Terrorist attacks

...are crimes against humanity perpetrated by psychopaths for whom murder is not a means to an end but rather the end itself.

There is nothing redeeming about these crimes. In London, Madrid, Baghdad and elsewhere we have witnessed cowardly, copycat plots aimed at inflicting death and pain on the most vulnerable of targets - ordinary people going about their daily lives.

As a British police officer noted on Friday, the only challenge the attackers ever faced was getting the explosive.

The perpetrators may delude themselves about the higher purpose of their acts, but this is what psychopathic murderers often do. Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, which had more than their fair share of such crimes, bear witness to the hollowness of such pretensions. Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Arabs, Shias and Sunnis, doctors, imams, policemen and children are cut down by a murderous machine that seems to have run out of control. The al-Qaeda terrorists do not even bother to attack foreign military targets any more and now focus almost exclusively on Iraqis.

To try to divine a political goal, let alone a rational agenda, behind such attacks would only dignify these criminals and feed into their illusions. In this context, it was sad to hear US President George Bush recently recite at length the ravings of the cave-bound mentor of one of these gangs as if they were a rival political programme.

The best political reaction to the atrocities is to ignore them. Politicians should take inspiration from the reserve with which Londoners chose to confront this tragedy.

From Asking why will dignify criminals; The bombers are psychopaths without political worth by Yahia Said