Re: Hell on Earth: Massacre in Nigeria

On 1/14/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Pierce writes: "I suspect that, if there wasn't a way for the Fear And
> Trembling Caucus to link it to the awful events in Paris, the massacre of
> somewhere north of 2000 people in the Nigerian fishing village of Baga
> might
> not even have registered on American radar."
>
> The wreckage outside the Kano Central Mosque following multiple Boko Haram
> attacks in November. (photo: Reuters)
>
>
> Hell on Earth: Massacre in Nigeria
> By Charles Pierce, Esquire
> 13 January 15
>
> I suspect that, if there wasn't a way for the Fear And Trembling Caucus to
> link it to the awful events in Paris, the massacre of somewhere north of
> 2000 people in the Nigerian fishing village of Baga might not even have
> registered on American radar. The details are horrifying. People fleeing
> the
> violence and drowning in a lake. People stranded on an island in said lake.
> Bodies still littering the streets and bushes.
> District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and
> elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into
> Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town
> residents.
> "The human carnage perpetratedby Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was
> enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a
> defence group that fights Boko Haram, told the Associated Press. He said
> the
> civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. "No one could
> attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died
> by now," Gava said.
> Or, perhaps, we would have noticed when, in two different places, young
> girls wandered into crowded marketplaces and the bombs with which they were
> accessorized exploded.
> The bombing by two suspected child suicide bombers in a crowded market on
> Sunday capped a week of horror and marked an ominous escalation in violence
> with elections in Africa's most populous nation less than five weeks away A
> day earlier in neighbouring Borno state another young girl, who is also
> believed to have been about 10 years old, was stopped for a security check
> in the capital's main market when bombs strapped to her detonated, killing
> at least 16 people.
> If you will note how carefully that passage is written, it goes out of its
> way to make sure we know that the girls didn't necessarily trigger the
> explosions themselves, which actually is more horrible, if you think about
> it. The idea that all of these individual acts of savagery are linked, and,
> therefore, the comforting fiction that there is one solution for the
> infinite facets of the problem -- "More NSA spying!" "More torture!"
> "Immigration quotas!" "Listen To Lindsey Graham!" -- is as dangerous as it
> is fanciful. Hell, they're trying to have elections in Nigeria in five
> weeks. It's open season on anyone seen to be campaigning for the incumbent
> president, Goodluck Jonathan. (Jonathan and his government have been every
> bit as heavy-handed in their response as the terrorists were hoping they
> would be.) Not many of us were aware of that, either. Now, we are, although
> I suspect not for long. But for the moment, ti wani Baga, I guess.
> Sometimes
> it seems we're all on an island, where the screams fade.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> The wreckage outside the Kano Central Mosque following multiple Boko Haram
> attacks in November. (photo: Reuters)
> http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Nigeria_Is_Burninghttp://www.esquire.c
> om/blogs/politics/Nigeria_Is_Burning
> Hell on Earth: Massacre in Nigeria
> By Charles Pierce, Esquire
> 13 January 15
> suspect that, if there wasn't a way for the Fear And Trembling Caucus to
> link it to the awful events in Paris, the massacre of somewhere north of
> 2000 people in the Nigerian fishing village of Baga might not even have
> registered on American radar. The details are horrifying. People fleeing
> the
> violence and drowning in a lake. People stranded on an island in said lake.
> Bodies still littering the streets and bushes.
> District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and
> elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into
> Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town
> residents.
> "The human carnage perpetratedby Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was
> enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a
> defence group that fights Boko Haram, told the Associated Press. He said
> the
> civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. "No one could
> attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died
> by now," Gava said.
> Or, perhaps, we would have noticed when, in two different places, young
> girls wandered into crowded marketplaces and the bombs with which they were
> accessorized exploded.
> The bombing by two suspected child suicide bombers in a crowded market on
> Sunday capped a week of horror and marked an ominous escalation in violence
> with elections in Africa's most populous nation less than five weeks away A
> day earlier in neighbouring Borno state another young girl, who is also
> believed to have been about 10 years old, was stopped for a security check
> in the capital's main market when bombs strapped to her detonated, killing
> at least 16 people.
> If you will note how carefully that passage is written, it goes out of its
> way to make sure we know that the girls didn't necessarily trigger the
> explosions themselves, which actually is more horrible, if you think about
> it. The idea that all of these individual acts of savagery are linked, and,
> therefore, the comforting fiction that there is one solution for the
> infinite facets of the problem -- "More NSA spying!" "More torture!"
> "Immigration quotas!" "Listen To Lindsey Graham!" -- is as dangerous as it
> is fanciful. Hell, they're trying to have elections in Nigeria in five
> weeks. It's open season on anyone seen to be campaigning for the incumbent
> president, Goodluck Jonathan. (Jonathan and his government have been every
> bit as heavy-handed in their response as the terrorists were hoping they
> would be.) Not many of us were aware of that, either. Now, we are, although
> I suspect not for long. But for the moment, ti wani Baga, I guess.
> Sometimes
> it seems we're all on an island, where the screams fade.
>
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