Stone killers at war - with us

Richard Fernandez writes about the Islamists who killed scores of innocent civilians at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya this week. He quotes from a story in the National Post:

Only when the troops forced their way through did they realize that dead bodies, as many as 20, had been piled against the entryway to slow the soldiers’ access.

Stumbling inside, they immediately came under sniper fire from high up on the second floor balcony above them. Two died. The rest were forced to pull back.

This was the moment, relayed to The Daily Telegraph by security staff and community workers helping the troops, that the professionalism and ferocity of those holding the shopping mall hostages began to become clear.

Fernandez writes,

Lovely touch that. Killing civilians and using them as doorstops. That little vignette describes the earnestness of war, the dead seriousness of it; the kind of all-encompassing condition that it is. To the Shabaabs, people — someone’s wife, child or husband — were just so many sandbags to be used in a tactical situation. Their attitude exemplifies the total commitment, the mental difference between a man at peace and stone killers at war — with us.

Yes with us and make no mistake about it.

Don’t make this mistake if you’re faced with the enemy. In a situation like the Nairobi Mall, when face to face with the Shabaabs, there’s no room for the slightest pity or hesitation. Not if you want to live.