A Spectacular
By Cori Dauber
No, it isn't planes into the WTC, but in the context of the way the war in Iraq is being fought, a car bomb that kills more than 100 is without a doubt a "terrorist spectacular." It is an attempt to reshape the political landscape with a single event.
I'm a bit paralyzed since when I got home last night the cable was out (for me, you understand, a form of blindness), but the description here does the job:
Television footage of the aftermath of the explosion showed scores of dead and wounded at the scene. Bodies were being piled into the back of flat-bed trucks and driven to hospitals. Smoke was rising from wreckage.
One can assume that the footage being shown in Iraq is the same as the footage being shown here.
Dozens of bodies could be seen laying on the ground after the blast, and half a dozen ambulances ferried casualties to a nearby hospital, witnesses told wire services. The blast damaged nearby shops and parked cars, and sent panicked people fleeing.
The question is, of course, whether it really will reshape anything at all.
Remember after 9/11 it was heavily discussed that al Queda had made a terrible mistake by assuming that such a devastating blow would lead the American people to react one way, when in fact we reacted another way entirely.
There's been an assumption that Iraqis would respond by being afraid and intimidated, when the election seems to indicate they've reacted by being determined and resolved.
Why is that so hard for Americans of all people to get?
I wasn't going to link to this until I'd had a chance to go out and get the entire article, but this is interesting in light of something Instapundit linked to yesterday. Why do we assume other people will respond to terrorism differently than we ourselves have? |
