Kidnappings: a tool of choice in the Middle East

"Iraqi Insurgents Report Grabbing 6 More Hostages: Beheadings Threatened; Kidnappings Come After Philippines Yielded to an Earlier Seizure," by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 22 July, p. A1.

"For Many Iraqis, A New Daily Fear: Wave of Kidnapping; As Wealthy Pay for Guards, Gangs Target Middle Class; 'It's Only About Money,'" by Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, 22 July, p. A1.

"Head of Gaza Police Kidnapped By Gunmen and Paraded in Streets: Chief Accused of Corruption as Palestinian Fissure Grows," by John Ward Anderson, Washington Post, 17 July, p. A12.

No surprise what happens after Philippines so readily gives in to terrorists' demands regarding their one Filipino driver held hostage: six new truck drivers are immediately kidnapped. President Arroyo of the Philippines said she did what she did because every life is sacred. What she meant to say was, "My political career is sacred, to hell with the lives of anybody else who's not Filipino and dies as a result of my act."

The six drivers include 3 Indians, 2 Kenyans and an Egyptian. None of these three countries have troops in Iraq, so the terrorists are demanding that the companies that employ these six all leave Iraq:

"We have warned all the countries, companies, businessmen and truck drivers that those who deal with American cowboy occupiers will be targeted by the fires of the mujahedeen," read a statement given to The Associated Press. "Here you are once again transporting good, weapons and military equipment that backs the United States Army."

Our military and the Pentagon can dress this thing up as much as they want using the buzz phrase "asymmetrical warfare," but the real point of the matter is that we have failed to date in making the peacekeeping or nation-building phase work. The military calls that period following conflict "phase IV," but after the occupations of the past decade it's more like "Phase 0-for . . . " as our batting average in the back half of our recent military interventions is basically .000.

Right now too many lunatics are running the asylum called Iraq, so many in fact that it's not just Westerners who are becoming regular victims of kidnappings, but ordinary Iraqis themselves. After the looting subsided last summer because there was nothing left to steal, criminal gangs inside Iraq simply turned to an age-old form of making money in the region: kidnapping rich people for ransom. After the rich caught on and starting defending themselves, the gangs started targeting the middle class. Pretty soon the whole place starts resembling Colombia it's so bad.

When kidnapping and ransom become a national growth industry, you're probably looking at a completely lawless Gap country or a Seam State where disparities of wealth are great as development kicks in unevenly.

Then again, sometimes you get a real man-bites-dog story like when pissed-off gunmen in the Gaza strip kidnapped the head of the Palestinian Authority's police force as a protest of his alleged embezzlement of $22 million from the PA. He was paraded in the streets strictly for show and then let go:

"We gave three years to the Palestinian Authority to carry out reforms. We waited a long time. But they didn't do anything. We are doing this in our way," Abu Iyad, who was identified as a spokesman for the Jenin Martyrs Brigades, said on al-Jazeera satellite television. "Ghazi Jabali [the police chief] was kidnapped to hold him accountable for his mistakes against our people."

It's enough to almost make you happy we have Senate investigations instead, but that's life in too much of the Gap.