A MILE OR TWO AWAY

CPT Patti says this UN hotel/headquarters is close enough that the bombings rattle her area, but not close enough that they are a real threat.

Baghdad, Iraq - A suicide bomber, his body wrapped in explosives and his car filled with 50 pounds of TNT, struck a police checkpoint outside the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, killing an Iraqi policeman who stopped him and wounding 19 people.

A U.S. military spokesman at the scene said the bomber, who also died, was trying to get into the UN compound at the Canal Hotel, where a truck bomb a month ago killed 23 people, including the top UN envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The attack, apparently timed to snarl attempts by Washington to win legitimacy for the U.S. occupation through greater UN participation, could diminish the world body's willingness to become more deeply involved in Iraq's reconstruction.

"This new attack is just going to make the UN more worried about its future role in Iraq," said one UN official in Baghdad, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Clearly, it's not safe enough for us to resume anything close to normal operations."

Indulge me for a minute...but hasn't this anonymous UN official sort of missed the point?

So long as terrorism exists as a tool of the twisted, none of us...not one of us is ever "safe". A terrorist inclined to wrap himself in explosives and detonate it in the vicinity of those he chooses terror - by definition a state in which we can never assume our own safety.

Isn't that why we are fighting this war on terrorism? ...to rid the civilized world of this scourge?

So, Mr. Anonymous UN man...what is your point? Do you propose running and hiding until the USA and Great Britain again make the world safe for "normal operations".

It's what it looks like from here.