Target Centermass

Day: September 7, 2004

  • Women Hostages Seized in Baghdad Raid

    The abduction today of two Italian women in Baghdad may prove to be the biggest test to date for Italy and the Coalition of the Willing.

    Armed to the teeth, the kidnappers beat up a hapless guard, dragged a screaming Iraqi hostage by her hair and took off in broad daylight.

    Two Italian women — Simona Pari and Simona Torretta — and an Iraqi man were also abducted when 20 gunmen stormed a Baghdad villa housing the headquarters of two Italian humanitarian organisations today without firing a single bullet.

    The unusual abduction of women is likely to further alarm foreigners already on edge from widespread kidnappings.

    Per al-Jazeera, it appears that these two women were specifically targetted by the terrorists.

    Iraqi journalist Abd Allah Khudair told Aljazeera: “The operation only took five minutes.”

    “A three-car force broke into the organisation’s building and tied the hands of one of the staff and threw the others on the floor”.

    “The militants asked the names of the staff until they reached Simona Pari and the office head, Simona Torretta, who were captured by the militants,” Khudair added.

    At this point, any particular significance of these two is unknown, but the abduction immediately sent the Italian government scurrying.

    Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was to return to Rome on Tuesday for an emergency cabinet meeting following the reported kidnapping of two Italian women in Iraq, officials said.

    Berlusconi, currently in northern Italy, was immediately informed of the abduction of the two, who were working for the Italian charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridge to Baghdad) in the Iraqi capital.

    A top Berlusconi aide has called an emergency meeting of all ministers concerned to discuss the situation in Iraq following the kidnapping of the women, who have been identified as Simona Pari and Simona Torretta.

    ….

    Italy, a strong supporter for the US-led war in Iraq, is still recovering from the execution of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni.

    The kidnapped reporter was murdered on August 26 after Rome refused to bow to demands from the militant group to pull its troops out of the country.

    This was a bold and dangerous move by the terrorists, and there may eventually be no winners in this game. After all, change the nationality and this becomes the possible nightmare scenario that is still looming over the U.S. military after women were allowed on, over or near the battlefield.

    There are many possible ways this can play out for all involved:

    • The terrorists risk an immediate backlash from the muslim community for involving civilian women
    • The Italian government may have to make some hard choices — bail out of the war, deal with the scumbags, or stand firm and risk the lives of women, possibly leading to an upheaval on the home front
    • If Italy stands firm, the terrorists may execute the women, but this will almost certainly have a tremendous negative fallout in the Islamic world
    • It’s a crapshoot how Italy and some other nations would react to such an execution — knuckle under or come out guns a’blazing
    • The U.S. is forced to ride a razor’s edge here, capable of little (barring a storybook rescue), with much potentially gained and much potentially disastrously lost.

    A zero-sum game? Who knows? Perhaps a quick release is the only way to prevent losses for all involved. I’m not even going to pretend to predict the effect of execution videos hitting the internet in this case. My best hopes go out for these women, and the civilized world better pay close attention to how this one unfolds.

  • Arroyo Leading Philippines into Hell

    As if her please-don’t-hurt-us retreat from Iraq (and the accompanying $6 million payoff to terrorists) wasn’t enough, now there’s this little tidbit.

    Philippine President Gloria Arroyo says she has ordered the country’s defense minister to begin work on strengthening military ties with China.

    Ms. Arroyo told reporters Tuesday that Defense Minister Avelino Cruz will travel to Beijing soon to discuss defense and security matters with Chinese authorities and help set a framework for bilateral military cooperation.

  • They Shoot Children, Don’t They?

    In his latest column, Dennis Prager examines the current primative, barbaric state of radical Islam and the validity of “Muslim bashing” as a political hot potato.

    According to The New York Times, when the terrorists took over the Russian elementary school, they shouted “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”).

    Does this surprise you, dear reader? Does it shock you that the people who deliberately attacked a school and then systematically shot and blew up little children did so in the name of Islam?

    Unfortunately, the question is rhetorical. Having targeted little children for death, there is no atrocity, no barbarity, no act of evil that the human race cannot imagine fanatical Muslims committing.

    We have already become almost inured to:

    The slaughtering of innocent human beings as if they were animals while chanting Muslim prayers.

    The reintroduction of black slavery and genocide against blacks.

    The murder of daughters and sisters for imagined or real sexual behavior.

    The stoning of women accused of adultery.

    The burning of Hindu temples and Christian churches, and the destruction of among the greatest Buddhist sculptures.

    The ban on women driving cars or learning to read.

    The idolization of young men who blow themselves up while murdering and maiming innocent non-Muslims — and the theology of sexual rewards in heaven for doing so.

    Prager is not painting with too broad a brush here. He specifically is targeting the Islamist radicals that are a pestilence on the face of our planet.

    It is, of course, only a minority of Muslims that engages in such horrors, but it is only Muslims who are doing all these things. Christians aren’t — even among Palestinians, there are no Christian terrorists. Jews aren’t — and when one Jew did deliberately kill innocent Palestinians in 1994, the rest of the Jewish world was horrified and demonstrated its revulsion in word and deed. Buddhists aren’t — despite the destruction of Tibet by the Chinese Communists, no Buddhists have murdered innocent Chinese, let alone non-Chinese who deal with China.

    Since 9/11, critiques of Islamic radicals and the general silence of non-radicals have been blunted by political correctness. Prager questions how long this should continue after the massacre of schoolchildren.

    … have we reached the point where people of goodwill can ask serious questions about Muslims and Islam? Or are any challenging questions still to be dismissed as “Muslim bashing” or, even more absurdly, “racist,” as if religion were a race?

    The truth is that everyone with a conscience has questions about Muslims and Islam. But the most powerful religion in America, the religion of tolerance, has rendered it almost impossible to ask any such questions.

    Have we reached the point? This must be another rhetorical question, because we reached that point, passed it, and can now barely see it as a speck in the rearview mirror.

    Yes, some people do shoot children, and good people have a right to ask why.

    Exactly!

    However, I disagree with Prager at one point where he states that “the only people asking these questions aloud [are] conservative and religious.” I stand here as an atheist exception, and I’d wager there’s a sizable portion of liberals or non-religious who would concur. After being careful with his brushstrokes on Islam, why did Prager have to go and get paint on me?