Arab News Editorial

The Arab News has an angry, pointed editorial that is well worth reading. It echoes many of my feelings about terrorism, suicide bombers, and could well have been written by an American after a terrorist attack on our soil or by an Israeli after the latest bus bombing.

What virtue, what nobility, what sense is there in a cause whose supporters can stoop so low as to write their propaganda in the blood of a child? The only good thing that came out of Wednesday’s horror was that with the death of the bomber there is now one less demented bigot in this country.

Something calling itself the Al-Haramain Brigades, which boasts of links with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, has said it was responsible for the Riyadh crime. For most ordinary people, admitting to such barbarity beggars belief. No civilized person could ever do such a thing. It is clear therefore that we are dealing with men who have lost all decent instincts if they ever had them in the first place. The one emotion that can blind moral judgment, destroy all traces of humanity and lead to the wicked enormities in Riyadh is hatred.
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There are therefore men who could be living close to any of us today who regard the blood baths on Wednesday in Riyadh and Basra as wonderful victories, who rejoiced at the gruesome wreckage they helped create. These, then, are our enemies. They deserve not a moment’s sympathy, not a nanosecond of consideration. Utterly consumed by hatred, they are deaf to reason and blind to the great wrong that they are doing. They dishonor the cause of Islam. They dishonor the dust they walk on.

There is power in anger if it is directed toward combating evil. The Al Quaeda strategy of targeting Arab security forces and civilians seems to be doing a pretty good job of directing that anger.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at April 22, 2004 11:20 PM | TrackBack