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=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 14:00:55 -0400 Subject: TOP UN ENVOY SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO KILLED IN TERRORIST BLAST IN BAGHDAD [...] For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news =*=*=*=*=*= I find this especially disturbing. First, of course, because of the tragedy of it, and the loss to the UN and Iraq, but also because it doesn't "make sense". I can see some sense (albeit debatably bad sense) in killing occupation forces, blowing up oil lines, and such, but recent attacks on the water pipe, the Jordanian embassy, the prison yard, and now the UN seems less related to any legitimate resistance than to chaotic destruction. I wonder who is responsible, and which of the various attacks may have been done by the same forces. It is easy enough to say "terrorists did it" -- which many on the news programs are saying -- but that's hardly an explanation. A few thoughts run through my mind for possiblities: *Crazy people -- gratuitous violence. *Attempt to target individual(s) expected to be in the building. *Revenge, as in the UN attack for supporting the sanctions and SCR1483. *Extremists to whom any not of their narrow ideas are "the enemy". *Iraqi - or foreign (which might include US) -- groups seeking power who want to destabilize Iraq hoping to capitalize by gathering up insecure and deprived people to their cause -- or justify extreme actions in response. Or an attempt to fix blame on someone, and discredit them. *Enemies of Iraq -- a nation or group who want's Iraq (and possibly the US) to go down in failure. The truck-bombs could be the work of someone entirely different from the daily ambushs of US troops. The water pipe and prison attacks seem to be set apart by who is harmed. It doesn't do to jump to conclusions, as many commenters and politicians are doing While the creation of chaos and interference in reconstruction might be thought to serve the purposes of one group or another, there is a possibility of true chaos here: a blend of anger, frustration and random violence, many groups and individuals at cross purposes, and the destruction of social identity, such that there is no underlying order -- except like a stochastic atomic chain reaction. What if this is a matter of reaching a "critical mass" of sanctions, misery, death, repression, poverty, corruption, insults to honor, bombs, radioactive poisons, lies -- the chaos of the last few decades coming under the pressure of the invasion and occupation? This is a possibility I find most worrisome. ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk