Procrastinet

Amman, Jordan - 11/10/05: Blinded by Rainbows

filed under: Despatches

A continuing series of periodic Procrastinet Despatches from Amman, Jordan. By Nicholas Seeley.

So, here’s the morning after picture of what’s going on here. I got up this morning in Tla’a al Ali, on the edge of town, and drove back home to the first circle for an interview with a former political prisoner. (The first circle is marked on all the maps in the big papers). There didn’t seem to be a lot of checkpoints up, but the streets were deserted.

The interview goes well; halfway through we get text messages on our phones saying that al Qaida Iraq has claimed responsibility. We’re not particularly surprised. Anyway, it doesn’t mean much – those fuckers would probably take responsibility for the Tsunami, the earthquake and the next solar eclipse, if they thought anyone would believe them.

I’ve written before about the legendary infallibility of the Jordanian mukhabarat -- a common refrain in conversations here is something like: “of course we don’t have terrorism here, because if you even think about planting a bomb, five minutes later, there’s gonna be a knock on your door.” Several references in the media have been made to this, including in the New York Times, and in a slightly hysterical article by Rana Sabbagh (one of Jordan’s best journalists).

The mukhabarat have foiled a number of terror attacks in the past year – both the ones made public, like the attempted chemical bombing in April, 2004, and others. Sources at some foreign diplomatic services say they’ve been warned at least twice in the past year by Jordanian government officials when mukhabarat agents have found and defused bombs in Amman. So, (and this is probably the only time I’ll ever say this) cheers to the secret police!

But then again, nobody’s perfect. And when you’re dealing with a loose-knit group of psychotic opportunists, it’s really just a numbers game. Sooner or later, someone’s going to take their shot and hit.

The real interesting question here is the motivation – assuming there is any motivation beyond simply “taking a shot.” Destabilizing US-allied Arab governments is one of al Qaida’s stated objectives; but it’s not clear if this kind of random-ish attack is really a step in that direction – nor is it clear what A.Q. thinks they could do, even if they DID topple a regime somewhere without the help of the US State Department. And, there remains the question of how fast they are burning their credit on the Arab Street. Blowing up weddings isn’t a great way to make friends. We’ll see.

After the interview, I drive back across town to the office. By 10:30, there are police at nearly every intersection and soldiers around every hotel. At the 4th circle, I see a white guy in green camo standing by a hummer, and for minute, I’m terrified that the Americans are here – but its just Jordanian special forces, who (according to gossip in the newsroom) wear uniforms similar to those the US uses.

I get to work, and start strategizing how the magazine is going to handle this – a tough question, of sorts, since we are licensed as a “social” magazine, meaning we’re technically not allowed to cover politics. But an event like this has social repercussions as well. Jordan is an interesting place in that it is not OBVIOUSLY a police state – you don’t get searched and questioned all the time, the military presence is typically subtle – but that may be about to change.

The Jordanian press covered the event with their usual tact and aplomb – photos of bloody bodies on the front pages of all the dailies. I come into the office to find my editor looking at a picture of a head that’s smashed open on the sidewalk in a puddle of brains. And I was eating, too. Insult to injury, the Jordan Times (English language, government mouthpiece) runs a front page full of articles about terrorism in their own city on which the three lead stories all draw from other news services, and only one uses a JT author at all. Yay!

In a surprise move, politicians at home and around the world condemned terrorism, saying “it’s bad.” Translation: no one has anything better (like actual information) to put on the front page. On the other hand, W. came out with a lot of offers of help to his important ally in the war on terror, so depending on how the next days go, this could actually defuse (or at least, postpone) the drifting apart of the US and Jordan that I mentioned last night.

Newswise, the only thing we got here that’s not in the internationals is an unconfirmed report from al Ghad TV that a truck bomb was detonated last night in a remote area outside Amman, presumably as a diversion to draw security services out of the city in order to clear the way for the big bombs. If true, that’s interesting because it speaks of a certain amount of strategy – and it’s a point against my “pure opportunism” theory, stated above.

Aside from that, the day has been pretty information-free. If we get anything else here, I will keep you posted, but at the moment, I’m inclined to just write this in with Bali and Sharm al Sheikh on the long and growing list of semi-random attacks by assholes whose political ideology is so thin on the ground that they’ll blow up anything they can get to.

Another day in paradise…

- Nicholas Seeley, 11/10/05

Posted by rjt at November 10, 2005 11:09 AM