Day: April 28, 2004

Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this DoD briefing, where Donald Rumsfeld offers a comment on the practice of using mosques as firebases:

There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks. One might be to headline saying that Terrorists Attack Coalition Forces From Mosques. That would be one way to present the information.

Another might be to say: Mosques Targeted in Fallujah. That was the Los Angeles Times headline this morning.

Instapundit also links to this neat article about how the Iraqi army managed to keep its bunkers insect-free . . .

According to this article, a pair of masked, armed Palestinians tried to stop a pair of suicide bombers, one of whom elected to blow himself up, also killing the people who were trying to stop him.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t consider gunmen in masks to represent moderation, but I do take a story like this as a good sign that Hamas isn’t the only force in action among the Palestinians. I hope I’m making the correct reading of this event, and that it presages a popular uprising against Hamas.

Update: An article in the Scotsman explains that the masked men were . . . street criminals! And they were trying to mug the bombers! I know I shouldn’t laugh about this, but I am. Probably because I so politicize everything, it never occurred to me that something like this would happen. Sue me, alright?