ‘moral outrage’ with military action?

    As it happened, it was military action that put an end to that moral outrage.

    Action always follows interests, which is the best it could be if you keep the long term perspective. Nations/empires/tribes always follow their interests in power, ressources a.s.o.

    What does that say about the sole active support Europe provides for those forces who would like to see Israel exterminated? Exactly what are those interests, if not actions based, - not on quests for power or resources - but on some long-term, hidden desires to exterminate the Jews?

    I just don’t like the Hollywood-like attitude (C’mon guys now we’re gonna beat the crap out of the evil…).

    I don’t like Hollywood either, yet it’s mostly Europeans who lap up the ideologies of people like George Clooney and Michael Moore.

    As for your maturity, your statement “Oh, please! That statement is so puerile. Of course killing someone does not make the world a better place. However, killing an enemy does.” is not any better as the one you criticized. Just sharpen your eyes, the world has more colors than black and white… And your statement is crap as it can be followed by the “evils” as well. And if both the good (us) and the evil (them) can justify action with your statement, think about your logic. The friend/enemy frame makes things easier than they seem.

    Europeans see so many shades of grey in their moral relativism, that they’re essentially in a perpetual fog. As they are in a fog, their opinions about world events can be safely ignored as inconsequential musings.

19. europia on February 6th, 2007 8:26 am

    Finnpundit, democracy has nothing to do with belligerence or not. It’s not an ideology but a way to run a state. I was more pointing to the aggressive expension of democracy, which has not worked often in history. Actually Germany is the only example coming to my mind (though still dizzy right after waking up).

    I am very sceptical about bringing democracy to countries without the will to some kind of expensive Marshall-Plan. IMO the U.S. and UK were just to simple in thinking that an invasion would be enough without thinking any further. Now Iran’s power is at is 20 year high, only by this invasion. And a conflict Iran vs Saudi Arabia is becoming more probable, but anyway that’s the way we all want it, isn’t it?

    Second, we (the ‘white’ man) have to be more careful on the effect of his (our) actions. After having dominated the world for at least 2 centuries, our influence is still very high. Basically, the world is still running under Western influence, excepting Africa and the Middle East where the Western impact is still high. Ironically, the bases for the present day’s conflicts were set by Europeans (British and French) by creating frontiers and nations. Those, combined with limited vital ressources and the youth bulge (rather interesting theory, google for it if u wanna know more; basically it’s about the rising chance of unrest in societies with a high number of males in no ‘positions’, see http://www.worldwatch.org/node/76 ) have IMO lead to the current unstability in ME and Africa.

    By military action, you can make a policy of containing the problems on their territories; however, it’s a rather expensive strategy. Be prepared for having armies anywhere in the ME for the next 15-20 years and getting quite some bodies home… I doubt you will find a majority for this in any Western country.

    The 12 years for thinking were obviously not enough… How comes the US & UK went into Iraq with so little soldiers? CENTCOM wargames had shown in the end of the 90ies that even with 400,000 soldiers, peace was not a safe goal ( http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/index.htm ). Also, the administration was seriously surprised by the guerilla action taking place after the invasion. Add to this that the feared unrest in Iraq (which is happening now) was the main reason for countries of the EU to keep out, I don’t see the action as a success.

    However, I really hope history will prove me wrong. Iraq (and ME) deserves a better future. But I believe it can come only from within. As long as a large part of the Arab strreets believe in conspiracies and rather rally on a common enemy instead of fighting for changes to the better within their societies, I am not too optimistic.

    Concerning former Yougoslavia, I totally agree with you. Just a shame.

    I am not against any form of military interventions or actions, not at all. But I think that it is hard that, using morals as a reason for those actions, to take action in one country but not in another. How do you make the difference? Why not take action against Saudi Arabia? Or Sudan? Is it less morally outrageous? I don’t think so. So we come back to the national/cultural interests… But why hide behind morals? IMO it’s a fake.

    To your critics on Europes palestoine support: US support Palestine as well… I think no country on earth has a white vest concerning arm deals… Neither any country of EU or US (or all the others). Funny thing is that all veto-members of the UN security council are the most important arms traders….

    As for your ‘perpetual fog’ critics, for myself, I prefer knowing being in the fog than believing being above all. Nazis, communists, islamists, crusaders… All knew where the truth was, they were above all. They had no shades of grey, they had an easy perception of the world. And this won’t make the world any better.

    [Sry I didn’t quote anything coz of my missing knowledge on html]

20. Drima on February 6th, 2007 9:48 am

    “How do you make the difference? Why not take action against Saudi Arabia? Or Sudan? Is it less morally outrageous? I don’t think so. So we come back to the national/cultural interests… But why hide behind morals? IMO it’s a fake.”

    And that’s why I dislike the double standards of US foreign policy. Now I’m not saying America doesn’t care. It does care about human rights and many other good stuff but it cares about its economic intersts first and foremost. Democracy in Iraq? Me fully support but I’m not naive as to believe Bush went to Iraq out of pure good moral intentions to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. It’s a combination of self interests and moral issues. However the self interests are on top of the list.

    What about Saudi Arabia? Will Bush ever “liberate” the Saudis? No. Why? Coz the dictatorial regime of al Saud is feeding America with a nice constant supply of delicious oil.

    Now here’s the thing. A country’s foreign policy should be about maintaining that country’s interests. That’s understandable. However what happens when America’s self-interests become the cause of suffering for many innocent people? For me that’s what it all comes down to. Finding the right balance. I believe America can do a better job.

    Finnpundit, you can’t simply dismiss media reports as fabrications and lies. In some cases they might be but not in the majority I believe.

21. Andrew Brehm on February 6th, 2007 10:44 am

    “Will Bush ever “liberate” the Saudis? No. Why? Coz the dictatorial regime of al Saud is feeding America with a nice constant supply of delicious oil.”

    Saudi Arabia is harmless. They neither treat their people as bad as Saddam did his nor do they attack other countries.

    They do support terrorists (like Saddam) and they are a scum (more so than Saddam, arguably) though.

    The economic interest of invading Iraq I do not understand. The invasion cost more than the oil is woirth, surely? Why do so many people believe that the west has a huge economic interest in controlling countries with a GDP per person of less than 16,000 dollars a year? The Arab world is worthless, economically; that’s the sad truth. Oil is not worth that much (if it was Saudis would have more money than Germans not a lot less).

    The point here is that the Arab world is causing the non-Arab world a lot of grief and it has nothing to do with the west’s interest in stealing Arab wealth, because there is none.

    I think once this is understood, the whole discussion changes.

    1. The Arab world is NOT rich, does NOT produce anything really valuable (compared to what western nations have), and the west has NO economic interest in the Arab world.

    2. The Arab world does cause the west a lot of grief which is a lot worse than the value the Arab world constitutes for the world.

    3. The reason the west buys oil from the Arab world (and remember that the oil was NOT produced by Arabs but just happens to lie under the land Arabs control as long as nobody stronger with less scrupels comes along) is not that oil is valuable and needed but because oil is CHEAPER than the alternatives. In short: There is an interest in oil not because it’s valuable but because it isn’t.

    4. Without oil the western world would have cut back on driving and rely on nuclear power more. But we want to drive and we don’t want nuclear power. The simple solution is to buy oil, because oil is cheaper than nuclear power and can be transported in a car.

    5. IF oil EVER becomes valuable, there will be more money available for alternative energy sources. But at the moment research competes against cheap oil; so countries buy oil instead of investing into an alternative.

22. europia on February 6th, 2007 12:46 pm

    Drima,
    I think double standards are not that bad as they are anywhere, look at your private life. I suppose any of us has more flexible or tolerant standards towards his friends or family than to ‘foreigners’.

    The problem is any form of ideology. An ideology always provides the background for a world painted in black and white, good and evil, which is pure bull….t.

    The current US administration is driven by an ideology, preventing it from self-critics (at least they occur far to late) or pragmatism. The main problem is that the US don’t realize how much they are harming themselves by their aggressive, unilateral acting. Even if it’s slower, fighting to get a compromise is often better than taking action solo.
    And as the US depend highly on foreign capital, the loss of the world’s trust in US’s ability to keep the world safe is, combined with the high debts and war costs, highly dangerous. Mostly for the US, unfortunately.

    Andrew,
    I fully agree on most of your points. Saudi Arabia is not dangerous now, but I fear a conflict between Iran and SA, as a kind of proxy of the battle between Sunnis and Shiites. Some preoccupating news can be read, like a fatwa classifing Shiites below Sunnis… I hope that the Muslim world will not get the counterpart of the European middle age, or, even worse, the beginning of the 20th century. However, I am convinced that most of the unrest will happen within the Arab (or Muslim) world and the West won’t be really involved, if not voluntarily.

23. Andrew Brehm on February 6th, 2007 1:55 pm

    “However, I am convinced that most of the unrest will happen within the Arab (or Muslim) world and the West won’t be really involved, if not voluntarily.”

    I hope that if the west WILL become involved, the west will choose a side.

    This conflict can only end if there is a winner.

    If the west supports both sides a bit (on humanitarian grounds or whatever), the conflict will go on forever.

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