Sunday, May 15, 2005

Interesting Perspective

From Powerline. Breaking down the "mystery" of the insurgency.

The NY Times tries to analyze the insurgency in Iraq, the foreign fighters, and figure out what Zarqawi wants. Powerline thinks they are starting with the wrong assumption. They begin with the premise that Zarqawi and company are insurgents with political goals, ie land, governence, etc. They cannot see outside the Vietnam or Algeria narrative where rebels want control of land/government etc. "The Insurgency" has no such goals - their goals are to kill as many people as possible, including themselves, he likens them to Aztec priests who killed their own people as sacrifices to their God. He likens them to a mixture between spree killers and serial killers - spree killers kill as many as possible as quickly as possible with the intention of killing themselves or being killed by police. Serial killers try to elude capture, but kill over time...Powerline paints the picture of terrorist leaders acting like serial killers and the fighters themselves acting as spree killers.

Interesting and coherent POV. The terrorists are making an art of killing.

No comments: