12/16/2004|||110322251847013273||||||
HONOUR KILLINGS

Steven Vincent continues his fascinating dispatches from Iraq. In the latest he digs deeper into the Sunnis' sense of lost honour:

"No wonder the insurgents — and many other Iraqis as well — seem to dwell on the edge of a bottomless chasm of rage: the shame they experience from the American invasion eats away at them. No wonder, too, that the insurgents' movement seems so vague. In my travels through the Sunni Triangle and my time in Baghdad I never once saw any symbols, propaganda, or call letters (FLN, NLF, IRA, and so on) that might refer to an organized 'liberation front.' These 'resistance' fighters — or, à la Moore, Iraqi 'minutemen' — seemed to have no leaders, issue no communiqués, propound no programs, or even have a name. But why should they? Their primary interest is their own "honor." They may claim they are 'patriots' fighting for Iraq — many are, in fact, soldiers and officers from the old Iraqi Army — but at heart they see themselves as tribal warriors engaged in the venerable tradition of honor killings against the biggest tribe of all: America."
|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/12/honour-killings-steven-vincent.html|||12/16/2004 06:02:00 pm|||||||||
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