Targets

Ralph Peters on al-Qaeda's vicious terrorist attack inside Iraq this past Tuesday:

The victims were ethnic Kurd Yazidis, members of a minor sect with pre-Islamic roots...The Yazidis live on the fringes of society...
That's one of the two reasons al Qaeda targeted those settlements: The terrorist leaders realize now that the carnage they wrought on fellow Muslims backfired, turning once-sympathetic Sunni Arabs against them. The fanatics calculated that Iraqis wouldn't care much about the Yazidis.

But the second reason for those dramatic bombings was that al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.

Peters is right, of course, but he fails to mention (or perhaps just takes it as given) that the terrorist's secondary target was hit cleanly as well: the Mainstream Media.

"Ladies and gentleman, now writing for the Washington Post and doing the terrorist's bidding upon request, Mr. Eugene Robinson!"

The next time you hear confident assurances from the White House and its supporters that the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq is working and that something called "victory" is within sight, remember the Yazidis.

The administration says there might be genocide if America pulls out -- but it looks as if genocide has already been attempted.

What I do know is that anyone who says American forces have to stay in Iraq because they're protecting the Iraqi people should tell that to the Yazidis. Those who are left.

Not very convincing, Eugene - but passable, I suppose, as a broad propoganda piece. The terror masters will be pleased...

But let me give you a hint- when even the spitefully anti-American German rag Der Speigel starts writing stuff like this about the Yankee presence in Iraq -

"The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

- perhaps you should rethink your premises; you know, join us here in the reality-based community.

As if any liberal were capable of such a thing...