Al-Qaida sets new standard in evil

The word “guerrilla” came into the vernacular to describe the Spanish resistance to Napoleon two centuries ago.

The Spanish people could not, at that point, field a traditional army to face Napoleon’s legions. But their partisans could aid the British under Arthur Wellesley, fighting his way east out of Portugal, by sweeping down from the hills to intercept the long French supply lines. Napoleon himself said this “little war” cost him as much as if he had to face an entire new enemy corps at the front.

The precedent of the American revolution is often cited — the Massachusetts militia firing from behind trees at General Gage’s troops as they withdrew from Lexington and Concord. Civilian resistance forces who harassed the Germans after their nations were conquered by Hitler in 1940 are also remembered today with approbation.

Those who hope to paint America as the Great Satan, and to defend the actions of al-Qaida and other Muslim terrorists, have been known to cite precedents including those above, arguing, “Patriotic Iraqis, finding themselves under American oppression, can’t hope to field an army to defeat the United States in a traditional battle. So ‘asymmetrical’ guerrilla tactics designed to wear down the American forces are perfectly acceptable. After all, George Washington’s men fired from behind trees!”

But this argument falls appallingly short of justifying the depravity — the absence of every instinct to common decency — now exposed as underlying the current Islamic jihad in the Mideast.

George Washington did not send suicide bombers to blow up civilian markets in hopes of making the cities of New York and Philadelphia untenable to enemy English occupation forces in 1777. He certainly did not murder the feeble-minded.

Over the years, accepted practice in war has changed. Most soldiers will now fire from behind cover.

But the rules of humanity and empathy have not changed so much. Purposely targeting unarmed civilians still evokes horror among most of mankind — and that’s before we even discuss using innocent children or the disabled as weapons of mass murder.

When al-Qaida bombed two American embassies in east Africa a decade ago, most of the dead and injured were Africans and Muslims — not Americans.

But on Friday, these madmen lowered the bar to an unprecedented level of evil, as remote-controlled explosives strapped to the bodies of two women described as mentally retarded were detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars, killing at least 73 people.

The chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said the bombers had Down syndrome and that the two coordinated explosions were detonated by remote control, indicating the women may not even have been aware of the use to which they were being put.

Whether the masterminds turn out to be al-Qaida directly, or Sunni “insurgents,” do they really believe such carnage among their own civilian populace is the way to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people?

This latest attack proves al-Qaida is “the most brutal and bankrupt of movements” and will strengthen Iraqi resolve to reject terrorism, says American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Surely, even among their own people, a growing number must ask, “Is this how we build a better, a more free and just society?”

There are precedents, actually. Arab terrorists used an unwilling woman for a hotel attack, not long ago. And Palestinian terrorists recently sent a retarded young man wearing an explosive vest to blow up an Israeli checkpoint — Israeli soldiers risked their own safety to disarm him and keep him alive.

Make no mistake, though. Such tactics are made more effective if the world press tells only half the story, as when Israeli air attacks on occupied Gaza are covered with no mention of the repeated Arab rocket attacks on Israeli civilians to which those air attacks were a measured response.

Should an American or Iraqi soldier fire on a mentally disabled civilian who ignores repeated orders to halt, at some point in the future, do you think Al-Jazeera will bother to remind anyone who it was who first turned such individuals into weapons of terror and mass murder?