The Enemy

They just want to send a message to the government and the world that they are still here.
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This is particularly sick. I'm trying to imagine the thought processes of the woman herself. Clearly her own life and that of (presumably) her child is unimportant compared to whatever she imagines her larger cause to be. Yet the larger cause is simply to "to send a message to the government and the world that they are still here" And 80 random people are gone as a result?
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If we can begin to understand what can drive people to such a state, we will have done far more to address terrorism, than any effort to simply throw our own military weight around.

From the story: she held a young child's hand as she set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid.
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I can't even begin to understand. I don't have any great comment to add to the story, just my continued amazement at the grip religion and poverty can hold on people.
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I could never imagine cutting off my own arm. It is not a sane thought. But that hiker, I forget where I think Utah, found himself trapped under a boulder and cutting off his own arm was his only way of survival. Insane act in once instance, the only sane act in another.
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This analogy helps me put myself in other peoples shoes at times, but it offers me no insight here. I just can't put myself under this "boulder".

Oh, and thanks for the link.......

Now it's Obama's war...

http://www.political-buzz.com/

A few things strike me about this report:
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1) The people carrying out these attacks are doing it because they have been convinced to do so by people who see the violent murder of innocent people as an opportunity to make a political point. The orchestrators aren't fighting for freedom or religion, they're looking to increase their own power.
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2) I have no comprehension of how even the blindest of faith would cause somone to carry a child (their own child??) to its death in this way. What circumstances would possibly cause someone to do this?
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3) Despite there having been a lot of coverage about rebuilding Iraqui infrastructure destroyed during the war and the insurgency that followed (Halliburton, corruption, wasted millions etc.), what's going on about schools in Iraq? I'm not suggesting that education is the silver bullet in every case, but it's going to play an important role if Iraq is going to be able to put this part of its history behind it. There must be a story worth writing on this.

Matt:
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So your authority for that contention is some online source that can't even spell a Cabinet nominee's name correctly? Might want to try again.
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This war was, is and always will be the sole property of the criminals and profiteers that lied our country into it. If you run your car into the ditch the tow truck driver you hire to rectify your stupidity doesn't become the new "owner" of the car.

This Matt I think you will agree this portrays "Obama's War now" in glaring and frank remarks;
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http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/obama-s-war-11263
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I particularly like the ending statement;
"Like the rest of the story rehearsed here, what all this suggests is that Barack Obama does not represent an authentic new “brand” in American politics; rather, he has shown himself to be an exceptionally adept political animal who can adjust to the prevailing political winds with seamless ease. As the election season progresses, it remains to be seen what tortuously defended new positions will be embraced by this consistently political politician, and what price they will exact in his reputation as a principled and courageous new voice."
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Obama does not care about the 5 year old or his delusional mother. If he did he would have already put into place a plan that further stabilized, and created a culture that no mother would put their child into harms way like this. What Obama does care about is his future reputation, especially the opinions of the far left extremists of our own country.

Obama does not care about the 5 year old or his delusional mother
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STFU

On second thought, don't. Post as you wish, sorry to engage.

and created a culture
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Just snap your fingers....eh?

Rusty's hit the mother-lode of comedy today. Mass murder often does that for him.

What people often fail to consider are the pressures a suicide bomber may be under -- for example: perform this act or we will torture and kill your entire family. None of us knows what motivated that woman, but it could very well have been she was acting to prevent something far worse (for her).
Calling her depraved or insane without knowing the facts is as dumb as a bucket of rusty returns.

After reading of the 3 separate bombings, I noticed the title of the blog, "The Enemy", and can't decide what it means exactly. The 3 bombings were so disparate. The one featured were displaced victims of the war, the residual suffering even if things are more stable. I doubt that the woman had the slightest thought of causing more suffering, but only to end it for her, for the little girl, for the other women and children. They would feel nothing after the trigger was pushed and would awaken in a better world.
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The second bombing was in a restaurant, the victims were presumably more prosperous, being Iranian tourists visiting holy sites. A group having little or nothing in common with the woman's victims.
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The third was minor, only 5 fatalaties, but they were political/religious leaders.
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The range and spectrum of "the enemy" seems wide, and definition elusive. Just random thoughts. In the end, I am as saddened and shocked as the previous posters.

"If he did he would have already put into place a plan that further stabilized, and created a culture that no mother would put their child into harms way like this."
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Rusty-if such a plan exist any where can please share it with law enforcement all over the United States. And maybe stem the rash of murder-suicides we been having lately.

Oh, where is Stuart Zechman? Rusty needs him. Now more than ever.

How long has Rusty complained that bloggers have given Obama god-like status, yet he asks why Obama does not do what only God can?

I don't know what possessed a woman to take a child with her to a suicide bombing. I thought people who did these types of things at least did not take love ones with them.

I don't know if in Islam women are promised the equivalent of 72 virgins, but the stories I have read involve women taking the place of other loved ones, or simple revenge. Maybe this woman could not stand the idea of her child trying to live without her. However, I don't know if what possesses these people can be cured.

Their crazies are so much worse than ours. Over here the crazies say and do things that make their intended "victims" point and laugh. Over there...the victims are just gone. Forever.

If you compare Japanese Kamikaze pilots with suicide bombers, you'd find at least one common link between the pilot and the bomber: both of them believe their life is not their own.
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The Japanese Kamikaze believed his life belonged to the Emperor of Japan, a deity for the Japanese people; and if the Emperor commanded it, the pilot would gladly give his life to serve the Emperor's cause.
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The suicide bomber generally believes the same about God. It is God that commands the bomber to use his/her life as a weapon, and it is the twisted logic of those like Osama bin Laden that can convince people that God commands it. The people don't need to be desperate, poor, downtrodden, or persecuted; they just need to have some kind of fervent belief that this is God's war.
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If can convince the masses that this is not God's war, and that God would never command you to do this, then I think Osama bin Laden would find it much harder to recruit.
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And this is why it's so important that we take the high road in this conflict.

"the depraved nature of those who would perpetrate them"
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Fine to say as long as you're not a flaming hypocrite denying the depraved nature of our past admin (i.e. torturers), respons. for 110,000 dead Iraqis (AP report, since 2003). And of course, it can never be said enough, in a war of choice against a nation that posed us no threat, had no weapons and played no role whatsoever in 911. But aside from that, yes, those depraved and violent Iraqis, our "enemies," make my blood curdle. Unleash the gates of hell here in the US for 6 years and see how civilized our fine citizenry would behave.

This is what I would call, shedding crocodile tears by the Americans, just to massage their hurting conscince. Bush had bombed and massacred hundreds and thousands and none in America is willing to have any sympathy for the dead Iraqis. Now the propaganda machine is plastering details of all such bombing incidents, gory and deplorable as they are, are nothing in comparative brutality that Bush/Chenny/Rumsfeld have inflicted on Iraqi people. I am an Indian Muslim, and I hold no brief for Saddam or Bush. But the world cannot be so cynical that it conveniently papers over the war atrocities as if every thing has been in the distant past and the new standards of brutality and criminal attacks has been monopolized by the religious terrorists of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush and his entire neo-con team should be tried in International Court of Justice for crimes. If such atrocities had been heaped on Jews, the world would have been in great turmoil by now. Rest of the world cannot go on, not noticing and reacting to such blatant double standards of justice.

Guesses on why she did it: 1) she will be received in heaven as a blessed warrior 2) some or all of her innocent family/friends were killed/and or tortured then executed by a) american soldiers, and/or american aircraft, b) shia militia c) her family will receive a lot of money from i) iran, ii) hamas, iii) hizbollah upon her death d) she is in a suicidal rage because of all the above.

Americans seem to forget that in our country we have almost daily mass murder/execution of either strangers or close family members, police by other well armed americans that may be far suffering less stress and duress than the woman who blew herself up. Americans will kill perhaps 20,000 of their fellow americans with guns this year.

To think that americans and american with such a murderous history can't seem to figure out why anyone might blow themselves up seems to be forgetting what a "postal" culture we live in right here in the U.S. Perhaps most americans don't have where-with-all to build suicide vests. I think if they did they would.