Two Women With Down Syndrome Used In Deadly Strikes

Twin Bombings Kill Scores In Baghdad
Iraqi Official: 2 Women With Down Syndrome Used In Deadly Strikes At Pet Markets
(see story at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/01/iraq/main3777703.shtml)


This is such a heart wrenching story. It is believed that the al Qaeda had two women with Down Syndrome to serve as suicide bombers. I do not know if I was more sad, frustrated, or outraged! I am sure these poor women had no comprehension as to what was really going to happen to them or why they were doing it. I feel sad soo deeply for their family and friends it is hard to come up with the words.
Ok a bit of my own personal politics, I think bombing just to kill innocent people is not the right thing to do, and if you really want to be a suicide bomber that would be up to you, I cannot take away your free agency. However, to manipulate others (especially those who have special needs) to do your dirty work, well, simply put it is JUST NOT RIGHT AT ALL. The article also stated the bombs were controlled by remote, so that points to the fact that most likely the women with Down syndrome did not know or understand what they were doing or why they were doing it and most definitely did not have control to change their mind once the bombs were attached to their body.
I thought this quote really sums it all up, "’There is nothing they won't do if they think it will work in creating carnage and the political fallout that comes from that, he told The Associated Press in an interview at the State Department.” I remember a quote that is something along the line that you can tell the integrity of a people by the way they treat their weak (or women or children or people with special needs something like that). This does not seem to be the first time people with special need have fallen prey to being manipulated, "Even the use of the handicapped in suicide bombings is not unprecedented in Iraq. In January 2005, Iraq's interior minister said insurgents used a disabled child in a suicide attack on Election Day. Police at the scene of the bombing said the child appeared to have Down syndrome."
This is such a sad day and all this will be in my heart and mind for quite some time to come.

Gail Marie Huff
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ghuff/

http://www.ndss.org/