"Out of concern for the safety of Time's staff"

You've probably already seen this photo sequence [via Charles Johnson] of a would-be suicide bomberette foiled at an Israeli checkpoint in her mission to blow herself up in the plastic-surgery ward of the Israeli hospital that had been treating her for burns. [We've flip-flopped the sequence, read in the Middle East right to left, to make it more immediately intelligible to our readers.] Why can't they just blow themselves up and leave the rest of us alone?  It's akin to those men who murder their wife and children and then turn the gun on themselves. Presumably it has to do with making a statement, however pathologically conceived: The importance of being noticed. As always, all about me.

"The first step is to remove the Americans from Iraq," he says. "After we have achieved that, we can work out the other details," 20-year-old deep thinker/suicide-bomber-in-waiting Marwan tells Time reporter Aparisim Ghosh re his plan to make the world safe for theocracy by blowing up as many Americans and infidel Iraqis as possible:

"First I will ask Allah to bless my mission with a high rate of casualties among the Americans," he says, speaking softly in a matter-of-fact monotone, as if dictating a shopping list . . . "The most important thing is that he should let me kill many Americans."

"Among the embittered population of Iraq, it's not hard to find young men who talk the terrorist talk, boasting of their willingness to serve as human bombs," avers the credulousTime reporter:

It's hard to judge the speaker's sincerity. But the latest surge of suicide operations proves there is no scarcity of volunteers to become the most lethal weapon Iraq's insurgents have.

Not.  First of all, until you talk with beg-to-differ types like Baghdad dentist/blogger Mohammed of Iraq the Model, don't tell us about "the embittered population of Iraq." The population of Iraq has a range of viewpoints -- just like any population -- along a broad spectrum from embittered to hopeful to determined. Second of all, the reporter self-contradicts in the next paragraph:

And yet, despite the frequency and deadliness of their attacks, almost nothing is known about individual bombers . . . Among the few who have been named, most are foreigners, many from Saudi Arabia.

Wait a sec.  We thought you said there was no scarcity of volunteers in the native population.  Oh, never mind. Here's the premise we're asked to accept:

While some suicide bombers in Iraq have left behind videotaped testimony, Marwan is the first to tell his story before carrying out such a mission. He spoke to Time in Baghdad on orders from his commander.

And out of concern for the safety of Time's staff, no attempt was made to track his whereabouts after he left.

"Out of concern for the safety of Time's staff." Isn't that special?  What about concern for the safety of the innocent victims of Marwan's future mission? More evidence of the adolescent gang mentality that energizes terrorist pawns like Marwan:

For the deeply pious Marwan, his colleagues in Attawhid are now closer to his heart than his family or former friends. "The jihadis are more religious people," he says. "You ask them anything -- anything -- and they can instantly quote a relevant section from the Koran" . . . He has also embraced the jihadist worldview of one global Islamic state where there is, in Marwan's words, "no alcohol, no music and no Western influences." He concedes that he has not thought deeply about what life might be like in such a state; after all, he doesn't expect to live long enough to experience it.

"He doesn't expect to live long enough to experience it." But it gets even better:

According to Time's contacts close to insurgent groups, the bombers have little or no say in planning their operations. The logistics -- choosing targets, checking out the site, preparing the bomb-laden vehicles or vests -- are left to field commanders and explosives specialists. It is not unusual for a bomber to be told about the details of a mission mere minutes before launching the attack. Marwan says he thought he was going on his operation when his commander sent him to meet Time.

Meeting your maker, meeting Time? Suicide missions can happen at any time.

Comments

[goomp]

As a member of the so called 'greatest generation, I have the decency not to give written word to the generation that produces Time.

[Frank Whist]

Umm, where's the beef? I read the article and thought, well, at least this gives us an insight into the mind (twisted as it is) of our enemy. Maybe I'm naive, but isn't that a good thing -- to know how our enemy thinks? And if Time helps us to do that, well, what's wrong with that? Reporters are supposed to do that, no?