On the surface one might think that this is better than a direct rocket attack… but dig deeper and you realise that this was the worst possible cause of this tragedy.
When I first heard the reports from the Pentagon (at all the usual places) that the attack on the base at Mosul was carried out by a suicide bomber, I nearly dismissed it as propaganda thinking,
“They’re just perpetuating the ‘everyone is a terrorist’ myth”.
And then I realised… the admission that it was a suicide bomber is far worse, militarily, than if this had been a random, or even deliberate rocket attack.
The fact that the Pentagon says it was a suicide bomber means it *must* be so, because only true honesty and transparency could reveal such a blatant error and misjudgement.
As I thought more, the perils of this suicide attack became clearer yet more complex:
How did this bomber get into the base?
Answer? …. there were new Iraqi soldiers on the base…. these Iraqi soldiers have the implicit trust of their American counterparts.
Now that opens a huge can of worms:
Can American soldiers trust the Iraqis they train?? And if they can’t…. how can they fight with/beside them?
If this suicide bomber was an Iraqi soldier… when did he switch to “the other side?” Did he go into training knowing is final goal. Was he “converted” afterwards?
If this suicide bomber was simply some guy who walked onto the base and into the mess hall and blew himself up… then that is a much simpler, straightforward problem to solve…. but, I simply can’t believe that security would be that lax at a US base in Theatre!
This *has* to be an inside job, and it surely indicates the nearly unstoppable plunge in popularity of the US Occupation forces.
I encourage all of you to read “A Star from Mosul” today as the aftermath of these events unfolds.