Easy victory for the terrorists

Yesterday's stampede in Iraq.

The loss of life is tragic. But what makes it doubly so is that this was an easy victory for the terrorists. They didn't have to fire a shot. Just the thought of a suicide bomb was enough to unleash chaos. People died from the panic induced by the thought of being mangled by a bomb in a packed crowd. They didn't die from the effects of guns or bombs.

They died from terror.

This is the most dramatic demonstration possible of the nature of our enemies. I've had a few people write to me lately in order to claim that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. They claim that it's all just a matter of perception, and that our characterization of the Iraqi "resistance" as terrorists is simply propaganda. This should put that lie to rest, but there are those who will continue to pretend that there is a moral equivalence between Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and George Washington, to the detriment of the latter's reputation and their own. For those who have a problem figuring out the difference between freedom fighters and terrorists, I have a few simple questions: Would a crowd of people have panicked if someone had yelled "freedom fighter" in their midst? Would they have rushed in a crushing mass if they had been told that there was a "freedom fighter" nearby? Would there have been death and injury en masse if someone in that crowd had shown himself to be a "freedom fighter?"

If you answered honestly, you came up with no, no and no.

This is how terrorists operate. This is their goal, their desired endstate. This senseless, massive loss of life, with the survivors living in constant fear, is what they want above all else, and those who refuse to condemn them for it, who refuse to see them for what they are and continue to pretend that they are a legitimate resistance movement, are enabling them in their quest for murder. Freedom fighters don't send suicide bombers into crowds of people. They don't target civilians, much less children, for death. They don't indiscriminately kill, they don't behead captives on video, they don't pull election workers out of cars and shoot them in the middle of the street, they don't terrorise.