A Solution to Suicide Bombers?

This is an article with a theory around the "death squads" that are being reported in Baghdad.

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In a sense, the great new weapon, the suicide bomber—which had seemed to all the world to be irresistible—has, like all weapons, shown its fatal flaw. ...If civil society finds itself threatened by utter chaos, it may resort to free-enterprise war against its enemy. By definition what it does then cannot be law-abiding or approved by its own government; it is in Hobbes' state of nature; but it can be a kind of savage rationality that might precede law.

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The change is radical. Whereas the Wahhabi/Baathist killers are indiscriminate in whom they kill, as long as their victims may include Shiites or at least people who might have voted in the elections, the death squads are quite focused in their aim. There is all the difference in the world between bombing a marketplace and shooting a man you have identified and chosen. Reason—even a vile and brutal reason—can be found in the second, where it was absent in the first.

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But death squads are rational, in their own horrible way. They may prove, as they did in Latin America, to be a pretty effective method of wiping out implacable enemies of social order and preparing the way for democratic and law-abiding government. In living memory almost every decent and legal regime in Latin America was preceded by a chaotic period in which ordinary men armed themselves with guns, said goodnight to their families, and went out in groups to kill some local dissident. That period was a bit further back in the past for the French, the English, and the Americans. But no nation can be shown to have reached the rule of democratic law without it. The work of the vigilantes is the hideous and dark crime that Socrates and the Greek tragic dramatists hinted must underlie all civilization. That crime is indeed a crime, and its perpetrators must stand trial for it, whether before God or some human tribunal. But it is possible that true civil self-government can only be established with its aid.
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I don't condone the vigilante death squads, but I can see where it comes from. I don't see where it ends. It's flirting with the devil. Hopefully the squads can refrain from the possible next step in this game of power - the step of gaining control of government. If this is a good Samaritan act, then it should vanish when the bad guys are gone. If not, the government will have a newly trained enemy to fight when the former bad guys are gone.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Here is a short article by Victor Davis Hanson about how the US won't act in Darfur because of the state of the American people after Iraq. Action in Dafur would be far more difficult to justify. The only reason to go in would be to stop a genocide. There's no immediate danger to the US. You cold argue that letting Darfur/Sudan turn into a terrorist state is a reason to stop this situation. But after having multiple sources for information that Iraq could, at any moment, or already have, passed WMD to terrorists, then discovering that they were not there when we arrived, there's no chance we can justify an invasion of Darfur.

Darfur -— the Good Iraq

don't give up on them....

... it's going to take time. Follow Iraq the Model for an honest view from inside Baghdad.

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There is one video I wish I can find on the web. It's a short video that was shown on al-Iraqiya last Friday evening and was replayed several times that night.
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It's about a police station somewhere in Iraq, the place was about to be hit by a suicide bomber riding a vehicle laden with explosives.
The driver approaches the entrance to the station which is surrounded by concrete walls. Several police officers open fire from their ak-47's on the incoming suicide bomber but he keeps closing in.

As the vehicle passes through the gate and past the last barricade all of the officers run away seeking shelterÂ…except for one extraordinary man.
One police officer held his position and was still standing in the way of the terrorist and kept on firing his rifle at the windshield until the vehicle was just meters from the officer, thenÂ…BOOM.
End of videoÂ….

I watched the video over and over again and my amazement grew with every time I watched itÂ…this is incredibleÂ…this is heroicÂ…this is happening.

The "uncommon valor" of Today

This post at In From the Cold begins by discussing a NY Times report on the latest casualty count in Iraq. Then it moves on to a little perspective. I feel very strongly that the sacrifices being made in Iraq are leading to a brighter future, just as those who died in WWII died for the our present. The casualty comparison to previous wars is astronomic. This is a different war, but yet, it is still war. And soldier will die. We are grateful for their sacrifice. And will never forget what they have died for.

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Obviously, the loss of 3,000 military personnel since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a tragedy for a society that values (or should value) all human life. But those casualties should also be weighed in the context of history, and our own, collective sense of what constitutes an appropriate level of sacrifice in defense of our freedoms.

That's why Clint Eastwood's new film, Flags of Our Fathers, is being released at exactly the right moment for American audiences. Based on James Bradley's best-selling book, Flags recounts the historic flag-raising during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. According to early reviews, Mr. Eastwood's film is hardly a paean to war; in fact, it is unflinching in its depiction of the carnage of battle, and the long-term effects of the Iwo campaign on the men who made it through, most notably, the three surviving flag-raisers. It's also worth noting that the current total of combat deaths in Iraq (2300) represents less than half the number of Marines and sailors who died in a single month on Iwo Jima. Marines on Iwo accounted for half of the Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to the USMC during World War II. After the battle, Admiral Chester Nimitz observed that "uncommon valor was a common virture" among the Marines who took that island.

Six decades later, the same could be said of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines now battling terrorists in Iraq. As they carry the fight to the enemy, we should remember their sacrifice, just as we remember the courage of the men who liberated the Pacific during World War II. We should also remember one of the enduring lessons of Iwo Jima and other past campaigns: valor, sacrifice and progress cannot be quantified in terms of a casualty counts, no matter what the NYT might believe.

Legend or Reality in North Korea

I have a friend who traveled south-east Asia about 3 years ago. He told me that there are parts of his area who truly believe that Americans kill babies and drink their blood. Could the following story be a similar example of urban legend, or is this the truth about the North Koreans? There is enough doubt to believe it. (HT: Austin Bay)

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THE North Korean refugee had one request for her captors before the young Chinese soldiers led her back across the steel-girdered bridge on the Yalu River that divides two "socialist allies".

"She asked for a comb and some water because she said that if she was going to die she could not face going to heaven looking as dirty and dishevelled as this," recounted a relative of one soldier who was there.
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The soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand " the soft part between thumb and forefinger " with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash.

"She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village," the soldier later told his relative. "Then they dragged her away."

...“I’ve heard it a hundred times over that when we send back a group they stab each one with steel cable, loop it under the collarbone and out again, and yoke them together like animals,” said an army veteran with relatives in service.