Bless the Beasts & Children

[ORAC]

For those unaware of why the Sunnis have turned against Al Qaeda - and think the Americans are the bad guys. :suspect::suspect:
Michael Yon - Bless the Beasts & Children (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm).

From his covering email: A warning to those with children: some of the photographs in this dispatch may be too graphic for young ones.

[Double Zero]

Everyone should read this - not for the faint-hearted but we have that luxury...

Extreme hat's off to Mr Yan & those with him - and it's time to remind the fluffies about 9/11, let alone this weekends' efforts in the UK.

Good luck to all that outfit. :D

[ORAC]

Of Murders and Madmen (http://michaelyon-online.com/wp/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm)

.......Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here seem convinced of it. At a meeting today in Baqubah one Iraqi official I spoke with framed the al Qaeda infiltration and influence in the province. Although he spoke freely before a group of Iraqi and American commanders, including Staff Major General Abdul Kareem al Robai who commands Iraqi forces in Diyala, and LTC Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the Iraqi official asked that I withhold his identity from publication. His opinion, shared by others present, is that al Qaeda came to Baqubah and united many of the otherwise independent criminal gangs.

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.............

[bwfg3]

I always thought of myself as a reasonably intelligent bloke but certain things really are beyond me. Yes ,I know that we in the western world consider ourselves advanced, and the threat from the islamists only raised itself in the western public mind since 2001. (or maybe min 1990's to some). But the thing that springs into my obviously poorly educated brain is:

Why do we, as a group , in the western world, allow "Islamists" to live within our societies with little or no monitoring, when "more repressive regimes" like those in Syria and Jordan ( and Iraq before 2003), always clamped down on extreme islamists having perceived them as a threat? Maybe our liberal society has encouraged extremism by refusing to condem it? :confused:

[PPRuNeUser0211]

BWF - because we believe in the rights of people to believe in what they want to believe in so long as they don't kill anyone/persuade others to kill folk because of it. However, it is very difficult to tell the difference between someone who is a perfectly sane, rational and is a good "allah fearing" muslim (as opposed "god fearing" christian) vice someone who believes that anyone who isnt the aforementioned should be reduced to small pieces via the medium of a large bomb.

However, the right of said allah fearing muslim to believe in what he wants to believe in is sufficiently important that we'll happily take the chance (and let's face it, it's a very very very slim chance!) that he's the latter type in order to allow him his rights. Fair play I say.

[MightyGem]

ORAC, many thanks for posting these links.

[ORAC]

Bread and a Circus, Part I of II (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bread-and-a-circus-part-i-of-ii.htm)

Bread and a Circus, Part II of II (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bread-and-a-circus-part-ii-of-ii.htm) :D:D:D

[geniculate]

The Ghosts of Anbar (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-ghosts-of-anbar-part-1-of-4.htm)

His latest dispatch contains some really interesting photos, well taken and very evocative.
Reminds us that nothing has changed...