The massacre at Mustansiriya
(“Just another day in the life and death of Iraq XXXI” at The Reaction.)Â
Yesterday, as reported by the Post, it was Mustansiriya University:
The coordinated detonation of two bombs during the after-school rush at a Baghdad university killed at least 60 people Tuesday and wounded more than 140 in what university officials described as one of the deadliest attacks on academia since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Reuters currently has the death toll at 70, “many of them young women students”. “In all, at least 105 were killed in bombings and a shooting in the capital” yesterday.
The BBC also has it at 70, with 170 wounded. “Pictures from the campus showed a scene of devastation, with wrecked and blackened vehicles scattered across a wide area.”
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It isn’t enough for Prime Minister Maliki to say that “a hopeless group of Saddamists and extremists” is to blame. To imply that the Sunni insurgency is “hopeless” is only to belittle it, to misrepresent it, perhaps even to misunderstand it. This from a Shiite puppet with ties to Sadr. It may be true that Sunni insurgents perpetrated these horrendous acts today, but what is to blame overall is not one side of the sectarian divide or another, for such blame only deepens the divide, but the sectarianism itself, the culture of violence that has been unleashed as a result of America’s botched war and occupation and that cannot be controlled by a government that lacks both legitimacy and authority.
Perhaps Iraq is beyond repair. If so, the violence will continue and perhaps worsen. (And I suspect it will.) But it would help if the Iraqi government weren’t itself a sectarian offshoot and if there were greater understanding on all sides of the nature of the sectarianism that, unleashed, results in the mass murder of innocent students at a university.
There is more than enough blame to go around.
3 Responses to “The massacre at Mustansiriya”
“would help if the Iraqi government weren’t itself a sectarian offshoot ”
But that’s how Govt. works over there. That’s why the US backed the BATH party over the Shites originally. It’s about dividing and conquering. Iraq was never a country 100 years ago anymore then Saudi Arabia was. The divisions, mostly set up by the British was to ensure competing factions held oil and sea access. Iraqi’s have very little sense of national unity. IT IS NOT AMERICA. Do you get it? It doesn’t work the same.
The ignorance of history is amazing not only among Bush but Conservatives as well. Have none of them ever read a history book? I know I have read comments that Senators didn’t know the difference between Shiite and Sunni before or after the US Attack on Iraq.
Did those who supported the war think we would invade and build McDonalds and Open shopping malls?
The people of Iraq have paid a horrible price for the idiot President and his ‘conservative’ comrades invasion of a country that never did a thing to this country.
If Karma is real, then the USA has a shit storm headed its way for this murdering and destruction and ignorance and arrogance. Perhaps we will finally learn to leave the world alone and focus on making this country better. What a waste of life and money and political capital.
You’re right, m, and shockingly we still can’t seem to stop the “idiot” from throwing more troops at the problem.
Michael-A few questions to help me understand this post:
You don’t think the Sunni insurgency is hopeless?
You seem to partially absolve the perpetrators of this crime and put some of the blame for it on Maliki and the US. Am I reading that correctly? If not, why?
I think I strongly disagree with you, but I truly want to understand what you are saying here. Thanks.