The reported discovery of human remains in the truck bomb that devastated the UN building in Baghdad killing at least 20 people indicates that a suicide bomber was involved. That is bound to increase speculation as to who was responsible. Suicide attacks have not been the style of Saddam Hussein’s Baath movement, which from its inception has been rigorously secular, interested in the here and now, not martyrdom and the hereafter. On the other hand, this was classic Marxist destabilization tactics — something that Saddam and his Baathists learned from the Soviets.
But there has been speculation that Islamic militants may have been responsible, even that this was Al-Qaeda at work. Such speculation will be fueled by the statement from Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, that the bomb may have been planted by foreign terrorists. Or again, many others — Arabs and non-Arabs — headed to Iraq before the invasion offering to fight the Americans. Many were killed, others left, but there is no reason to believe that some did not stay and go underground. This could well be the work of such a group.
But whoever was responsible, words still fail to describe the sense of outrage at the attack. It is, in a way, on a par with Sept. 11 and will go down in history as an evil crime. This was an attack against the entire human community. The UN belongs to us all, be we Arab, European, Indian, Pakistani, Filipino, American or whatever. It has proved that it is no one’s poodle — certainly not the United States’ or the West’s. For all it faults and inadequacies, it represents something fine, something noble in human endeavors. Quite apart from providing the basis for international law and cooperation, it is the organization that, above all others, tries to bring peace to the world, that houses, clothes and feeds the refugees and victims of natural disaster, that helps the poor to look after themselves, that champions the oppressed and speaks for the downtrodden — and it does it in our name and on our behalf. The attack on the UN in Baghdad was an attack on us all.
But if words cannot express our shock and anger, nor can they express our sense of despair at being proved right about the dangers of invading Iraq. It would reap a whirlwind, we all predicted. The knowledge that the US now understands the monumental problem it faces and, in the wake of the Baghdad bombing, is working on a UN resolution to enable more countries to send troops to Iraq are scant consolation. President Bush claimed the invasion was part of the war on terror; to most of the world, it patently was not.
But the claim has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Terrorism is precisely what the American occupying forces now have to confront in Iraq.
