Why did the extremists kidnap her and apparently kill her?
How could this be justified under even the most warped understanding of Islam? I thought under all interpretations of Islam, the important thing is belief in Allah, not national origin.
She was white. She spoke English. She did not wear a Burkha. She was a powerful woman. She was in a position of some influence. All these are reasons for her to be a target to some group or other.
However, it’s important to remember that for the past eighteen months, kidnapping has become a profitable business in Iraq. Many many thousands of Iraqis have been held and released on payment of a ransom. It’s when these horifically-everyday realities collide with the (IMO still necessary) long-standing international policy of non-negotiation and refusal to pay ransoms or to otherwise co-operate that we get these terrible clashes.
Because the people who did this [please note I did not say all of the people in Iraq, all Muslilms, or any other group] are savages and beneath contempt.
Fucking savages. Pardon my language.
It’s possible to justify any violent practice in the presence of sufficient extremism. The Quran does not call for the death of women who do not cover themselves adequately; it merely says they must ‘lower their gaze and be modest’ and cover certain parts. (24:31) One thing* I did find which could potentially be interpreted by extremists to justify the kidnapping is this:
For moderate Muslims and all other rational people this would not seem to justify kidnapping a humanitarian worker, but militants could use such a passage, along with a broad interpretation of ‘lewdness’ and ‘until death take them’, in order to justify something they have done really for more worldly reasons. Remember that extremists do everything with the belief that they will be eternally rewarded for their actions and their victims will be eternally punished, regardless of what most scholars of their religion might say about their actions.
2:191 also justifies practically everything violent that’s done by radicals (‘slay [the transgressors/aggressors] wherever you find them’), and 2:194 justifies violence by any means possible (‘attack him in the like manner as he attacked you’). The crucial thing here is the definition of ‘transgressors’; for radicals it is broad enough to include humanitarian workers and journalists.
Regardless of whether the Quran provides any justification for hostage-taking, it must be remembered that, while their excuses and often their language may be religious, their motivations are basically not. Kidnappings are used to further political goals, gain power and attention, incur fear, and sometimes for financial gain. What is really sad about this sort of thing is that the militant opposition in Iraq is inherently self-defeating. Individuals in Iraq who merely want power for their own faction can only hope to lengthen the involvement of American troops, increase the level of violence, and prolong and increase the suffering of their fellow Iraqis – particularly when humanitarian workers are involved. Doctors Without Borders/MSF recently withdrew from Iraq because of the hostility directed towards humanitarian workers:
This will doubtless lead to the unnecessary deaths of innocent Iraqis (and even militants, since MSF does not deny medical care to anyone who needs it). Of course, the radicals would blame America and Israel for this, as they do with everything else…
I don’t think these public killings are religious as much as political. They’ll kidnap and kill whomever will piss off the West the most. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a burqa when she was videotaped indicates this was not a “Muslim” killing.
Of course, I’m not exactly Madeline Albright. Or even Madeline Sherwood . . .
It was their declaration of total war–a repudiation of everything Western and all that we hold dear. After several dozen executions, they had lost their ability to shock. They therefore chose an innocent–indeed a paragon of virtue–to reawaken our fear. Hassan’s murder was a message to the West that no one is safe. Instead of revolutionaries, they have exposed themselves as nihilists.
Afghani women wear burqas, some Arab women wear the abaya, which is quite a different garment altogether. Iraqi women, unlike Arab women living in our “allied” oil states, have not been forced to wear the abaya for decades. You can thank guess who for that? America’s favorite new bugaboo, the Baath Party. (They have umpteen faults; the status of women in society was not one of them.)
Obviously the killing of innocents is to be deplored. This set of extremists was sending an extreme message about something that I think at this point is a fairly popular notion across Iraq: they want westerners out, starting with the military occupiers (who have, not that anyone in these parts has been terribly concerned with it, killed tens of thousands of innocents themselves).
She also opposed the US intervention & occupation.
If we were to leave they would execute, rape and torture Shia arabs by the thousands as revenge for having been ousted from power.
And they made the trains run on time. Puh-lease…
IIRC she was also entitled to Irish citizenship, which made her the citizen of a neutral country.
This was just done from pure badness, not with any kind of religious justification.
5 High profile
6 Soft target
They people who did this unspeakable crime are unlikely to have asked focus groups about the impact on world opinion, they just wanted to kill 
Crandolph is right and I think you know it, so why the hand-waving? The Baathists were basically secular and compared to how some other ME nations treat their women, Iraq wasn’t that bad.
Very very true. FWIW, the Irish government issued a passport for Ken Bigley while he was being held, but it made no difference. (Is this the first time in history that an Irish passport doesn’t tend to help you if you’re taken hostage? )
As the person who first mentioned Burqas in this thread, I guess I should actually explain what I meant - that the extremists carrying out these kidnappings thought the Ba’ath party to be far too liberal and too Westernised, and that they would take any opportunity to repress women in a way that Saddam did not.
I think that’s your problem. You think there’s justification? These people are criminals using religion as a cover for their atrocities. I wouldn’t even call them zealots. They’re the scum that rises to the top when a swamp is stirred.
Do you truely think for a minute that if the tables were turned (they had invaded the US) some US citizens wouldn’t be above killing innocent people in a similar manner? It’s practically a given in any war. After 9/11 many “muslims” (I quoted that because many Sikhs were also targeted) were terrorized (and even a murder or two occured) and that only involved ~3000 people. Credible cites (not estimates) put the Iraqi death toll (civilian) to ~15000 (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/).
It’s not really about religion (IMO) but more a ‘tit for tat’ retaliation over the war (and the HUGE number of civilian deaths caused by the US army). Until law and order is restored (NOT military rule) this sort of thing will continue.
Well, those are two different things, “liberal” in the interpretation or application of Islam, and then “westernized.” The radical Islamicist elements would certainly see the Baathists (for that matter the average Iraqi) as too liberal. But the whole Baath Party concept was a pan-Arab self-determination thing which has decidedly negative attitudes toward western powers, which shouldn’t be any surprise considering its roots in the post-colonial era.
Certainly no one in the Arab world would move toward the burqa, as this is a uniquely Afghan cultural tradition which is looked at as moving down the social ladder in Arab society. Gulf Arab societies largely of the Wahhabist Sunni tradition have varied degrees of application of veiling, but if anything the move has been toward liberalization on this everywhere but Saudi. (As best as I can determine, Saudi is also the last country on Earth formally banning women from driving.)
Iraq has not had a veiling tradition in decades and isn’t likely to be returned to it. Among other things, if you spend any time at all in the Gulf it becomes apparent that the abaya is for women who don’t have to work, because there are guest workers from poorer nations at home working for them. Iraq isn’t likely ever to be in that situation.
In any event, there are any number of Islamic radicals in the world who don’t interpret Islam to require facial veiling or similar restrictions on women’s dress. Surely most of us have seen video or photos from Hamas rallies…? There are a number of unique Arab societies with different mores which are as much cultural as religious.
What I think westerners should key on if you’re interested in women’s rights in the region would be their condition in our allied states, the oil-rich, largely Wahhabist nations where restrictions are far more severe on the whole than states we’ve decided to label rogue and terrorist. Recall also that the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan with American assistance, in order to put down a secular government supported by the USSR (where - and here’s where I’m sure I’ll be pissing off a whole new slew of people - women’s place in society has also plummeted since the fall of communism.)
Not that I’m arguing communism was a good thing, but it’s important to seperate the baby from the bath water.
Well yeah, considering she was born and raised in Dublin.
I think they are a splinter group of terrorists – even considered extremists among the most extreme to whom this made perfect sense. They will attract members who feel likewise and gain affirmation from sympathizers. Very much like the 9-11 attacks themselves accomplished similar goals, although they garnered revulsion among huge percentages of muslims.
I could not disagree more strongly with this – it seems to go against the rest of your post as well where you note that there is no justification and they are simply zealots. A duly elected government in January (or whenever) won’t stop it. Nothing will until these nuts are rooted out. These people aren’t retaliating or in anyway motivated by civilian casualties in Iraq - no matter how much polite society would like that to be true. They are motivated by their own fanatical logic system. They could care less about civilian casualties in Iraq - in fact the higher the casualties (many of which they directly cause) the better for them - or so they believe
I think there’s an extremely logical reason, and if I were the head of an Iraqi terrorist/rebel group, she’d be on my list of people to kidnap and/or kill too.
Margaret Hassan was the head of the local CARE International group, which was trying to improve the standard of living for Iraqis. However, as good as this is for the average Iraqi, it’s bad for the terrorists, because the better the standard of living is in Iraq, the more support the Iraqi government will have. So, by targeting aid workers and international organizations, they hope to drive the organizations out. They’re attacking infrastructure, like oil refineries, and power plants for the same reason. The worse conditions are over there, the more discontent the average person will be, the more recruits they’ll get, and the harder the government will have it.
So, the fact that Ms. Hassan was an Iraqi, a Muslim, against the US war, etc., was irrelevant.