I hope I never lose the ability to be appalled:
At about 7:30 PM on July 12, a group of well-dressed young men carrying silenced pistols arrived at an apartment complex in Baghdad’s Eastern Zayouna neighborhood. They went straight to a nearby generator building — Baghdad has generators every few blocks because the electric grid is so unreliable — where men waiting to break their Ramadan fast had watched them arrive on a flickery black-and-white monitor linked to a CCTV feed.
The gunmen told everyone there that they had a warrant for the arrest of two terrorists living nearby, and politely advised them to stay inside for their own safety. The men in the generator building did as they were told — they assumed the new arrivals were from the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS).
But they weren’t INIS. And instead of hunting terrorists, the men went to a brothel housed in a sun-faded building in the complex then murdered the 29 women — all suspected prostitutes — and between three and five men they found inside. The slaughter took 10 minutes. When they’d finished, they went back to the generator building, asked for the security camera footage, and politely apologized for any inconvenience they had caused.
The people in the neighborhood suspect a Shiite militia is responsible.
Sadly, none of us have all that much ability to be appalled as we make little if any note and no comments on the regular and continuing bad days in Iraq such as June 7, 2014: Car bombs kill 52 in Baghdad.
Warning: President of ISW is Ms Kimberley Kagan, see note below. A military historian and frequent collaborator with her husband, AEI fellow Frederick Kagan, Kagan has authored numerous books, essays, and op-eds that look favorably upon long-term U.S. engagements in the “war on terror.”
Today’s headline from another AEI fellow: Ayan Hirsi Ali: Bibi Netanyahu deserves Nobel Peace Prize for Gaza campaign. The enemy has arrived, it’s amongst us. We are our own worst enemy, similar to Netanyahu lacking courage and vision for the 21st century to make and keep Israel safe. Incitement for hatred and bombing civilian population is not the path towards peace, but leads to more war and bloodshed.
I’m not appalled at all. This is what religion is all about. Do you doubt that American religious fanatics wouldn’t do the same if they thought they could get away with it?
Hit a nerve, Paul W?
it’s not what religion is about, it’s what fanaticism is about
Yikes. The loss of life in the region is sickening.
As the one and only Steve Post put it, “Just when you think you’ve scraped the bottom, you find you’re only scratching the surface.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/nyregion/steve-post-sardonic-wit-on-wnyc-is-dead-at-70.html?_r=0
A perfect example of why the USA needs to pull ALL personal out of the Middle East. This is just like any other day there, killings all the time.