Saturday, September 25, 2004
Ken Bigley
That neither [Tony Blair], nor anyone else, can exert the slightest influence on the desperate situation he did much to precipitate is a measure of the impotence of all authority almost anywhere in Iraq. [Emphasis added]
Their evidence for this? The confusion over the prisoner release last Wednesday, which they choose to ascribe to a lack of sovereignty on the part of the Iraqi government. It takes some imagination to extrapolate genuine confusion in a government out to that government's impotency. Of course there will be dispute between some civil servants in the Iraqi government and the Americans over particular prisoners, but this whole thing would have passed unnoticed where it not for Zarqawi's demand for all female prisoners to be released - a demand which, of course, didn't specifically refer to Saddam's former scientists.
Kevin Toolis of the Daily Express has something rather bizzare to say -
No. Not. Never. Cannot. They are the favourite words of foreign secretaries, prime ministers and presidents when it comes to their public policy on negotiating with terrorists, even the bloodthirsty Iraqi fanatics who kidnapped the British hostage Mr Bigley. They are great sounding words - but often that is all they are.
If a terrorist group is ruthless enough and powerful enough to keep on bombing and kidnapping, then sooner or later every western government will start to negotiate with them. Beheading hostages is an appalling act, but, in a sexually repressed society like Iraq, now inured to sudden death and destruction, Zarqawi's demands do have some emotional appeal.
The daring daylight operation to seize the hostages, probably with some support from rogue Iraqi police, proves Zarqawi has more support in Iraqi society than we would like to think. If the Americans don't find him and kill him first, and he grows powerful enough, then, one day, George Bush, or whoever happens to be in the White House, will have to do what every democratic leader has done before and sit down and speak with the terrorist. [Emphasis added]
Apart from his bizzare Freudianism, Toolis is incorrect when he repeats the opinion that has been distressingly creeping into some opinion columns: that leaders "inevitably" have to bargain with people like Zarqawi. There is no inevitability behind it and there are certainly not "negotiations" going on behind closed doors. I of course don't have to repeat to you the total futility of negotiating with Zarqawi's ilk, but it seems the media doesn't quite get it. John Prescott made this point admirably when he juxtaposed the British reaction to hostage-taking to the American one -
Mr Preston urged British newspapers to take a "more muted" approach to the crisis.
He compared UK coverage of Mr Bigley's ordeal with coverage in the US of the fates of two American co-hostages, both of whom were executed.
He said: "They have not actually not reported it, but I think the Washington Post put it on page 27.
"That's the kind of mid-way I think we ought to be thinking about."
He added that the terrorists were using spin tactics and accused the British media of being "too easily manipulated".
It's good that a debate is emerging over just how this ought to be covered, because we're certainly not doing anyone in Iraq any favours by carrying on as we are. If the media instated a policy of not even reporting on hostage-taking then one of the main rationales for doing it would be obliterated.
No foreigner is safe in Iraq any more, which is ironic given that Zarqawi clearly doesn't give two hoots for the Iraqi cause. In fact, quite the reverse - his plan is to halt the reconstruction of Iraq and to create the terrible security and economic conditions that we are daily warned are emerging. His group targets people of all faiths and nationalities without discrimination, with the simple goal of driving anyone who wants to help the Iraqi people out of Iraq.
The IHT carries an article today entitled "When Even the French are Targets". This utterly misses the point. Wouldn't an article entitled "When Even the Egyptians are Targets", or "When Even the Turkish are Targets" be more appropriate? The fact Zarqawi is willing to kill anyone, including scores of Muslims, in his psychopathic quest to destroy Iraq should not come as a surprise to anyone. Kenneth Bigley will not be the first or the last to die at his hands. The appropriate response is sadness and a reaffirmation of our determination to get the bastard.
