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Latest attacks prove character of terrorists
It was a nice day, for a change, in the central al-Ghazl market in Baghdad, and hundreds of people turned out to trade small animals, mostly birds, at the weekly pet bazaar on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer.
Among the crowd was "the crazy lady," a woman who reportedly had Down syndrome, who sold cream at the market every week.
An instant later, the woman and at least 45 other people were killed and 100 wounded when the bomb she was wearing detonated by remote control, leaving the market strewn with pools of blood, body parts, clothing and pigeon carcasses.
Twenty minutes later another, similarly disabled woman unwittingly killed at least 26 of her neighbors and wounded 67 others in pet market across town.
It's nothing new in Iraq, where terrorists have used at least 17 women in suicide attacks that have killed at least 151 people since the start of the war. Religious prohibition against touching women makes it easier for them to slip through checkpoints carrying bombs.
Nor is the use of handicapped people new; on election day in January 2005, a disabled child, also with Down syndrome, was used in a suicide attack.
What more do we need to convince us that our enemies in the Middle East are the lowest of the low?
And, what more do we need to persuade us to make sure that they are not left with the power to inflict such morally depraved brutality on their neighbors?