SHAMEFUL

The U.N. special representative in Iraq died Tuesday in a bomb explosion that ripped through the organization's headquarters in Baghdad, U.N. officials in New York announced.

Sergio Vieira de Mello was among the 17 killed and 100 injured when a truck bomb exploded immediately beneath the window of his office in the Canal Hotel. He was trapped in the rubble.

The bombing continues a recent pattern of attacks on non-military targets in Iraq. Over the weekend, oil, water and electricity lines were attacked by what coalition spokesman called saboteurs. And earlier this month, a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, leaving 10 people dead.

I don't know who is behind this. But I think it is fair to say that we have moved well beyond the Saddam loyalists that Secretary Rumsfeld refers to as the "dead-enders".

It seems apparent that we now have trained, organized, funded cells operating in Baghdad and other places in Iraq.

What interests me from a strategy standpoint is why attack the UN outpost? Seems to me that up until this point, in Iraq anyway, circumstances had done a fair job of isolating the USA and Britain in the minds of most of the world. The old "divide and conquer" strategy was theirs for the exploiting.

But no more.

Of course, similiar strategic flaws were made with the attacks in Bali and Jakarta. That is, unless we drop the assumption that the USA is the target, and consider for once that all non-muslim infidels are their targets...if only because they are too weak to effectively strike the US meaningfully.

Whatever the driver, perhaps - just perhaps much of the rest of the world will pull the blinders off their eyes to recognize that these miscreants will target us all.

Of course, the liberal so-called elite will attempt to blame America. But the facts don't support it.

Look at the faces of the 9/11 terrorists. Arab.

Osama bin Laden. Arab.

Saddam Hussein. Arab.

And you can take it to the bank that the bombers of the Jordanian Embassy, the Iraqi pipeline, the Baghdad water main and the UN outpost in Baghdad, as well as the bus in Jerusalem today...Arab.

The facts lead to their own conclusions.