Tim Sumner

Anbar Province government dedicates success vs. Al Qaeda to 9/11 victims

Bumped to the top 1:15 PM — Anbar Awakening sheik assassinated (scan past the first article)

Because we were travelling to 9/11 related events, we missed this New York Daily News report until Debra Burlingame sent me the link:

By STEPHANIE GASKELL
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Monday, September 10th 2007, 5:28 PM

RAMADI, Iraq – When members of the government of Anbar Province met with President Bush last week, they presented him with a letter dedicating their success in wiping out Al Qaeda here to the victims of Sept. 11 The letter, which was obtained by the Daily News, was signed by Anbar Governor Mamoun Sami Rashid, Provincial Council Chairman Abdul-Salam Abdullah, and Sheik Sattar abu Risha, the sheik credited with beginning the Anbar Awakening.

“In the month when the terrorists attacked the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, we dedicate the victory of Anbar Province to the families of the victims who suffred that criminal act,” the letter said, which was addressed directly to Bush.

Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal writes, “Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the founder of the Anbar Awakening movement, was murdered in a car bomb attack outside of his home in Ramadi. The Associated Press provides the details of the assassination,” and relays a protion of their report:

Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb planted near the tribal leader’s home in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital, said Col. Tareq Youssef, supervisor of Anbar police…
“It is a major blow to the council, but we are determined to strike back and continue our work,” said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha’s group. “Such an attack was expected, but it will not deter us.” He said the bombing took place at 3:30 p.m. as Abu Risha was returning home.

A Ramadi police officer said Abu Risha had received a group of poor people at his home earlier in the day, as a gesture of charity marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said authorities believed the bomb was planted by one of the visitors.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that after the first blast that killed Abu Risha, a car bomb exploded nearby. “The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy,” Khalaf said. There were no casualties from the car bomb, he added.

9/11 “mean and nasty” says Massachusetts Governor Patrick

Update, 9/14/2007: Audio added.

Deval Patrick

Michael Graham writes today in the Boston Herald:

In his 9/11 commemoration speech, Patrick observed that while the attack on the World Trade Center was “mean and nasty,” (that’s telling ’em, Deval!) the real tragedy of six years ago was the “failure of human understanding.” Yes, 9/11 was, Patrick said “a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other.” [Emphasis added.]

To find out what the victims of 9/11 didn’t understand about the terrorists that might have prevented the attack, I turned to Debra Burlingame. Her brother, Chic, was the pilot of American Airlines [AMR] Flight 77 — the plane that hit the Pentagon.

When I first read Debra the governor’s remarks over the phone, her reaction was astonished silence. “Can you read that again please?”

I did. More silence.

Editor: Click on the speaker icon:

“Did he have the audacity to say that in front of grieving 9/11 family members?” she asked, somewhat astonished.

Yes.

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to listen to that on 9/11,” she said in a measured tone, trying unsuccessfully to conceal her anger. “I would have found it extremely insulting to the memory of my brother.”

“Did he really say ‘mean and nasty?’ ” she wanted to know. “At Ground Zero, they’ve recovered 21,000 body parts and still counting. That’s not mean and nasty, that’s an atrocity.”

Debra wasn’t happy with the governor’s suggestion that 9/11 was born of the failure of mutual understanding between the victims and their killers, but she understood it. She called is a form of moral vanity.

“It appeals to one’s sense of vanity to think we’re better than these people because we’re nicer than they are. Liberals like this think ‘I’m not judgmental, so that makes me superior,’ ” Debra said.

This self-gratifying “we’re all responsible for 9/11” preening isn’t just dumb, however. It’s also dangerous. “If your governor thinks we can love-bomb al-Qaeda into submission, he’s living in a dream world.”

Perhaps that’s Patrick’s problem. Maybe he’s living in another world, an imaginary liberal land were every Muslim radical is just one hug away from Methodism, and every criminal can be rehabilitated by a proper diet and midnight basketball.

The rest of us, alas, are trapped in the real world. And in this world, “9/11 is the price we paid for not truly understanding the enemy,” Debra told me. “It was the moral vanity of our politicians that told them the Islamists could be dealt with through diplomacy, or negotiated with.

The only negotiating they do is with a Kalashnikov rifle.”