Bombings Kill 20 in Saudi Capital
At Least 7 Americans Dead in Attacks Bearing 'the Earmarks of al Qaeda'
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 13--Explosions at three housing compounds here late last night killed 20 people, including at least seven Americans, the official Saudi press agency announced today. The blasts came just hours before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell arrived here to discuss Middle East peace efforts and the war against terrorism.
I don't have much to say about this, except that it was both utterly predictable and further proof that the Iraq adventure was just a sideshow -- albeit an expensive and deadly one.
The real war is where it always has been: in the back alleys and souks, the remote villages and mountain caves of the Islamic world -- a 7,000 mile battlefield stretching from Morocco to Indonesia, with skirmish lines thrown out to Europe and Asia and Latin America and North America.
Dirty wars aren't good television wars -- unless you like looking at footage of cops and bureaucrats standing around in the ruins of shattered buildings. You won't see tanks rumbling past waving palm trees, or F-16s soaring off of desert runways. No propaganda footage of statues being pulled down by Marine APCs. No singing and dancing natives throwing flowers.
Dirty wars usually get lousy ratings.
Which, of course, is why politicians don't like to fight them. There's never going to be a Victory Over Terrorism Day. Shrub's never going to be flown onto the deck of an aircraft carrier to celebrate the fall of Al Qaeda's capital. Self-important journalists in safari suits won't get to do standups in front of Osama bin Laden's looted palace. Think tank nerds won't get rich off consulting contracts with the Terrorism Occupation Authority.
Dirty wars are fought by dirty little men in dirty little rooms with dirty little tactics -- bribery, blackmail, betrayal, torture. Not the kind of thing you want to brag about on the campaign trail. The folks back home might not understand.
But the dirty war is the real war. The only one that matters. And the sooner El Dumbo and his circus ringmaster, the Great Karl, get that into their tiny little brains the better. Because bin Laden and Co. just scored a major victory -- they proved to the world (and to themselves) that they're still alive, and back in business.
I'm sure Shrub will smoke them out -- just like he's smoked out bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and . . .
I wonder if Bush has ever seen the movie The Battle for Algiers.
Three points were made with this latest set of bombings.
1) Take out Afghanistan. Take out Iraq. We'll still find the means to attack you and your supporters.
2) We don't just want the American military out. All Westerners, _all_ Westerners, must leave Saudi Arabia. (And Iraq, and Jordan, and Occupied Palestine, and Israel...) (A question - will this include, over time, all non-Saudis, like the Pakistanis and Filipinos that make up much of the workforce and security services in this country?)
3) The royal family in Saudi Arabia is very, very vulnerable. (This is reinforced by the apparent evidence that the Saudi authorities tried and failed to capture the folks who most likely did this just beforehand, and who apparently were going to attack members of the royal family - they apparently switched to "Plan B".)
Will W and his gang get this message? And can they respond to it without causing a further escalation?
I wonder if Bush has ever seen the movie The Battle for Algiers.
Shrub: Wasn't that the one with John Wayne and the Green Berets?
Yes, one more with the "Earmarks of al Qaeda." A vehicle loaded with a bunch of explosives plowing into some structure with Americans or westerners in or expected to be in the structure. Always the same MO, except for 9/11. 9/11 was high concept and the others have all been such garden variety bombings. They are so different in kind that it is hard to believe that they come from the same place.
By "American Justice" I'm reasonably sure that Bush is referring to the sort of justice meted out by lynch mobs in the Old West:
Wanted Dead or Alive (and they better be dead).
Get a rope, saddle up the posse, and let's ride!
Got this quote from the Agonist
President Bush vowed to hunt down the attackers. "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate, and the United States will find the killers, and they will learn the meaning of American justice," he said during an appearance in Indianapolis.
Now, call me a pathetically naive, but shouldn't they be finding the meaning of Saudi justice? It appears that Bush truly believes in the primacy of the USA, no matter about the pesky concepts of sovereignty and jurisdiction.