Stand firm in Iraq/Senseless Slaughter

IT is time for supporters of a democratic Iraq to take the offensive, as US President George W. Bush did last week. Certainly, Mr Bush made noises about bringing troops home as the Iraqis learn to defend themselves. But the President made it plain he will not abandon Iraq. It was the only statement he could have made. To have given any indication he would leave Iraq to a sectarian conflict, unleashed by the American campaign to free the country from the ineffable brutality of Saddam Hussein, would have been unconscionable. And it would have encouraged the terrorists to do their best to disrupt the national elections scheduled for December 15. As it stands, while they have no hope of forcing the elections to be abandoned, or deterring millions of Iraqis from voting, the terrorists will do their best to kill as many soldiers, candidates and ordinary electors as they can in the next two weeks. Religious zealots in the service of al-Qa'ida and its evil ilk who want Iraq to become a theocracy, Sunni extremists who fear a government dominated by representatives of the majority Shia faith, and holdout supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime all have no choice. Their causes are irrevocably doomed once a permanent government, elected by Iraqis for Iraqis and holding power according to a democratically approved constitution, is in power. And that process looks like beginning in just 14 days.

But while there is no chance that terrorists can force the US out of Iraq in a stand-up fight, or even stop the ballot, they can still win control of Iraq if the Americans lose their stomach for the struggle. In the US, comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam have long been on offer, but cases for abandoning Iraq are beginning to be made by sensible people in the highest places. Last month, senior congressional Democrat John Murtha said US troops should be pulled out in six months. And as The Australian reports this morning, senator Hillary Clinton, a politician with an acute ear for electoral attitudes, is moving away from her previous support for the struggle. This is bad news for Iraq. While many, perhaps most, Iraqis dislike the presence of an American army in their country, they do not endorse the ambitions of the terrorists. Certainly, ordinary Iraqis have got the hang of the democratic process and have already voted twice by the million in elections sponsored by the US. And virtually none of them would welcome a return to the type of tyranny endured under Saddam. Rebecca Weisser's report on the crimes of his regime in The Weekend Australia made quite clear the reasons why almost all Iraqis will require a government that is accountable to the people. The fact that the terrorist tactics of choice are suicide bombings and small-scale ambushes demonstrate they have no popular support.

Iraq is nothing like South Vietnam, where the invaders from the north had the support of insurgent militias. If the US sticks it out and if the new Iraqi government can win community support and take on the terrorists with its own forces, we will see the first Muslim democracy of the Middle East. But with American politicians starting to talk of evacuating, there is a possibility the Vietnam metaphor may turn out to apply in Iraq, but not in the way its adherents imagine. For the US to announce it was leaving would ensure endless strife with a minority of zealots murdering or imprisoning all who stood against them, as happened after the fall of Saigon. To abandon Iraq would be a crime against people who have endured too much. And it would signal to terrorists everywhere that the US carries a big stick, but does not have the stomach to use it when its friends need help.

THERE is something terrible and troubling about the death of Muriel Degauque. She died in Baghdad last month after entering into a suicide pact with her husband to separately kill themselves, and as many other people as they could in the process. While the details are unclear, it seems, mercifully, the only lives they took were their own. So, Degauque's name will now be remembered, if at all, as just another foot soldier in the cause of terror, prepared to murder and die for no explicable reason. Even though her husband was a Muslim, he was born in Belgium to Moroccan immigrant parents and seems to have had no contact with the conflict in Iraq. And Degauque was Belgium-born and bred. There is no doubting her life was worth any more or any less, than that of any other perpetrator or victim of terror attack. But this does not dictate that we ignore why this otherwise anonymous, and apparently inoffensive, woman embraced a fatal cause with which she had no direct connection, and determined to kill people who had done her no wrong.

Certainly, Degauque was far from the world's first female suicide bomber. The nationalist Tamil Tigers have sent women to their deaths as part of the movement's campaign for an independent state in Sri Lanka. The Kurdish PKK organisation has used teenage girls for terror attacks in Turkey. In the 2002 Moscow theatre siege, some of the assailants were Chechen women, with orders to blow themselves up and murder hundreds of hostages in the act, if security forces attacked. And Palestinian terrorists have used young women as suicide bombers. All these actions are utterly unforgivable and completely pointless. Murdering innocent civilians is beyond contempt and no government intent on maintaining its authority will ever bend in the face of terror. But while the acts are awful, at least the causes that motivate them -- almost always demands for some sort of ethnic autonomy -- are explicable.

But what was Degauque doing? It certainly appears she had embraced Islam with all the zeal of a convert. So do many others without becoming murderers. Perhaps Degauque's husband convinced her that Islam was at war with the rest of the world and she should die a martyr's death. Perhaps she set her own course to her awful end. It is likely we will never know. But what is plain is the tragedy that befell this young woman who so lost touch with reality, and any sense of humanity, that she chose to kill in a cause that assumes all who think differently are the enemy. Last month, al-Qa'ida sent a married couple to murder other Muslims in Jordan. The husband's bomb went off, the wife's did not. But Degauque died. She died in the service of a brutal, stupid cause that dresses its nihilism and bloodlust in a false cloak of piety. Her death served no purpose at all. There seems to be no doubting Degauque's commitment, but serving such a senseless, murderous cause merits no respect.

"To abandon Iraq would be a crime against people who have endured too much. And it would signal to terrorists everywhere that the US carries a big stick, but does not have the stomach to use it when its friends need help."

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An excellent editorial. Hits the nail on the head.

There seems to be no doubting Degauque's commitment, but serving such a senseless, murderous cause merits no respect.

To be sure, we had neglected to consider this terrorist's COMMITTMENT!!! Perhaps they will have on her grave marker a few lines attesting to her COMMITTMENT!!!

COMMITTMENT to tearing people asunder and of shooting ball bearings in ravaging paths through bone and tissue of innocent men, women and children who had collected to celebrate the great event of a holy marriage.

And who would have supposed that "such a senseless, murderous cause merits no respect." No, baby doll, it merits white-hot loathing for the vile, evil act that it was and is.

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