Ramadan revenge - a message sent and a lesson learned (Fisk alert)

New Zealand Herald ^ | 10/29/03 | Robert Fisk

[Pokey78]

Understanding the brain. That's what you have to do in a guerrilla war. Find out how it works, what it's trying to do.

Ramadan? An attack on US headquarters in Baghdad and six suicide bombings, all at the start of Ramadan? Thirty-four dead and 200 wounded? Where have I heard those statistics before?

And how could they be so well co-ordinated - not sophisticated, perhaps, but well-timed, down to the last second? And why the Red Cross?

I knew that building, admired the way in which the International Red Cross staff refused to associate themselves with the American occupation - even at the cost of their lives, because the guards outside their Baghdad headquarters carried no guns.

So here's the answer to question one. Algeria. After the Algerian Government in 1991 banned democratic elections that would have brought the Islamic Salvation Front to power, a growing Muslim revolt turned into a blood-curdling battle between the Islamic Armed Group - many of its adherents cut their battle teeth in Afghanistan - and a brutal Government army and police force. Within three years, the Islamists - aided, it seems, by army intelligence officers - were perpetrating massacres against the villagers of what was called the "Blida triangle", a three-cornered territory around the Islamist city of Blida outside Algiers.

And the worst atrocities - the beheading of children, the raping and throat-cutting of women, the slaughter of policemen - were committed at the start of Ramadan.

At Ramadan - newspapers like to call it the "holy fasting month", which is accurate up to a point - Muslim emotions are heightened.

In these most blessed of days, a Muslim feels that he or she must do something important so that God will listen to him or her.

There is nothing in the Koran about violence in Ramadan or, for that matter, suicide bombers - any more than there is anything in the New Testament urging Christians to carry out the genocide or ethnic cleansing at which they have become experts in the past 200 years - but Sunni Wahabi believers have often combined holy war with the "message", the "dawa", during Ramadan.

So what was the message? In Baghdad, the political message of the weekend was simple.

It told Iraqis that the Americans cannot control Iraq; more importantly, it told Americans that they cannot control Iraq.

Even more important, it told Iraqis they shouldn't work for the Americans. Who wants to be an Iraqi policeman this morning?

It also acknowledged America's new rules of combat: kill the enemy leaders.

The United States killed Saddam's two sons (and grandson).

It has boasted of killing al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Yemen, just as Israel kills Palestinians in Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

So was it by chance that the Black Hawk helicopter shot down in Iraq was hit over Tikrit just after Paul Wolfowitz had passed through town?

And the assault on the al-Rashid Hotel - a far more efficient version of the rocket attack more than six weeks ago - almost killed Wolfowitz. He was "a room away" from one of the missile explosions.

The architect of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was almost assassinated by America's enemies. Did they know where he was sleeping in the hotel? Given the number of Iraqi staff in the al-Rashid, probably.

And then there is the Red Cross, the last neutral humanitarian organisation - after the double suicide attack on the UN - which might have provided some communication between the US and its antagonists.

Now it, too, has been smashed.

Some of America's enemies may come from other Arab countries, but most of the military opposition to America's presence comes from Iraqi Sunnis - not from Saddam "remnants", "diehards" or "deadenders" (the Paul Bremer cover-up titles for a real and growing Iraqi resistance), but from men who in many cases hated Saddam.

They don't work "for" al Qaeda. They don't work for Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden.

But they have learned their own unique version of history. Attack your enemies in the holy month of Ramadan. Learn from the war in Algeria. And the war in Afghanistan.

Learn the lessons of America's "war on terror". Go for the jugular. "Bring'em on." Kill the leadership. You're with us or against us, collaborator or patriot. That was the message of yesterday's bloodbath in Baghdad.

[Pikamax]

"Some of America's enemies may come from other Arab countries, but most of the military opposition to America's presence comes from Iraqi Sunnis - not from Saddam "remnants", "diehards" or "deadenders" (the Paul Bremer cover-up titles for a real and growing Iraqi resistance), but from men who in many cases hated Saddam. "

uh.... If the fight is from Iraqi Sunnis, which since Saddam is from that group.. how do they hate him? they were favored BY HIM and this fits the profile that has been known for months that its the sunni that are probably behind some of the attacks.

[xm177e2]

The United States killed Saddam's two sons (and grandson).

They were given a chance to surrender. The grandson went down with a rifle in his hand.

[tet68]

What's the matter Robert? Vietnam not good enough for you any more? Now it's an Algerian Quagmire?

Loser.

[tet68]

Learn the lessons of America's "war on terror". Go for the jugular. "Bring'em on." Kill the leadership. You're with us or against us, collaborator or patriot. That was the message of yesterday's bloodbath in Baghdad.

Right, hang Fisk First!!

[SwinneySwitch]

Ramadan - newspapers like to call it the "holy fasting month", which is accurate up to a point -

It's fasting between sunrise and sunset for a month.

[Arpege92]

So basically, this article is saying that American's and Israeli's are the bad people....not the Palestinians or any Muslim terrorist?

[Steely Glint]

And some of America's enemies come from New Zealand.

[Shermy]

how do they hate him?

the writer is fantasizing. He's in a difficult spot - he wants the anti-Americans to be heroes, but they're not much to work with. He'll think up some better lie in the future.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"And the worst atrocities - the beheading of children, the raping and throat-cutting of women, the slaughter of policemen - were committed at the start of Ramadan. "

OK so the rest of the year - they rape and kill too idiot!

[dennisw]

btttttttttttttt

[txhurl]

And the worst atrocities - the beheading of children, the raping and throat-cutting of women, the slaughter of policemen - were committed at the start of Ramadan.

Don't like this. The same AQ video that threatened fires and houses burning specifically mentions 'cutting your heads'. What with Halloween and all.

Baghdad lost their 'deputy' mayor, too.

[Catspaw]

Little Bobby Fisk goes out to celebrate the Ramadan bombings, wakes up the next morning with a mild hangover and writes this POS.

[SevenDaysInMay]

The Death Cult is our mortal enemy. The cancerous spread of islam was almost not stopped in France and Austria. The Crusades temporarily took back lands invaded by this Death Cult.

Civilization has never destroyed this mortal enemy.

Now is the time to save our children's children from this slaughter.

Jihadies and their lair must be annihilated because you can bet your families' lives that the Death Cult is soon to detonate in our cities and ports.

Their Koran and Haddith are the commands to murder and battle plans.

We win this war or we lose it. Otherwise there will be no peace on earth.

[Sacajaweau]

There are many exemptions to the fasting. They gorge themselves in the early morning and gorge themselves after the sunsets. I don't see any real big deal.

As a note, when we were ready to go into Afghanistan, there was a real big deal about war during Ramadan. Obviously, these damn terrorists don't believe in their own rules.

[facedown]

- any more than there is anything in the New Testament urging Christians to carry out the genocide or ethnic cleansing at which they have become experts in the past 200 years -

What gratuitous bilge.

[Levante]

Seems like this Fisk character is actually blood-thirstily glad of the attacks in Iraq. You can almost feel the burning hatred and his clenched teeth as he wrote this S##t.

What a sorry, pathetic POS.

5.56mm to you, F**ing a$$hole.

[Billthedrill]

Robert Fisk's mask is off now - he once posed as the friend of the Iraqi people and now he's cheering on their murderers. It should be no particular surprise that he's rooting now for people who kill women and children at random - that's precisely what he was rooting for before.

[okie01]

"Robert Fisk's mask is off now - he once posed as the friend of the Iraqi people and now he's cheering on their murderers. It should be no particular surprise that he's rooting now for people who kill women and children at random - that's precisely what he was rooting for before."

Fisk poses as pro-Arab. What really animates him, though, is anti-Americanism.

That he actually has an audience for this drivel is astounding. Even in the Independent...

[ChadGore]

Pathetic how so many liberals consider terrorism an exceptable form of political speach, so much so that they forward the egenda of the terrorist on their behalf.