Killing Children to Kill: Where is the Outrage?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In a report about the latest violent incidents in Iraq the Associated Press reports about continued violence in Iraq and mentions “a claim by the U.S.military that insurgents used children in a weekend suicide attack…” And Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, said reportedly that “this was the first reported use of children in a suicide car bombing in Baghdad.” But contrary to the military’s terminology, this was not at all another case of “suicide” attacks but rather an even more unspeakable act of terrorism in which two innocent and presumably clueless children were blown up and killed—right after the adult perpetrators had jumped out of the car and fled. What kind of adults does it take to use children as decoys in order to get past a U.S. military checkpoint and then detonate a bomb? Seeing two children in the backseats of the car, the vehicle’s driver and passengers were deemed not suspicious. According to Agence France Presse (quoted in the New York Times) an unidentified American military official said that “bombers parked the vehicle across the street from a school then ran away, leaving the children inside.” Again—this was not a suicide attack--or what I call homicide-suicide mission--but a new kind of cold-blooded murder that killed ten Iraqis—the two children in the car and eight other civilians nearby.

Terrorists tend to adapt their tactics to the counterterrorist moves of their foes. Because women and children tend to be less suspicious than males, women have been enlisted as terrorists even by those organizations that do not practice gender equality. When Sheik Yassin of Hamas endorsed women as suicide bombers, he left no doubt that this was for tactical reasons. And I assume that Yassir Arafat had the same motives, when he told Palestinian women in 2002, “You are my army of roses that will crush Israeli tanks…You will liberate your husbands, fathers, and sons from oppression.” 

But children? The Tamil Tigers have a sad record of kidnapping children and forcing parents to surrender sons and daughters as a means to recruit young blood into their ranks and train them as terrorists. 

And now terrorists or insurgents or whatever they are have embraced the most ruthless tactic of all—killing innocent children in order to kill innocent civilians. According to Iraqi police records, there have been three other known cases of car-bombings in which women and children were used as decoys to get into and park in particular areas. But in these instances, they all got out of the vehicles before bombs were detonated.

The latest car-bombing –not suicide terrorism but cold-blooded homicide terrorism--went a big and inconceivable step further. It just as mind-boggling that there is no strong reaction, no outrage. Where are the outcries to stop this insanity? Where are the voices of reason that speak out against this new terror tactic of forcing children to die in order to kill? As far as I can tell there is mostly silence on this--in Iraq, in the region, and here. Are people everywhere so desensitized that this latest terror tactic  is hardly registered?

Update: Looking through several articles that mention this particular incident, it seems that besides the two children in the car "only" three Iraqi by-standers--not eight as mentioned above--were killed and an additional seven persons injured. This does not, of course, change in any way the horrible nature of the attack.

Comments

[Mike Adams]

Re-read the related articles like your looking at a propaganda piece and see if you still believe this happened. Then ask yourself why "they" were able to fool you the last 2421 times.
Idiots!,
MDA

[tana Nichols]

Ok, maybe I watch to many FBI profiling shows, but this bombing goes against all typical bombings before hand. Does anyone else think another group may be responsible, and no I'm not talking conspirecy theory here. It just doesn't fit the "profile" if I can use this term.

[Brigitte]

I make the distinction because in suicide attacks (and I prefer to call it homicide-suicide strikes and have written on that)the perpetrator kills himself/herself--in this case the perpetrators got away and the what I would think children who did not know what was going on, were killed.
Thanks, though, for you well-taken comment

[Jason Lustig]

Why do you make such a distinction between "suicide bombing" and "cold-blooded murder of Iraqis"? As far as I am concerned, suicide bombing is nothing if not cold-blooded, premeditated murder of the most blood-curdling variety.