Posted on 03/27/2007 2:33:19 PM PDT by neverdem
I never thought we could see a new form of evil. After the gas chambers of the Holocaust, the tens of millions murdered in the Gulag, the forced starvation in the Ukraine, the hideous medical experiments on people by the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, the torture chambers in all police states, I had actually believed that no new forms of evil existed.
I was wrong.
Of course, for sheer cruelty, one cannot outdo the Nazis; no depiction of hell ever matched the reality of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But while Islamists and Baathists in Iraq have not devised new forms of torture – there probably are no new ways left – they have devised a new form of evil: murdering, maiming and torturing as many innocents among their own people as possible.
I do not know of an analogous form of evil. When the Allies conquered Nazi Germany, disaffected Nazis did not go around murdering and cutting off the heads of fellow Germans in order to make the Allies leave. Nor did disaffected Japanese blow up Japanese students so as to make the American occupation of Japan untenable.
Here is the latest example of this new form of evil as reported by the Associated Press: "Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, said . . . the vehicle used in the attack [on Iraqi civilians] was waved through a U.S. military checkpoint because two children were visible in the back seat. He said this was the first reported use of children in a car bombing in Baghdad. 'Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back,' Barbero told reporters in Washington."
These same "insurgents" routinely blow up children who line up to receive candy from U.S. troops. Likewise, college students are targeted for death, as are men lining up to apply for civilian jobs, men and women attending mosques, physicians in hospitals, and so on. The more innocent the Iraqi, the more likely he or she is to be targeted for murder.
I submit that there was no way to anticipate this. And no one did. This includes all those who predicted a civil war in Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis. I include myself among those who predicted savagery in Iraq. On a number of occasions prior to our invasion of Iraq, I recounted to my radio listeners this chilling story:
As a young man, in 1974, I was riding on a bus traveling from Beirut to Damascus. The man I sat next to was an English-speaking Iraqi whom I asked at one point in our conversation, "Can you describe your nation in a sentence?" "No problem," he immediately answered. "We Iraqis are the most barbaric people in the world."
I obviously never forgot that man's words, and therefore anticipated great cruelties in Iraq. But neither I nor anyone who predicted a civil war had so much as a premonition of this unprecedented mass murder of the men, women and children among one's own people as a military tactic to defeat an external enemy.
It is, therefore, unfair to blame the Bush administration for not anticipating such a determined "insurgency." Without the mass murder of fellow Iraqis, there would hardly be any "insurgency." The combination of suicide terrorists and a theology of death has created an unprecedented form of "resistance" to an occupier: "We will murder as many men, women and children as we can until you leave." Nor is this a matter of Sunnis murdering Shiites and vice versa: college students, women shopping at a Baghdad market and hospital workers all belong to both groups. Truck bombs cannot distinguish among tribes or religious affiliations. If America had to fight an insurgency directed solely against us and coalition forces – even including suicide bombers – we would surely have succeeded. No one, right, left or center, could imagine a group of people so evil, so devoid of the most elementary and universal concepts of morality, that they would target their own people, especially the most vulnerable, for murder.
That is why we have not yet prevailed in Iraq. Even without all the mistakes made by the Bush administration – and what political or military leadership has not made many errors in prosecuting a war? – it could not have foreseen this new form of evil we are witnessing in Iraq.
That is why we have not won.
There are respectable arguments to be made against America's initially going into Iraq. But intellectually honest opponents of the war have to acknowledge that no one could anticipate an "insurgency" that included people leaving children in a car and then blowing them up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dennis Prager, one of America's most respected and popular nationally syndicated radio talk-show hosts, is the author of several books and a frequent guest on TV shows such as "Larry King Live," "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Hannity & Colmes."
One important distinction, these people are leaving their OWN children in the car and blowing it up. Its not like they are leaving some American or Israeli children in the cars to be incinerated. They are killing their own people. That is not a civil war and it is not an insurgency. It is terrorism.
If the terrorsts prevail it's because they are willing to do anything no matter how disgusting and they are all covered in the Koran.
I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.
I am growing weary of people using the word "crazy" when they mean "evil". There's nothing crazy about the tactics that these sub-humans are using. They know what they are doing and have all their faculties inhabited by EVIL. Once again Dennis Prager throws down some moral clarity.
Don't forget the effect on the msm, for them it's like gas on a fire....
Oh this is Prager--didn't even notice the author's name.
Ping--I think you often post Prager articles.
"One important distinction, these people are leaving their OWN children in the car and blowing it up. Its not like they are leaving some American or Israeli children in the cars to be incinerated. They are killing their own people. That is not a civil war and it is not an insurgency. It is terrorism."
Yeah....!!!
Don't these BARBARIANS know that the proper way to kill your own children is at a nice, clean, government funded ABORTUARY....????
Heck, we're ahead of them by MILLIONS...!!!
We either become what we are fighting or we lose.
The lesser of two evils?
[...have eternal sex with 72 virgins.]
The good part is they can only have sex one time with a virgin, after that, they are used goods. I guess if they pace themselves they could have virginal sex for a month or two.
According to the Quran, the virgins regrow their hymens each night, so they are virgins the next morning. I am not making this up - this is what they believe. So they never run out of "virgins".
Holy crap, they must be the most gullible and insecure men in the universe.
Which "these people" are you talking about? and how are they "their own" children?
The terrorists who used these children in the bomb - we don't know who they are. They might not be Iraqis for example.
And the children were probably kidnapped, for example from an orphanage. The "insurgency" has been known to use mentally retarded children before.
To say "these people" are killing "their own" children is not an accurate description of such a scenario.
In my more cynical moments I wonder if whether "Islam" is little more than an externalized inadequacy complex.
BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.