Interview with Al Qaeda No. 3Rare interview released today by Pakistani Geo News with AL-Qaeda No. 3, the Egyptian Mustafa Abul Yazid and al-Zawahiri's prison-mate.
The US has been unable to make any strategic headway. Last month they lost 47 members of their army, which they haven't bothered to quote.
The two theories behind Hariri's visit to BaghdadTwo theories behind Hariri's visit to Baghdad:
1- The Americans sent him to mediate with Maliki, just like he played the same role a year ago with Musharraf of Pakistan.
2- To find more investment opportunities for his reconstruction company, just like he bought half of Amman - Jordan despite the Jordanian.
Izzat Al-Douri's audio speechI don't have much time [and my internet connection time is limited] to translate the important parts of Izzat Al-Douri's new released today [or yesterday].
Please ask Layla Anwar if she kindly can do so.
International justice became Israel and the west’s doormatMany Arab newspapers angrily reacted to the International Criminal Court decision of arresting Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir.
Most frustrated reaction came from UAE Alkhaleej editorial "Where is the international justice":
International justice became a doormat used by the world power and their ally Israel as a heavy stick against the countries opposing the west policies.
Justice standards of our time are to be strong, beyond the law and international legitimacy and exercise the role of a pirate.
These charges confirm that real justice has become a thing of the past since U.S. dominated the international scene is dictating its decisions.
Al Missiri passed away, his works notProf. Dr. Abdul Wahab Al Missiri passed away today, his website with many of his works are still alive, his Arabic book "Jews, Judaism and Zionism Encyclopedia" also. expecting a very close end for Israel, perhaps in fifty years from now!
Last article on Aljazeera he expected "a very close end for Israel" denied to have a relationship with this expectation of pessimism or optimism, stressing that he read the data and facts in context and draw substantive what could be their consequences.
Al Meseiri described establishment of a Palestinian state as proposed by Israel and the Arab and foreign countries that is “useless” and he said “the alternative is to have a multi-religions and identities,” as happened in South Africa.
U.S. – Gulf-States military maneuvers soonAccording to AL-Qabas newspaper, the U.S. Navy will join the Kuwaitis and Arab Gulf-States, in military maneuvers and exercises in the Gulf.
True or Saudi propaganda?Unknown if it is Saudi propaganda or not, according to Saudi news site Elaph, Syria abandoned Hezbollah accused the the Lebanese Shiite party of starting the clashes in Bikha valley. The news site said that this for the preparation of Assad visit to France.
Scroll down and see the image below, Sunni fighters with photo of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on the wall.
The unknown in Khaliq gatheringInteresting, Iraqi journalist recorded what he saw in the Iranian mujahedeen Khaliq gathering in Paris.
He said that he saw Iraqis in traditional Arab cloths participated in the gathering, sitting in front lines, treated like VIP’s, and greeted by Maryam Rajavi herself who described them as heroes in her speech.
The journalist asks: What changed? Is this the same organization few weeks ago, the west consider it as a terrorists organization?
He is right, Kaliq is Israel’s last hope to attack Iran.
Ahmadinejad threatened to reveal the kidnapping planAL Qabas reported that Ahmadinejad threatened the Iraqi government yesterday that he will reveal the details of his the failed attempt to kidnap him in Iraq if the Iraqis keep denying such attempt.
Poverty level in Jordan on the riseKing Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that everything is good and fine in Jordan, but Muslim Brothers in Jordan asked the government to announce Jordan as a state of disaster because of the rising level of poverty in the southern provinces.
20 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jon
FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on July 15
15 Jul 2006 16:01:43 GMT
The following are security developments in Iraq on Saturday as of 1600 GMT.
Asterisk denotes a new or updated entry.
*MAHMUDIYA - Three civilians, a man, a woman and a child, were killed in Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad, when a mortar landed on their house in a residential district, police said.
KIRKUK - A policeman and nine civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in the northern oil capital of Kirkuk as police were investigating a suspect parked vehicle, police said.
BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in a mixed area of northern Baghdad, police said. It was not clear if there were casualties.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen wearing police-style camouflage abducted the head of Iraq’s national Olympic committee Ahmed al-Hadjiya (WTF??), and about 30 other people including bodyguards and committee staff as they met in Baghdad on Saturday, police sources said. A number of other people were released soon afterward. The body of one of Hadjiya’s bodyguards was found dumped in a street.
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb exploded near a police commando checkpoint in eastern Baghdad killing two police commandos and wounding four, police said.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi troops killed 23 terrorists and detained 147 suspects over the past 24 hours, the army said in a statement.
KIRKUK - One person was killed and two wounded when a bomb placed inside a computer exploded inside an Internet cafe in central Kirkuk, police said.
NEAR BAQUBA - Gunmen killed three brothers, two of them Iraqi soldiers, 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Baquba, police said.
BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and seven wounded when clashes erupted overnight between gunmen and residents in the predominantly Sunni al-Fadhil area in central Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said.
BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and six arrested when Iraqi troops raided Baghdad’s northern Sunni district of Adhamiya, a Defence Ministry spokesman said. Residents reported hearing explosions and machinegun fire overnight.
Jul 16th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
link is here
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Caught by Israeli fire when they escaped their southern village of Tel Afra.
Pics from AP.
Jul 16th, 2006
Charles
LB,
How would bombing Christians and Sunnis, in addition to Hezbollah, provoke a civil war?
Putting the Christians and Sunnis in the same boat with the Hezbollah supporters will simply solidify unified opposition. All Lebanese are unhappy that their country is being attacked - but it is a matter of degrees. The longer it continues, and if the Israelis attack ALL Lebanese, it will only unite them ALL against Israel.
On its face, as usual, your logic is ludicrous.
One thing Israel is certainly trying to do is make it clear that Lebanon will suffer if it allows Hezbollah to continue operating as a state within a state inside of ’sovereign’ Lebanon.
This is a tight rope act. Israel does not want civil war, but they certainly do want Hezbollah disarmed. The UN has already mandated this. Perhaps a ceasefire would include a UN deployment to southern Lebanon? The Lebanese would approve even if Hezbollah don’t like it. The PM has already stated as such.
If Lebanon agrees, and Israel agrees, then the UN would not be in a position to sneak away from this one just because a rabid armed militia doesn’t like it. That is what the UN is for - right?
Having the UN take a boots on the ground stake in seeing Lebanese deocracy succeed would spell the end for Hezbollah.
Jul 16th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Charles, no LB is right.
The christians and sunnis have already been vehement opponents to Hezbollah.
In recent weeks constant bickering caused a walkout by the Hezbollah MPs.
Furthermore, I don’t know if you get to watch LBC TV but if you did you would realize there is much hatred lurking in Lebanon.
Bombing these areas will see anger vented at Israel but more so at Hezbo. Come on, man, Charles, keep an eye out on the sectarian media in Lebanon and you will get a glimpse of what is going on.
But you can’t read or speak Arabic. So, I adivise you, rather than poke at LB for what she is saying and many Arabs agree with - particularly Lebanese - try and understand from her a little more.
Maybe you missed the explosion of Hezbo supporters rampaging through the streets of Beirut when a comedy show parodied Nasro.
It really, really put the fear of Hezbo even more in the non-Shia population.
Hezbo is Shia run and funded by Iran and allowed to grow in strength while Syria dominated Lebanon.
The Christian hatred for Hezbo almost matches that of their hatred for Syria.
The only way the Lebanese can demobilize and disarm Hezbo is if they move militarily against them. And if that happens, Iran will see to it that Lebanon sinks into a civil war.
It’s been known for some time, Charles.
And let’s note even begin talking about UN resolutions. As the Arab saying goes, don’t open the door, you might not like what comes in.
Jul 16th, 2006
Jon
TAI - “Caught by Israeli fire”
I thought you’d find these pictures equally interesting.
link is here
Jul 16th, 2006
LadyBird
Don’t forget to remind him that Lebanon was given to Syria by the US as a reward for joining the war on Iraq 1991.
Jul 16th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Jon, yeah seen most of em. There’s more, much, much more. How much can you stomach? How much can any normal human being stomach?
Jul 16th, 2006
Charles
TAI,
The fact that Lebanon has factions that want to kill eachother has nothing to do with Israel.
I understand perfectly well that there is a tenuous ‘peace’ between the factions. Of course the Christians and Sunnis are not going to be happy with a minority armed faction starting a war that makes them all suffer without governmental approval. This is obvious and it is not Israel’s fault. I understand that after decades of civil war, internecine strife is probably the last thing on Lebanon’s wish list.
But I think the whole world sees quite clearly where the problem lies. Hezbollah not only attacks and intimidates its internal opponents, but also starts wars with neighbors.
The problem is Hezbollah, and their foreign sponsors.
Claiming that Israel ‘wants’ a civil war that the Christians/Sunnis are likely to lose is stupid. What they want is to have Lebanon exercise its sovereign authority and disarm a rogue militia that is attacking it from Lebanese territory. This is absolutely reasonable.
Lebanon may not have the internal strength to accomplish this. This is the job of the UN if it has any balls. The Lebanese need help. If the sovereign parties to the conflict both agree, how could the UN wiggle away?
I think this would be a good outcome and is probably the only path to lasting peace for the Lebanese. The issue must be resolved and the international community has the strength - although beyond its high flying rhetoric, it probably lacks the will.
Let’s see if they can write a strong worded letter to someone that will solve all problems.
Jul 16th, 2006
Jon
TAI - “How much can any normal human being stomach?”
I think people love war as long as they aren’t in it. They love the drama and they love the stories of heroism and so on. People are sad little creatures.
Jul 16th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Hear, hear, Jon.
Jul 16th, 2006
Charles
Also interesting to note that people who pretend to hate war, are never interested in understanding the conditions and circumstances which give rise to war, and seem far too willing to prolong wars for as long as possible. History has provided abundant lessons that you choose to ignore.
You can’t ‘deny’ war. You can’t just wish it away.
As long as arabs insist on destroying Israel, there will be war. People will die and things will get blown up on all sides. As long as totalitarian ideologies are allowed to forcefully subordinate people and countries to their will, there will be war. As long as people (like you) oppose the uprooting and elimination of these forces that cause these conflicts (however unpleasant that task may be), there will be war.
Wasn’t it Sherman who said that ‘War IS cruelty.’
Its much better to get it over with than to drag it out and extend the cruelties.
I think it is you all who like war.
Jul 16th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Charles, you don’t even live in the Middle East. Keep playing the goat.
We know war. You know your filtered televised ABCBSFOXNEWSCNN war. Has one US station even shown the civilian deaths in Lebanon? Have they even commented that of the 123 reported dead ONLY 3 were non-civilians?
Had you lived our lives and suffered as we do you would not routinely stick your racist diatribes (foot) in your mouth.
Sitting in the comforts of your air-conditioned home driving your SUV and playing your XBOX while tens of thousands of Arabs are in refugee camps, entire families are killed in Israeli bombings.
And yes, we mourn the deaths of Israeli civilians. But we wish they mourned our deaths as well. They do not. Because racism is at work here. Forever racism. A word you cannot escape which will forever haunt you because it IS you.
But you are neither in Israel, nor in Lebanon, nor in Iraq.
Keep it up. You sound more and more ignorant with every passing day.
It is as long as taxpayers like you who get 1/10th of the news, filtered down so as to not affect your sensitivities while you watch Britney give an interview, as long as your ignorance and arrogance affect globaly policy that the world will continue to suffer.
You do your country a great injustice. Why not go out and teach your children where the Middle East is on the map. Hmmm?
Again, hear, hear Jon, your words are gospel.
Jul 16th, 2006
Charles
Thank god for that!
No you don’t. You know killing and blowing things up and revenge and humiliation and blablabla.
Your death and destruction never seems to accomplish much and serves no purpose other than making sure that generations of people continue to suffer and hate.
“Has one US station even shown the civilian deaths in Lebanon?”
They show the destruction. They report the deaths on both sides. They do not show gory dismembered bodies if that is what you mean. They do show wounded people, the chaos, and sometimes bodies - but there is no craving for stills and videos of entrails, etc. We know quite well what happens when bombs fall and buildings crush people. Thanks for asking.
Do you think the dead arab babies are any more dead then the dead Israeli babies? Do they deserve extra special attention by propagating their tragic deaths in high definition a thousand times all over the world? Believe me, I can well imagine the blood and entrails and burned bodies from a terror attack on a night club, or a bomb blast in Tyre.
Ah yes - all of the problems in the middle east are because everyone else in the world is racist. Forever the victim. No post of your’s would be complete without such accusations.
I don’t have an xbox.
It seems you are the one who can’t escape it. The day the ME breaks free from its nonsensical myth of victimhood will be the first day of hope for the entire region. You folks over there have some real issues with totalitarian ideologies and dictators and some other cultural baggage that makes it impossible for you break out of what seems like a cycle of perpetual crap.
Stop blaming everyone else.
I can honestly say that I have never heard any of her songs from start to finish. I noticed her once briefly in an austin powers movie. NPR did have a guest once (some folk singer) who liked her a lot. Apparently she springs from the Swedish pop genre a la Abba. He did a gritty acoustic rendition of one of her songs (not so innocent?). I must admit I found it compelling - as far as pop music can be compelling. Apparently she does a rough cut of just her voice in the US, and they send the tapes to Sweden where they are remixed and music added. Its quite a business. She also had a baby and I saw her on Letterman. She looked quite fat. Some women really change after having kids. She seemed quite stupid and couldn’t read David’s top 10 list smoothly. But similar to Madonna, even if I can’t appreciate her music or ‘craft’ - I can respect her for doing a good job at making a living. Who cares? Do you spend your time worrying about her?
How do you know they don’t? And if you mourn them so much why do you keep attacking them and killing them? Is it because you simply enjoy the process of ‘mourning’ so much?
OK smartass. What should Israel have done differently? Remember to put yourself in their geographical/contextual/historical shoes. Tell me what response you would have ordered? When Hamas fires rockets from unilaterally vacated Gaza - what do you do? When they attack Israel, capture and kill soldiers and civilians? When Hezbollah, part of the Lebanese government who was supposed to have disarmed last year, attacks your soldiers and kidnaps them? No response at all? Appeal to world community for help? A friendly bombing or two to show you aren’t pleased?
Jul 17th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Charles,
Your entire comment from top to bottom is racist.
Where do I even start to pick out the bigotry.
Everything you have said is false. When we protest, you call us terrorists.
When confronted with the truth, you tell us we relish in death and destruction.
But we never invaded the US. We never laid siege to your cities. We never raped your women. We never destroyed your infrastructure in 13 years of sanctions and then charged YOU for it for our companies to come in and PRETEND to rebuilt when they were just stuffing their fat coffers.
It is your bombs that kill and maim, not ours. We want to raise our children, your policies have forced us to bury them.
We do not want to wage war. Look at the Middle East, Charles. Watch some of our TV channels. Read our press. Read our literature. Play some of our games. Embrace some of our traditions. Don’t read about them in some biased media outlet controlled by a conglomerate. Have the courage to live them.
Unlock your mind from the hatred you have been told you must have for us.
No, if there were mourning for our children, we would not hear that pictures - taken by AP - of Lebanese dead were staged.
Yep, that’s right. That is what most non-Arabs are saying about the pictures LB and Angry Arab have revealed to the world.
Had the US public seen these pictures they would not have rejoiced in the taking out of this and that. Because Americans do have a heart. They are a compassionate people. But they are not told the truth.
You lead sheltered lives away from the truth.
If you are grateful that you do not live in the Middle East, why do you comment on it? Why do you stick your business where it doesn’t belong?
Are you for democracy? Then live both sides of the stories. Understand both sides of the stories.
Look at the ignorant comments of some others here. Debbie who appears as if she just finished watching FOX and got all the news thats fit to print for her little brain.
Ethnocentric is what you all are. Xenophobia is all you see. Islamophobia determines that you paint us all in one brush. And racism is what gives you the false belief you can dictate to us.
It wont be you rebuilding Iraq, nor your children.
You will pack up and leave once you have had enough of destroying and pillaging.
“You’re all sectarian, can’t help yas no more,” you will say, blaming Iraqis for not fixing their nation which you broke in the first place.
How can soldiers be kidnapped? How? Can you tell me how?
Why is it when an Israeli soldier was captured it was termed kidnapping but when scores of Palestinain MPs were kidnapped it was called arrest?
That is the semantics of the occupier. The imperialistic imperative to change context and definitions at will.
Israel should not have attacked Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. The Lebanese killed themselves for 10 years to rebuild after the civil war and in the wake of Syria’s departure they felt for the first time a sense of optimism.
Should Israel have retaliated against Hezbollah? Yes. But instead they chose collective punishment. And you condone it. You condone that almost all those killed, except for a few pitiful Lebanese soldiers, were civilians. WOmen and children.
Do you even look athe photos? Or do you cower away from them lest your heart bend and your will succumb to the truth. What are you afraid of?
This was never about the two soldiers. Everyone knows this.
Are you purposefully self-delusional or are you truly brainwashed?
Why did you not mention Israeli actions against the Gazans since it left the territory? Hmmm?
Should I post here every action the Israelis have undertaken in the past year in gaza and elsewhere? Should I post the pictures of every single Palestinian woman and child killed in the past year? Or will you call those pictures staged?
Will you call them propaganda? Or will you say they deserved it for living there in the first place? Collateral damage, maybe?
Or will you repeat what the Israelis today said: that Hezbollah live among civilians and use them as human shields.
Do you read only what satisfies you? What conforms to what your television set has told you? Or do you really try and understand both sides of the story?
Look at everything you wrote, incredibly one sided.
As if you are mouthing off the precise communiques of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Really, you do yourself an injustice.
Britney is a metaphor for the things that distract you from the pains of the rest of the world, the daily distractions spewed into your senses so that you do not think for yourself.
It is obvious from your knee-jerk and robotic responses that you do not think for yourself.
I now why you come here Charles, because you cannot stand the wickedness you unleashed in Iraq and elsewhere and it is easier for you to fight it, to continue to fight it, to stick to your guns, to hammer away at something.
Tell a lie long enough and even the most skeptical will believe it.
Yallah, repeat after me “Saddam, Al Qaida, WMD”.
No, Charles, not everyone in the rest of the world is racist. Only you. Your ilk. Your friends. You who support war against women and children and justify it with blind policy.
You who cannot bring yourself to even immerse yourself in another culture because you fear it. You loathe it.
And I want to add, not all Americans are racist either. In fact, many, many Americans are among the warmest peoples in the world that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and breaking bread with.
But not you Charles. You know yourself. Call me what you will, but these countries are my homes, these people are my people. Not yours. I travel in these countries and know that I am welcome and safe.
You travel in these countries and look over your shoulder and live out some orientalist fantasy.
I speak your Language yet you ridicule the necessity to learn mine.
Continue writing, continue attacking, continue meddling. Continue disgracing yourself, continue showing the world your racist heart.
Jul 17th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Too soon to work on saving innocent lives? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Jul 17th, 2006
Charles
Not true. Or by protest do you mean lobbing bombs and rockets?
I have absolutely no hatred for any ‘peoples’ anywhere. I have lived abroad and travelled enough to realize that we are not all that different. I think the ME is a real human tragedy. Analysis and logic reveal that the primary contributors to the problem are radical islam and totalitarianism. There are probably a number of cultural elements that play into it as well: revenge, honor, humiliation, etc. These traits may have played an important role in pre-modern society, but now they are just a drag.
Given the right conditions (sans the factors mentioned above), I think people in the ME could develop normally and prosper. This is certainly not racism by any definition.
I speak English and Russian. That pair gets me around the world pretty well. I once had a dabbling of German but it is no longer current. I must admit I just haven’t the mental energy or time to add to the list. I understand quite well what it takes to become reasonably fluent in a foreign language - and the level of effort is huge. If it is tried in a non-immersion situation, it is unlikely to succeed.
Astronomy is one of my hobbies. Exploring the vastness of space and coming upon hundreds of objects with arab names gives me an appreciation for what arab culture could have been.
You can if you want. If we establish a chronology of events you will notice that Israel was simply retaliating against people/sites from which attacks were launched.
The truly sick thing about all of this duplicitous moral haggling is that if the Palestinian militants gave a rats ass about their women and children, they wouldn’t brainwash them into hatred for Israel and the glory of martyrdom, nor would they launch attacks from civilian areas, nor would they proudly display the grisly results of an Israeli retaliation as propaganda props.
Jul 17th, 2006
Charles
Israel should accept a cease fire if the UN will guarantee Hezbollah disarmament and that the UN will enforce demilitarization (militia) of the region. They should also be authorized to interdict illegal arms shipments.
Lebanon certainly has the right to deploy its own soldiers to control its own borders. POW’s from both sides should be exchanged. I’m not sure how many Hezbollah fighters Israel holds, but they are not soldiers of sovereign Lebanon. They elements of an illegal armed militia.
Arbitrarily pausing simply to let Hezbollah regroup and reassert itself in 1 month, 12 months, or 36 months is not acceptable.
If the UN is just making vague statements about their hopes and dreams and that all people should live together in peace and joy - well, Israel has heard that before.
If the UN will come in with overwhelming force and is ready to fight (if necessary) to impose its mandate, then Israel should definitely stop. Israel will have no choice.
The UN has known about Hezbollah for decades. The situation does not need to be studied by committees for months. If they aren’t ready to implement a plan now, then they don’t have one.
Jul 17th, 2006
Truth About Iraqis
Justifying the rape of a 14-year-old girl, Charles’ friends write the world and ask for forgiveness and understanding.
These raping, murdering, pillaging soldiers are just young boys pushed by stress, says the author of this article.
THIS is the black blood that runs through Charles’ veins.
link is here
Suki Falconberg
July 14, 2006
I can kind of understand why Marines in Iraq may have raped a 14-year-old girl and then killed her and her family. (I would like to stress the ‘may have.’ Nothing has been proven against these men yet. They have not been tried, or convicted. They are as innocent as you and I at this moment.)
It seems like a statement of the obvious, but the men are in a wartime situation. Full of the fear of being killed, the frustration of having to deal with this enemy they don’t know or understand—Iraqi culture is incredibly different from ours. They see their friends killed. They could get maimed, disfigured, have their legs blown off at any moment. They’re in the middle of this awful heat and loaded down with 50-100 lbs. of gear and angry as hell. Maybe rape and other atrocities are understandable responses? Maybe I would behave in a really savage way, too, if I were faced with what’s hitting these boys everyday?
In a USA Today article (June 2, 2006), Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, chief of staff in Baghdad, says: “It’s very difficult to determine in some cases on this battlefield who is combatant and who is civilian.? The soldiers, he goes on to say, are experiencing “stress, fear, islolation….They see their buddies getting blown up on occasion, and they could snap.?
The Christian Science Monitor’s “US Troops Weigh Impact of Stress? (July 7, 2006) by Mark Sappenfield reinforces these views. Sappenfield writes: “A number of current and former troops suggest that amid the daily calamity of war, everyone has their breaking point, and the seemingly endless nature of this war could, in some cases, cause frustration to boil over into criminal violence.
“They are quick not to prejudge fellow soldiers and marines implicated in the… murder investigations that have emerged recently.
“‘War can make you do terrible things,’says Lawrence Provost,” a man who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army Reserve.
“Moreover,? Sappenfield reports, “soldiers and marines resent what they see as the self-righteous condemnation of critics who sit thousands of miles from the fight and have little concept of what it means to fight an insurgency.? And he writes of “the stress of a combat environment where friend and foe blur into uncertainty.?
As a protected American woman sitting in my armchair, I am not likely to be called upon to go to war and to face the hardships and pressures of Iraq. About the closest I can come to urban warfare is watching Black Hawk Down. The movie was based on a true incident: on Oct. 3, 1993, young, untried Army Rangers, alongside more experienced Delta forces, engaged Somali militia in Mogadishu; due to poor intel, they didn’t know the whole city was going to come down on them. As a result, a number were killed and wounded. (What the military learned about urban warfare on that day has carried forward, to places like Iraq.) The movie tries to recreate the stress, heat, carnage, and uncertainty of urban combat and does so with a tense, harsh realism.
Although it is not about the rape-murder of civilians, it does hit us in the face with the moral uncertainties of urban warfare, and the confusion. The Somalis used women and children as shields. Somali women would also dart out, in the line of fire, to distract the American soldiers. Telling friend from foe would have been impossible in the circumstances. Avoiding killing women and children would have been impossible.
If I put myself in the place of these threatened young men in Mogadishu, how would I behave? If faced with someone shooting at me from behind a line of women and kids, I would, if necessary, kill the women and kids to protect myself. If I saw my buddies being torn up around me, I might want to exact some revenge. Even though I don’t have the male testosterone that would drive me to rape, I can imagine how men could use this act as an outlet for anger, wartime stress, frustration.
If the six soldiers implicated in the March rape-murder of the young Iraqi girl and her family are guilty, we should remember that they are ordinary men pushed to extremes. They are just like the men around us everyday—just like our boyfriends and brothers.
How can I condemn any soldiers for wartime rape-murder if I can’t answer for myself? What kind of savagery might I inflict on a woman or child if war pushed me far enough?
Jul 17th, 2006
Charles
In fact TAI, I hope that if guilty, the bastards who did it get the maximum punishment under law.
I hope that someday in Iraq there will be law the punishes Iraqis who are guilty of ten times worse a hundred times more often.
I never said otherwise.
Stress of having to fight illegal combatants who disguise themselves as civilians (in violation of Geneva) may be higher in this conflict than in others. Maybe that would cause more people to crack. But it obviously hasn’t caused very many.
One is too many. But the handful of examples of soldiers going to criminal extremes is exaggerated for propaganda purposes.
Again, any civilized person has the right to be angry at any human who commits atrocities. But US soldiers don’t even register on the scales compared to what the Iraqis and Jihadis have done to themselves.
If you had a drop of honesty you would admit that.
Jul 17th, 2006
Reply to “Update on Lebanon”