At least nine of the large-scale attacks in Iraq since the beginning of the year have involved the use of Chlorine. These bombs strike a particular fear because if people are not killed by the blast, they may easily die an agonizing death when the chlorine is dispersed and inhaled.
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We turn away, taking a perhaps rather Odd Refuge in the certainty that this is all the fault of the Neoconservatives, of the arrogance of Bush and Blair and what is strangely called a policy of “liberal intervention.” A majority were against the war in 2003 and almost everyone is now. But this carries you just so far.
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The situation, therefore, can No Longer be taken for a classic Resistance of an occupying force. Nor can it be entirely seen as the opposite, that is to say a guerrilla war that is maintained by Islamist, Shiite and Baathist groups for the sole purpose of engaging the American and British military.
The proof of this lies in the fact that the Great Majority of casualties are Caused by Arabs Killing Arabs, Muslims Slaughtering Muslims.
This brings us back to the chlorine bombs being built by Al-Qaeda to terrorize and kill their Muslim brothers, who, we must remember, were so recently oppressed by the atheistic regime of Saddam Hussein.
It is As if Protestant and Catholic groups in the French Resistance USED the Nazi occupation to blow up each other’s churches and market places and slaughter each other’s children. Actually, it is weirder in Iraq because the Sunni extremists of Al-Qaeda are killing and torturing more Sunnis than Shiite, let alone US soldiers.
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That is Badness of a high order and you would Expect it to have offended every loving parent across Islam. You would certainly expect to hear some stern religious voices in Middle East calling for the cessation of such barbarity in the name of one or other sect or tribe or, indeed, Allah. There are murmurs of disquiet, even horror, but in a way, the Americans and British have become everyone’s alibi or at least plea of mitigation.
Our catastrophic blunder has removed the need for any moral calibration in Islam of what Muslims are doing to Muslims in Iraq...."