Human bombs on the homefront
: Now that Saudi human bombs have come home to roost, Saudi Arabia’s ArabNews speaks out against them:
So why, here in the Arab world, is there this absurd view that suicide bombers have achieved something, done something noble?…
There is nothing noble about killing innocent people. As for the notion that the bombers are martyrs, that too is a lie. They are not that. Martyrdom has to do with standing up and dying for something that is good. To kill innocent people as well as yourself is an act of sheer evil. In Riyadh, Westerners, Saudis, Filipinos, and many others died. If anyone is the martyr, it is them, certainly not their murderers….
We have had terror brought home to us here in Saudi Arabia. It is time to stand up against such terror, against those who organize them, against those who inspire them, against those who refuse to condemn them.
Well, yeah…
: The Lebanon Daily Star [via Harry Hatchet] also attacks the attackers. Its editorial goes through some painful gymnastics to separate terrorism — defined as murder with a motive — from plain murder, as if there is a difference. It then goes on to complain:
Win or lose, there is no greater shame in battle than to have behaved dishonorably.
Whichever group massacred all those innocents in Riyadh is no friend of Arabs and Muslims. The people who died were, though…. If the usual pattern holds, someone will eventually issue a tacit claim of responsibility for the outrage in Riyadh
