A refresher course

Once in awhile it's useful to just reacquaint ourselves with the enemy, as a reminder of what we're up against.

String of Iraq Attacks Kills at Least 110

A suicide blast near the Imam Hussein shrine in central Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, killed 49 people and injured 52, Karbala police Col. Razaq al-Taie.

In the attack's aftermath, a woman and an infant girl in a bright red jumpsuit lay in a pool of blood, their faces covered by a sheet. Television images showed men ferrying the wounded in pushcarts.

The bomber appeared to have blown himself up about 30 yards from the shrine in a busy pedestrian area surrounded by shops.

In Ramadi, a U.S. spokesman said dozens were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a line of about 1,000 police recruits. Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool initially put the death toll at about 30, but Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital, later said 50 people were killed.

The attack took place at a police screening center in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. Pool said recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process.

In other violence Thursday, a suicide car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Thamir al-Gharawi said, and gunmen killed three people in separate incidents, police said, raising Thursday's death toll to 110.

The Karbala bomber detonated a vest stuffed with about 18 pounds of explosives and several hand grenades, al-Taie said. Small steel balls that had been packed into the suicide vest were found at the site, as was one unexploded grenade, he said.

Many pilgrims travel to Karbala on Thursdays to be at the holy site for Friday prayers. Mohammed Saheb said he travels there every Thursday.

Bomber kills 32 at Iraq funeral

A suicide bomb attack on Shia funeral north of Baghdad has killed at least 32 people and injured dozens of others.

Mourners took cover in a graveyard amid mortar and automatic weapons fire, before a suicide bomber detonated explosives attached to his body.

The attack near Baquba is the bloodiest since Iraq's election in mid-December.

A spate of other incidents on Wednesday left dozens dead and injured, and a convoy of 60 fuel tankers was ambushed just days after deliveries resumed.

Suicide bomber kills 10 Afghans as US envoy visits

A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people and wounded 50 in an attack in an Afghan provincial capital on Thursday during a visit by the U.S. ambassador, officials said. The envoy was unhurt.

Fifteen of the wounded were critically hurt in the incident in Tarin Kot, capital of the central province of Uruzgan, said Haji Abdul Aziz, the deputy provincial governor.

He said the attack took place in a bazaar about 1.5 km (one mile) from the Governor's House, which U.S. ambassador Ronald E. Neumann was visiting.

And, in something especially disgusting, as if the rest wasn't bad...

Militants behead Afghan principal for educating girls

Militants broke into the home of an Afghan headmaster and beheaded him while forcing his wife and eight children to watch, the latest in a spate of attacks attributed to the Taliban that have forced many schools to close.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides religion.

Four armed men stabbed Malim Abdul Habib, 45, eight times before decapitating him in the courtyard of his home in the town of Qalat late Tuesday, according to provincial government spokesman Ali Khail and a cousin of the victim, Dr. Esanullah.

From this article on the attack:

Some eight personnel of educational institutions including teachers and students have been killed and three schools were set on fire over the past two months mostly in the southern provinces, the hub of Taliban loyalists.

The anti-war Left will take this surge in attacks as a sign of failure. We ought to see these attacks as simply an indication of the depraved nature of the enemy.

I would like to ask the Sheehans and Murthas and Pelosis and Kerrys of the world just what kind of person plans to murder people who are mourning at a funeral? What kind of person runs into public shopping areas and blows up innocent civilians?

What kind of hell spawn beheads a man in front of his family for daring to educate girls?

If we just abandoned Iraq, and the war on terror, today, does the anti-war Left really think these twisted murderers would just leave us alone? That these killers so blackened with the evil of their twisted ideology would simply sit on the front stoop of their homes and whittle for the rest of their days?

There is a beast roaming, pacing, seeking to devour us. This fight is real. The enemy is real. These murderers can only be exterminated. There is no appeasing them. There is no reasoning or bargaining with them.

I absolutely will question the patriotism of anyone who is not filled with rage at these stories, and a desire to pursue these killers to the ends of the earth and put their heads on pikes. If patriotism is a love for one's country, I assume that includes a desire to defend what is precious in one's country. We defend ourselves by taking on this fight and finishing it, not by sniveling over the interception of phone calls of people talking to suspected Al Qaeda members.

I am open to arguments as to why abandoning Iraq will make these kinds of people leave us alone. So far I have not heard a single one worth entertaining.