Spitting in the face of the wind.

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- What happened today in Baghdad and kerbela were not just the bloodiest terrorist attacks that took place in Iraq after the war, they were events that set a clear definition to the meaning of the violence in Iraq.
There was a debate since that time of how to define those violent attacks against Iraqi civilians, IP and coalition forces. To us, it was more than clear that these were terrorist attacks made mainly by the remnants of Saddam’s regimes and terrorists from outside Iraq supported by some neighboring countries and Islamic radical groups with political and moral support from all anti American media and countries.

Others, mostly paid off or idiots, looked at these attacks as legitimate resistance by Iraqi people against "occupation". That was when the attacks were mostly on the coalition forces, but when it switched to aim mainly at the IP members and the infra structure, those supporters of "resistance" claimed that the "resistance" is doing damage to the American interests and not to the Iraqi infra structure and that the IP were traitors that are helping the occupiers! And some tried to divide those actions into 2 parts: one (aimed at coalition) they insisted on calling resistance and the second (on the IP and infra structure) as conspiracy planned by the occupation forces to justify prolonging their occupation! Others had the nerve to call every attack in Iraq that wasn’t aimed directly at Iraqi civilians as resistance, and that this justifies the "accidental death" of say 10 Iraqis when a bomb fails to reach its final target and explode outside the concrete barriers of an American facility to kill only Iraqi civilians!

What happened today leaves no doubt about the nature of these attacks. They are terrorist crimes meant to stop or at least hinder the democratic changes and progress in Iraq, taking different ways each time selecting the most vulnerable and most (rewarding) target.
The recent attacks along with the previous, were aiming directly and clearly at Iraqi civilians. The purpose is more than clear once we look at the places and the people who were attacked. As most of these attacks took place in She’at and Kurdish areas and at such a critical time as happened today, where the She’at were gathered to memorialize a sacred religious occasion, it leaves no doubt that the final objectives of these attacks were starting a civil war between She’at and Sunni or between Arab, Kurds and Turkmen.
There would still be some stupid people who would say” but there were attacks on coalition forces these days. So there are still 2 types of violence: resistance (killing coalition forces) and terrorism (killing Iraqis)".
I want to say that this is one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard (for those who really mean it), as how can you call attacking innocent people as terrorism and at the same time justify the killing of the soldiers and police forces who are trying to protect those innocents, and what is worse is that some of the people who make such discrimination are the same who blame the Americans for failure in protecting Iraqi civilians!
They are saying that when someone kills an American or any other coalition soldier, who is trying to protect Iraqis and keeping order and security in Iraq, that he is resisting occupation, and when say, someone kills a soldier who is supposed to protect a group of Iraqis or injures him and thus it becomes easier for "another one" to carry a terrorist attack on those unprotected civilians, they call it terrorist attack and blame the soldier for not doing his duty!
These attacks however will not achieve their objectives, as we all saw that despite several attacks on mosques, wholly symbols and different ethnic or religious groups on hot areas that are the focus of a political struggle such as Kirkuk, there was never any feedback that makes us believe in the possibility of a civil war. And here where people we generally don’t like or at least disagree with, such as Sistani and the leaders of the SCIRI, play a vital role in calming people, containing and minimizing the political echo of such terrorist attacks, by insisting on blaming terrorists from outside Iraq and asking people to show self discipline, and we all know the effect of words from men like Sistani on the common Iraqis.
It maybe early to predict the reaction to those horrible attacks, but I’ll (risk) and say that I’m firmly on the belief that the terrorists will not succeed in achieving their malicious intentions.
The severity and brutality of these attacks, if should tell us something, then it’s that we (Iraqis and coalition) are on the right path and that our efforts to build a new Iraq are progressing in a very satisfactory way, otherwise our enemies -Arab dictators and terrorist Islamic groups with the remnants of the old regime- wouldn’t have acted so madly and wouldn’t invest all their evil forces in what I still consider a futile attempt to stop the great progress being done in Iraq trying to build a stable, democratic and prosperous country and the greater effect of achieving this objective on the ME in particular and the rest of the Arab, Muslim world and the world in general.

Some people still wonder what would be the relation between liberation of Iraq and war on terrorism. I think that the fact that nearly all the terrorists are gathered on our land to fight so fiercely should be more than enough an explanation. It may seem that the dictators and fanatics from outside are winning by inflicting such horrible losses in our lines and that the battlefield is Iraq, where in fact (my opinion) we are doing them a much more damage by building Iraq and that the battlefield is much more larger than Iraq. We are fighting them on their lands by showing their citizens what they can achieve once they are free. It’s still far from being an appealing vision, but soon it will be. These dictators, instead of trying to change so that they can find a place in the new world or at least take a safe shelter (Aristed) and not end being dragged from a sewage hole, are actually stupid enough to try to resist it. They are (spitting in the face of the wind).

Some people may have been dispirited by today’s tragedy. I for myself am sad but -as I see these evil powers show their true ugly face and play their last card -surer than ever that we are winning and that it’s just a matter of time before the people of the neighboring countries start to look admirably at what seems to be at the present time a very unstable chaotic and poor country.

By Ali.