Vice President Dick Cheney was at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber walked up to the outermost gate and detonated an explosive device. The Taleban are claiming responsibility and say that Cheney was the target. Conflicting reports say around eleven people died and around twenty people were wounded.
Whatever your personal opinion of the man - and I believe you'd probably need a crucifix and a stake to keep him down - this kind of stuff is deplorable. Suicide bombings give a clear indication of just the kind of people you're dealing with. There really can be no negotiation with someone who is prepared to commit such an act.
At the very least you have to give the IRA credit for some intelligence. They set their bombs and left. Sure, they were murdering arseholes, but at least they were smart murdering arseholes.
What's also disturbing to me is how I found out. I was at work, outside having a quick smoke, when a co-worker came out from the break room, where one or other of the 24-hour news channels is usually playing. She explained to us that the bomb had been positively linked to Iran. As it turned out, this was pure rubbish.
Now, I have no idea which news channel she'd been watching, or even if she had been watching one or if she'd got this information second- or third-hand, but this kind of uninformed commentary is typical.
Either it was wild speculation or deliberate misinformation. I rank it alongside those that still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and that Iraq had WMDs. Must we muddle the story with inaccurate editorialising?
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