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Friday, March 11, 2005Who's responsible for the Carla Sgrena incident? Al-Qaeda, duh.Someone has doubtless made this point, but I haven't run across it so I'll make it here: The other day, an Italian journalist was freed after being taken hostage in Iraq. In returning from her release, her car was fired on and her driver killed. There has been lots of chitchat as to whether the U.S. was at fault for firing too fast, or Italy for not working closely enough with the Americans in arranging the transport of the journalist, cooperation at the checkpoint, etc. But here's the real question: Why would a bunch of soldiers fire on what was obviously a civilian vehicle? Because there's no such thing as an obviously civilian vehicle in Iraq. I haven't seen statistics, but I'm guessing from the news reports that far more people have been killed by obviously civilian vehicles that turned out to be car bombs than have been killed by tanks, which obviously aren't civilian vehicles. Al-Qaeda, in its use of suicide bombers posing as civilians and civilian drivers, violates most of the rules of civilized warfare in a deliberate effort not only to blend in among innocents but also to make innocent civilians appear to be potential "soldiers". As guerrilla strategy, it's an okay tactic if your only aim is to maximize death. But if your aim is to assert by force your legitimate claim on specific territory, it's out of bounds. For Al-Qaeda, nothing is out of bounds since their aims have nothing to do with actually claiming and holding territory and everything to do with assuring that the physical landscapes they inhabit are as barren as the intellectual landscape of their movement. Bottom line: The novelty in this case is that it was Westerners, not ordinary Iraqis, who paid for Al-Qaeda's willingness to make murderers and civilians appear interchangeable. It was Al-Qaeda whose rash of suicide bombers had well-meaning soldiers on edge when a freed hostage's car approached their checkpoint. It is Al-Qaeda that decided to fight the war in such a way that giving ordinary seeming citizens the benefit of the doubt was an invitation to death. It is Al-Qaeda that ultimately bears responsibility for this incident and the many others like it of which we never hear because they involve not showboating journalists with a great new angle on their storyline but mere Iraqi families that must struggle on though loved ones have been lost. 
posted by gbarto at 10:59 PM |
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